The Secret Life of Mrs. Claus by Carly Alexander
In Christmas Mouse, Cassie Derringer deals with single motherhood as she tries to provide the best possible life for her son after leaving the child’s father. Leaving the child’s father meant giving up her job as a set designer for his TV show. Forced to look elsewhere for employment, she takes a job at Rossman’s Department Store as a window dresser. However, cutbacks in the store means that she also has to take on the job of Mrs. Claus. Now can Cassie and her son survive their first Christmas season without a man in their lives?
In Miracle on the Magnificent Mile, Meredith tries to assert her right to take her parents place on Rossman’s board of directors. However, the board feels that she’s too young and thinks she needs more hands-on retail experience. So Meredith finds herself in the toy department playing Mrs. Claus, while trying to earn the board’s respect. Unfortunately Meredith hasn’t believed in Christmas, since her parents died on Christmas Day, two years ago. Now can Meredith overcome her parent’s deaths to find the true meaning of Christmas?
While the cover leads to you to believe that this is a single story, it is really three short stories that revolve around three different women who play Mrs. Claus in a department store. The heroines eventually connect with a guy in all three stories, but the guy generally plays a minor role in the story so it’s hard for me to think of these stories as true romances. Not realizing that the book contains three stories, hurt the first story as I was just starting to like Olivia, when the story abruptly ended. But I have to admire the extreme level of detail Carly used when painting the picture of Baltimore City. Cassie’s story is cute, but mostly because of her son. My favorite story of the three is Meredith’s because it was closer to a romance story than the other two. If you love Carly Alexander, I think you’ll love this book. But if you’re looking for a more typical romance novel, I think you should look elsewhere.
Details: Kensington, October 06
Bottom line: A pretty good book
Bailey Sullivan hates the family Christmas store. So when she left home for LA years ago, she never wanted to see another Christmas item for the rest of her life. But when her parents have a fight just before Christmas and refuse to work at the store, Bailey makes the ultimate sacrifice and returns to run the store just to keep her parent’s business afloat. Unfortunately she didn’t count on the bad boy/high school sweetheart, Finn Jacobson, visiting his grandmother next door. Despite the sparks flying between her and Finn, Bailey knows she needs to leave this place before she gets stuck and can’t leave. Still she just can't resist visiting the past. Will Bailey return to LA or will she decide to stick around and enjoy the spirit of Christmas. 
One day while on the beach with her sister’s family, Delaney Michaels had a revelation, she wanted a family, a husband to be there when she woke up in the morning and the joy of having children around the house. Unfortunately, her dream wasn’t compatible with her current life, partner in an extreme sports magazine with her best friend from her childhood, Sam Kirk. There was only one slight hitch – while she loved Sam, she knew that Sam didn’t love her back. Women paraded through Sam’s life like a marching band on steroids and Delany didn’t want that to happen to her. Her only option was to sell her half of the magazine to Sam, and move away and establish a new life away from him. But there’s only one problem, when she explains her desire to Sam, he’s ready to do nearly anything to keep her in his life, including taking her to bed. Now can Delany find the strength inside to walk away from Sam, or will she succumb to Sam and go back to just being friends. 
Patricia Stillwell’s new experimental diet not only helped her lose weight, it also helped her hair to shed its natural color, leaving her blonde and it just happened to catch the attention of Brett Nordquist of the Nordquist Department store chain. Brett was everything she wanted in a husband, rich and handsome and full of passion. Unfortunately, to the rest of the world Brett was a drunk, playboy who didn’t give a damn about the people around him. Little did Patricia know that Paul Costello was more than just a roommate and friend, he also was in love with the real person underneath the hair. When the diet is over, and her blondeness wears off, will Patricia come to her senses and see the real Brett or is she doomed to live a live of rich misery. 
Failing a slut test so shocked Mattie Brown that she was willing to do anything in order to up her score. Fortunately her next-door neighbor is Cullen Slater has a revolving door for beautiful women, all of whom look completely satisfied when the leave the next morning. A guaranteed score enhancer for Mattie. Unfortunately another neighbor, Matt Peterson, has set his sights on her and despite his great body, he's unlikely to improve her score as he's a computer geek. But as Mattie gets to know Matt better, she’s finding it hard to stay focused on Cullen. Now it’s up to Matt to convince Mattie that test scores aren’t that important in the real world.