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MY REVIEW:<\/strong><\/p>\n What fun it is to count down the weeks until Christmas with a novella a week by some of my very favorite authors plus the chance to discover some new-to-me authors. The second Christmas bride is “The Nutcracker Bride” by Margaret Brownley.<\/p>\n Lucy Langdon is a young woman doing her best to care for her grandfather while trying to support them by continuing her grandmother’s baking business. Her grandfather’s memory is lapsing and he is prone to wander off looking for her deceased grandmother. When a handsome stranger throws a bag into the back of her wagon while pursued by bandits, Lucy is flabbergasted to learn what it in the bag. When the stranger returns for his property, Lucy accidentally shoots him and feels obligated to care for his injury.<\/p>\n “The Nutcracker Bride” is a fun and romantic story with a bit of action and humor added for good measure. Brownley’s characters were well developed and realistic for such a short novella.\u00a0 I loved reading about the history and German customs regarding nutcrackers. My only complaint is that the story ended much too soon. I would have loved to spend more time with Lucy and her Texas Ranger Chad.<\/p>\n This book was provided for review by Shiloh Run Studios.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n ABOUT THE BOOK:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI never outline so I have no idea where a story is going or how it will end until the words appear on my screen.\u00a0 No one is more surprised by an ending than I am and the same holds true for\u00a0The Nutcracker Bride<\/em>.\u00a0 All twelve bride stories involve a special gift and I was especially surprised at what the hero gave my heroine.\u201d<\/p>\n Margaret is partial to\u00a0Texas Rangers, so you can guess what her hero did for a living, but her heroine was a little different.<\/p>\n \u201cMy heroine is caring for both an elderly grandfather and the stranger she shot. She\u2019s clearly overwhelmed and maybe even a bit resentful. The Bible says a cheerful heart is good medicine but it\u2019s a struggle for her.\u201d<\/p>\n The story\u2019s theme came out of that struggle.<\/p>\n The nutcracker title came from a ballet written by\u00a0Peter Tchaikovsky\u00a0for the Christmas season. Margaret has a small but impressive collections of nutcrackers she display every Christmas. \u00a0\u201cNutcrackers have a fascinating history, some of which I wrote about in my story.\u201d<\/p>\n Margaret Brownley\u2019s stories generally take place in the nineteenth century, and she\u2019s always been fascinated by the similarities between that time period and ours today.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring the 1800s banks failed and unemployment was high.\u00a0 Immigration, health care and education problems also added to the nation\u2019s woes.\u00a0 If you think politics are bad now, take a look at what was going on back then.\u00a0 Today we\u2019re losing jobs to robots; in the nineteenth century jobs were lost to the machine age.\u201d<\/p>\n Even social media changes were afoot:<\/p>\n \u201cVictorians had their tech challenges too with the advent of the telephone, electricity and automobiles.\u00a0 They even had an early form of social media called the telegram.\u00a0 With all these challenges it\u2019s encouraging to know that our forefathers not only survived but thrived.\u00a0 That gives me hope for the future. I hope it does the same to readers.\u201d<\/p>\n The Brownley family enjoys Christmas,\u201dwe always make a big fuss and celebrate the\u00a0birth of Jesus\u00a0with loving hearts, giving spirits and as many lights as will fit in and outside the house.\u201d<\/p>\n The Nutcracker Bride<\/em>, however, which required a far more modest celebration: \u201cI wanted my heroine to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas in her own unique and meaningful way.\u201d<\/p>\n Who is Margaret Brownley?<\/strong><\/p>\n Margaret was a co-author (with Vickie McDonough and Michelle Ule) in last year\u2019s best-selling\u00a0A Pioneer Christmas Collection<\/em>, along with Michelle Ule in the\u00a0New York Times\u2019<\/em>\u00a0best-selling\u00a0<\/em>A Log Cabin Christmas Collection<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cNot bad for someone who flunked 8th\u00a0grade English.\u00a0 Just don\u2019t ask me to diagram a sentence,\u201d she laughed.<\/p>\n Stay in touch with Margaret:\u00a0<\/strong> \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MY REVIEW: What fun it is to count down the weeks until Christmas with a novella a week by some of my very favorite authors plus the chance to discover some new-to-me authors. The second Christmas bride is “The Nutcracker Bride” by Margaret Brownley. Lucy Langdon is a young woman doing her best to care […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,57,41,106,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-christmas","category-romance","category-texas","category-western"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17785"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17785"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17892,"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17785\/revisions\/17892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/divider2.png\" "\\"divider2\\"")
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\nWhile gathering walnuts, someone throws a bag of money into Lucy Langdon\u2019s wagon. Now Chad Prescott, a Texas ranger, is determined to recover the bag, but not before he is shot as a prowler. Waking up in a house full of German nutcrackers is rather disconcerting for this lawman, but not as troublesome as feeling his heart fall for the lovely Lucy.<\/div>\n<\/div>\nPurchase a copy of The Nutcracker Bride HERE<\/a>.<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nMore About The Nutcracker Bride<\/em> with Margaret Brownley<\/strong>The Nutcracker Bride<\/em>\u00a0started with an idea:I kept envisioning a handsome stranger on a gorgeous black horse riding up to the\u00a0heroine\u00a0and shouting \u201cSave it for me.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 I had no idea what he wanted her to save but I was intrigued enough to keep digging.You\u2019ll have to read the book to find out. That\u2019s what Margaret had to do\u2013except in her case, she had to write it first.<\/p>\nMargaret Brownley\u00a0has penned more than thirty novels. Her books have won numerous awards and she\u2019s a former\u00a0Romance Writers of American<\/em>\u00a0RITA\u00ae\u00a0finalist. She\u2019s also written for a TV soap.\u00a0 She\u2019s currently working on a new series of mystery\/romance novels. The first in the series,\u00a0Petticoat Detective,<\/em>\u00a0will be published in December 2014.<\/p>\n
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