All I Want for Christmas
Ann Roth
Harlequin American, Nov 2007, $4.99
ISBN: 9780373751921

When her adoptive mother needs tender loving care to recover from surgery Tina Morell took time off from her Seattle job though that might cost her a promotion to provide for the beloved woman who raised her. They drive and take the ferry to spend the holidays together on Halo Island.

Widower Ryan Chase has left the rat race of the big city to raise his young daughter Maggie as a single father. Although attracted to her, Ryan tries to avoid Tina because he fears once she leaves to go back to Seattle, Maggie will be crushed since he believes she has never recovered fully from losing her mom. Still all Maggie wants for Christmas is a mommy named Tina.

This is an entertaining Christmas romance starring a likable lead couple and a precocious perhaps too perfect princess who knows exactly what she wants for the holidays. Readers will enjoy Ryan's attempts at denial and avoidance; Tina's assumption that this is short time as location crimps their relationship; and Maggie forcing the reluctant couple to come together although she needs a Pacific Northwest equivalent of a Miracle on 34th Street.

Harriet Klausner