Pamela Browning Breakfast with Santa

Breakfast with Santa

Pamela Browning

Harlequin American, Nov 2005, $4.99

ISBN: 0373750951

Former marine Tom Colyer agrees to come as Santa to the annual pancake breakfast. Dressed as one of his helper elves, is beautiful divorcee Beth McCormick, the mother of the spoiled demanding five year old Mitchell. The kid orders Santa to bring him a live-in daddy by Christmas Eve. Interior decorator Beth refuses to apologize about how she raises her son, as she has no money to buy him any of the "luxuries" that other children receive.

Tom begins dating Beth in spite of her son, whom he sees as an enemy combatant.. As they fall in love, he wonders if there is room for him in her life, as her child and her business take up much of her time; she learns he hid a secret from her that makes her question whether he can be trusted. It will take all of Santa's skills to meet Mitchell's demand of a live-in father, as the prime target and his mother may be in love, but lack faith in the other.

BREAKFAST WITH SANTA is a fine contemporary relationship drama with the defining element being not how the lead couple feel and behave towards each other, but how each adult relates to her "bratty" son. Thus the romance takes a back seat to the interactivity between the threesome as Mitchell is clearly spoiled, though all he really wants is a loving father for him and a spouse for his mom. Beth feels she must compensate for her inability to give her child material things. That mother son duo wreck havoc on the newcomer, trying to convert them into a threesome.

Harriet Klausner