Old Skool Christmas Anthologies: Santa Baby

---Here's Betsy, with Antholopalooza's first guest post---

Not only will I read anything that Jennifer Crusie writes, but I would, if it were possible, smear her writing on crackers and serve it to all of my friends with a nice wine.

Over 21 years of romance novel addiction, I've decided that anthologies are, as Nic points out, an excellent value for the money. They're also one of the ways that I find new writers ... although I think this would be more consistent if the authors were to choose their anthologizing partners, rather than having an editor decide "readers who like Jenny Crusie will like Lori Foster."

Fact: I don't. Other fact: Most of the writers whom Jennifer Crusie has warmly name-checked on her blog have ended up on my bookshelves, too. Writers know who can write. Editors? Meh, mixed bag.

Which brings us to Santa Baby, an extremely uneven three-novella anthology that nonetheless isn't leaving my shelves anytime soon.

And here's why: "Hot Toy," which is Jenny Crusie's contribution, is a 104-page writing workshop in how to quickly develop primary and secondary characters, believable relationships and a fun plot. The jacket copy: "Mayhem ensues under the mistletoe as a determined shopper grabs the very last hot toy action figure off the shelf, only to find herself plunged into the middle of a real-life spy game -- in the arms of a sexy secret agent."

Frankly, the acknowledgements page hooked me harder: "Thank you to Jennifer Enderlin, who asked me to write a Christmas romance novella and then didn't blink when the guns and the gin showed up; Meg Ruley, who turned the birthday paper into Christmas paper; ... and Bob Mayer, who said, "You know, toys are made in China ..." Guns, gin, crafts and Chinese toys? Kapow.

We start with the heroine, who is urgently toy shopping for a gift that her deadbeat ex-brother-in-law promised to get for her sweet nephew. Like most of Crusie's hilarious heroines, she's slightly snarly and is close to the end of her extremely long rope. And then she meets our hero, and it's not cute, but it is funny, and of course you know he's the hero, but you believe the work he's going to have to do to get what he wants (which, in this case, is the toy that our heroine's holding). (For the record, one of the most gratifying parts of this story is that the outcome of that battle is not a foregone conclusion.)

There are also guns, gin, a really lame manicure set, poorly excecuted gingerbread house decorations and a hot kiss or two. Well worth the buy.

And that was a good thing, because Lori Foster and Carly Phillips? Mmm, not so much. I know they have huge followings (and I have at least one Carly Phillips book on the shelf), but they should have taken Ms. Crusie's course in the short-form love story. Instead, they commit a number of sins that make their stories clunk:

1. What do you mean, I don't get to read the first chapter?

In both Foster's "Christmas Bonus" and Phillips' "Naughty Under the Mistletoe," we're dumped into the middle of the action. In romance novels, of course, the relationship is the action; I think readers are shortchanged when many of the fun bits -- the attraction, the WHY of the attraction -- is chopped out. But here we are, in two stories where we are assured that at least half of each couple is already on a slow simmer, warm for the forms of the other half. And, we're told, the other half is absolutely deserving of this regard. (Ahem. I like to be persuaded.)

2. There is no tension.

It's hard to create, develop and resolve a romantic conflict in a short-form story. In this case, it translates into "Oh, goodness, I WONDER if Eric and Maggie will be able to overcome the fact that she's his boss?!?" and "Uh-oh, if Antonia and Maxwell finally get it on after years of raging sexual tension, will he turn out to be her boss at the new branch of the office where she'll be transferred after Christmas?" If you have trouble answering either of those questions, you should definitely pick up the anthology.

If, however, you know where either of those is headed, why don't you join me for a moment in the sad contemplation of the idea that office crush is apparently the last frontier of sexual tension and romance plots?

3. In order to move the plot along, the characters make weird and incredible choices.

F'rex, here's a bit of thought process from "Naughty or Nice":

"The ailing Mr. Corbin had been thrilled when he'd named her the senior associate to work with the as-of-yet unnamed partner who'd run the new office. ... Being naughty had no place on the ladder to success. Neither had coming on to a man she worked alongside.

But having earned her position, she felt free to act on other, impulsive desires. ... If the (Cosmo) article were to be trusted, the cliched adage was true and nice girls finished last. So Toni would just have to be bad."

Does this sound like lawyer logic to anyone? And, OK, lord knows that most romance novels (except, of course, Jenny Crusie's) put a conveniently high gloss on most professions, but this reads like a teenage girl's plot, not an adult woman's.

And that, of course, takes us back to my initial point. It seems strange to pair up Jenny Crusie's screwball, 1940s-snappy-dialogue-and-disaster comedies with two sweet but patently insincere workplace romances.

Kid, I dunno. It's a head scratcher.

Is It Me? I Don't Think It's Me.

I said in my intro that I might be soft on my favorite authors. But then again, maybe not. Because when they disappoint me, I get *really* disappointed.

Take for example Cross My Heart, from Carly Phillips. Now, I really liked her first few stand-alones (a mis-nomer, since they were trilogies). The Hot Zone trio and the Chandler Brothers delivered the pacing, personality and humor that made her hugely successful, with a little boost from Kelly Ripa's short-lived reading club. But this latest one? The only way I can explain it is if Phillips found it in the bottom of a box of notebooks from her high school sophomore year handwritten on spiral paper with all of the i's dotted with little hearts, and her publisher was holding her dog hostage for a finished manuscript. Seriously, it's pretty bad; like a case study on the old creative writing saw "show, don't tell." These characters are flat and boring; they passively await the plot to happen around them while everything you ever wanted to know about them (and much, much more) is explicated in narrative like this:

Ty was as complex as the things surrounding him were simple. He was a deep man who kept his feelings inside but who gave of himself just by being there. He seemed to sense and show up when she needed him, and he knew when to give her space. Ten years apart and he knew her better than she even knew herself.

And there is more of the same before and after. Blah, blah cliche´ blah cliche´ blah blah.

Then there's the latest from Stephanie Laurens, whom I usually love. I mean, she is absolutely A-list in my book. But A Taste of Innocence really disappointed me. The hero, Charlie, is just too dumb to live: his father had gambled away the family fortune trying to support them, out of his crazy love for his wife. Therefore, Charlie decides to avoid true love at all costs because love=reckless + bad judgement. Yeah, too dumb to live. Meanwhile, the heroine had decided that she would only marry for love. Because that makes tons of sense for the era.

For some reason I also found the rhythm of the prose to be really repetitive, particularly in the love scenes: "paragraph paragraph subject verb supporting clause. Very repeat supporting clause. Supporting clause some more, paragraph paragraph paragraph." Over and over. I'm honestly not one to harp on things like sentence fragments but this happened so many times it was really noticeable and distracting.

I suspect that part of the problem is that the Cynster franchise is just getting old. In the last several books, I had a lot of trouble remembering the Malcom Sinclair thread from book to book, especially since Laurens was alternating Cynsters and Bastion Club books, which never seemed all that distinct from each other anyway, other than the shadowy spymaster of the Bastion books. However, I will say that the big redeemer for this book was in fact, the Malcom Sinclair twist at the end, which I won't spoil but I liked very much.

Lastly, a word about Mary Jo Putney's Marriage Spell. What the heck happened here? It was like Harry Potter meets Lifetime Television For Women. I like paranormals just fine, but I have to believe it just isn't MJP's forte. The magic element was forced and unimaginative, and the heroine was about as exciting as magical oatmeal. The only hook was with the hero's internal struggle-- Putney's signature theme and done far better in the Fallen Angels books.

I'm not giving up on any of these authors, because I know they can write great books. I just hope they get back to it. Soon.