What Happens Under the Mistletoe

By: Sabrina Jeffries, Karen Hawkins, Candace Camp & Meredith Duran
Publisher: Pocket Books 
Publication Date: November 2015
ISBN: 978-1476786087
Reviewed by: Diana Buss
Review Date: January 31, 2017

What Happens Under the Mistletoe includes four Holiday-related short stories by four different National Bestselling Authors. An anthology encompassing 391 pages, each story is concise and packed with mischief, missed chances and mystery. Two of these short stories share the theme of a love gone sour when misunderstandings occur. With time and space keeping them apart, can the mistletoe bring them back together? The other two short stories bring together two unlikely couples with entirely different personalities and beliefs, but will their pride keep their love from growing?

Sweetest Regret – Promised an authentic English Christmas, Georgiana must entertain her father’s house guests after he is called away on business. Not only is he called away, but a very important letter has gone missing, one of extreme importance and secrecy. In an effort to aid Georgiana, he sends Lucas, Georgiana’s old love interest who broke her heart two years ago. Will this letter bring them together, or will their past tear them apart?

The Heiress and the Hothead – An obligation to kiss someone under the mistletoe as revenge may not be such a great idea when someone else is wearing an outfit of the same description of the person you were to kiss. Not only did he kiss the wrong person, he kissed the exact person he wanted to interview as a mill owner in his paper, The London Monitor. Striving to make a change in the mill industry, Stephen has taken to exposing the wrongdoings of mill owners and their awful conditions. A mill owner herself, Miss Keane is reluctant to speak to him because of his poor opinion of mill owners and his prejudice that all mill owners are bad. Will a life or death situation be enough to make them put aside their differences?

Twelve Kisses to Midnight – In this short story, yet another unfortunate incident occurs under the mistletoe. After accidentally kissing his long-lost love instead of his mistress at a masquerade, Rothesay comes upon quite a spectacle. Recent widow Lady Montrose and Rothesay are caught kissing under the mistletoe and it becomes rumor he has seduced her. In an effort to clear her good name, she goes to visit her father. With a snowstorm approaching, she sets off on an unfamiliar path, leaving Rothesay no choice but to follow after her, where more trouble ensues.

By Any Other Name – Rylla Campbell is on a quest to find her brother, who has disappeared just before Christmas. With fear that he will not return home, she sets out dressed as a man to find him. It is then she finds herself in some compromising positions and dire circumstances. Thankfully, she meets Gregory Rose, who not only protects her, but sets out to help her, while falling in love along the way.

Some of these stories are romantic and will have you cheering for the couple to reconcile their differences, others are a little more cliche and predictable, but all tied in the Christmas spirit and make you want to snuggle up with your loved ones.

Quill says: Make sure to place the mistletoe in all the right places when the Holidays come around, because nothing will put you in the loving Christmas spirit more than this anthology.