A Cinderella Christmas Carol by Hope Tarr

 

A Cinderella
Christmas Carol

by Hope Tarr

 

There’s nothing On Top managing editor Cynthia “Starr” Starling hates more than Christmas. With an important deadline looming, plus her dreaded Christmas Day birthday, Starr just wants the holiday to end. But when she wakes up Christmas Eve night to the ghost of Christmas Past, Present, and Future--all in the form of the super-hot Matt Landry, the new art director--she knows she’s in for a long night.

Matt is the one person on Starr’s team she can’t boss around and the only one she doesn’t need to. He’s also her employee and totally off limits, even if he does seem interested. Though he’s seven years younger and all kinds of forbidden fruit, he’s the form the Powers That Be decided she'd be receptive to.

Because they have a message for her: learn the true meaning of Christmas spirit or risk being alone for the rest of her life.

REVIEW

I liked the second installment in the Suddenly Cinderella series, even though I’m not a big fan of A Christmas Carol itself.

This second book/novella is focused on Starr finding love. In the first book, Operation Cinderella, Starr came off being a true witch. I’m not sure if I liked her or not. With A Cinderella Christmas Carol, you actually get to understand Starr a little better. It turns out she’s not that bad a person; she’s just a little lost.

Starr is an almost thirty-five year-old single woman living in New York. Due to the way she grew up, she’s all about working hard, having money and possessions to show status. Since she works hard, she expects everyone else to work just as hard, if not harder. She has yet to realize that in order to get people to work for you and respect you, you can't rip them apart and embarrass them. It turns out Starr has no friends outside of work. Well, let me rephrase that....The only person close enough to Starr to be considered a friend either from or outside of work was Macie Graham, who left On Top after a job assignment didn’t go the way they planned. Starr feels betrayed because of everything she feels she’s done for Macie. She doesn’t think Macie should have left, but in actuality, she probably would have fired Macie because of the assignment failure.
Starr and Macie haven’t spoken with each other since the day Macie quit. Macie has made several attempts at reaching out and contacting Starr, but Starr refuses to talk to her. Being the person that she is, Macie still remembers to send Starr a present for her birthday, a pair of crimson-covered velvet vintage Saks Fifth Avenue heels.

My one complaint about the book is that I know ABSOLUTELY nothing about Matt Landry. You get a sense of his character and him as a person via the fact that his form is the ghost who takes Starr on her Christmas Eve journey. I just wanted a litte more.

As with A Christmas Carol, Starr gets to revisit a Christmas past, her present Christmas, and a future Christmas or two. She gets to remember what she once loved and what once made Christmas special to her. She also gets to see Christmas and what her life could be like if she changes or doesn’t change.

This was a well rounded, complete story. It just had me wanting more than what I got. I’m disappointed that the God-Parents didn’t make an appearance, but they could have been “The Powers That Be”.

One of my favorite quotes from the book is: “Not everything is measured by how much it does or doesn’t cost. It’s the love we put into things--into each other--that matters the most. That’s what Christmas is all about.”

Overall, it’s a good story and fits in very well with the first book in the series.

Rating: 4

Release Date: Available Now
Source: Personal Purchase
Purchase through: Amazon
Author’s Website: Hope Tarr