REVIEW: His Christmas Present by Serenity Woods

Title: His Christmas Present

Author: Serenity Woods
Rating: 3.5 stars
Source: Amazon

Continuing my holiday themed reading, I checked out His Christmas Present book by Serenity Woods. This is the first book I've read by this author, and although enjoyed the basic story, there were some definite problems.

I've seen posts on both Facebook and Goodreads where individuals have asked the question 'why don't more people read self published authors?' First, let me preface this by saying that I download books to my kindle I think I will enjoy based on the book summary. I don't typically look to see if the book is self published, with a small house, or one of the big guys. What I'm looking for is a good story.

With that said, Ms. Woods did put forth a decent story. The premise was sound, and I genuinely liked both Dion and Megan.

So why did I give it only 3.5 stars? Simply put...editing.

The story begins in the present with Dion returning to his childhood home. All is going good until we suddenly jump back in time to last year. This isn't a brief flashback. It's a detailed retelling of the past Christmas that lasts for several chapters. Then, just as suddenly, we are back to the present. Again, we are going along nicely, and then bam! We're back in the past. If you couldn't tell, I wasn't a fan of the jumping around. 

There were also some other editing issues such as missing commas, etc. Those I could have dealt with. Honestly, it was the jumping around that really brought it down for me. It pulled me out of the flow of the story, and that's never good. If not for the jumping around from past to present, I would have given this book 4 stars.

Will I read more from this author? I don't know. Maybe. I'd have to really like the premise. 

Amazon

Author Bio

I live in New Zealand, Aotearoa, in the sub tropical paradise called the Bay of Islands. Also known as the 'winterless north', the Northland is renowned for its kiwifruit, mandarins, and lemons, for its wonderful coffee, and for its friendly people and amazing scenery. It's the setting for several of my romance stories, including White-Hot Christmas and Seven Sexy Sins.

I've won prizes in many writing competitions over the years, including the Harlequin Blaze Aviator Challenge with the story that went on to be sold to Escape Publishing (Summer Fling), 1st prize in the RWNZ First Impressions Contest No. 1 with the story that went on to be sold to Samhain Publishing (An Uncommon Sense), and 2nd and 3rd prizes in the RWNZ Great Beginnings Contest in 2011 with Seven Sexy Sins (Samhain Publishing) and the story published by Escape Publishing as One Hot Winter's Night.

I'm lucky enough to have married the man I fell in love with at a young age, and he is the inspiration for all my wonderful heroes (especially the Silver Fox, found in One Hot Winter's Night!) and we have a smart, gorgeous teenage son who's a drummer, singer and songwriter. Life in the Northland of New Zealand is pretty good!

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