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Author Biography |
Review |
Excerpt |
Author Website 
Hardcover
Mira ISBN: 0778322254 Emma Collins has always believed that the world is divided into two kinds of people: those who love fruitcake and those who don't. She's firmly in the second category, so it's ironic that her first major assignment for the Puyallup, Washington, Examiner is a series of articles about...fruitcake. At least it's a step up from writing obituaries. Her task is to interview the finalists in a fruitcake recipe contest, and that means traveling around the state. Actually... flying around the state. Local pilot Oliver Hamilton, who's starting an airfreight business, has agreed to take her wherever she needs to go, in exchange for free advertising. Unfortunately Emma hates small planes - almost as much as she hates fruitcake. But in the weeks leading up to Christmas, Emma falls for Oliver (who's not quite the Scrooge he sometimes seems) and his mutt, Oscar (who's allergic to her perfume, which makes him sneeze repeatedly). And she meets three wise women who know a lot about fruitcake - and even more about life. It all reminds her that there's something about Christmas. Something special... 
Through both words and deeds, Debbie Macomber inspires women from all walks of life to realize their dreams.
Debbie Macomber overcame the obstacles in her own life to become one of the world's most popular writers. She encourages women to achieve the goals that burn in their hearts as fiercely as the desire to become a bestselling novelist did in her own 15 years ago. When Debbie first decided to write a novel, people called her a hopeless dreamer. She had only a high school degree and was dyslexic. She was also the very young mother of four active children. No one believed she had what it took to write a book-except Debbie. She eventually saved enough money to rent an old typewriter, and every night when the children were asleep, she would sit down to write. She wrote --- for years. But each time she completed a story and mailed it off to a publisher, the manuscript was returned, stamped "rejected." As tough as it was to keep her spirits alive, Debbie never gave up. Five long years and thousands of pages later, she received a letter in the afternoon mail. The letter was from Silhouette Books --- and they wanted to buy her story. Her first novel, HEARTSONG, was published as a Silhouette Inspiration in 1984, and it became the first romance novel ever to be reviewed in Publishers Weekly. Today, Debbie is the internationally acclaimed author of more than 100 novels. Popular around the globe, she receives approximately three thousand letters from readers every month. And she responds personally to each one. In lectures around the country, Debbie encourages women to "exercise the success muscle." She also offers advice on how to achieve success in seeking or changing a career, building family relationships, forming healthy relationships and more. Is it any wonder that Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America appointed Debbie an ambassador for the national office in 1997? In support of the organization's outreach to young people, Debbie traveled throughout the U.S. to inspire and encourage them to pursue --- and realize --- their own dreams. Like her heartwarming novels, Debbie's inspirational speeches are always filled with laughter and love. She cares deeply about the women she touches with her writing, and she continues to mentor people around the country. She also volunteers her considerable talents to help raise much-needed funds for battered-women's shelters, literacy and medical research. Several of Debbie's novels have achieved the number-one spot on Waldenbooks bestseller lists and earned prestigious berths on the USA Today bestseller list. A three-time winner of the impressive B. Dalton Award, she is also the recipient of Romantic Times' Magazine's distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award. And, most recently, she made the New York Times bestseller list with her novel, PROMISE, TEXAS --- truly an accomplishment! She lives with her husband in Port Orchard, Washington. Their children are grown and she is now a proud grandmother. 
Emma Collins has an aversion to all things Christmas --- and that includes fruitcake. It's not only the confection that she doesn't like, but since the death of her mother two years ago Emma has avoided the holiday altogether. Instead she takes in a movie on Christmas Day and has buttered popcorn for dinner, which suits her just fine. But this year, some unexpected cheer is headed Emma's way.
Fed up with penning nothing but obituaries for The Examiner, the local newspaper in Puyallup (a small town outside Seattle), Emma is set to give her boss an ultimatum when he offers her the chance to write not just one but a series of feature articles. Three of the twelve finalists in Good Homemaking magazine's national fruitcake contest live in the state of Washington, and Emma's assignment is to interview and write a profile about each one. When Emma finds out that she has to fly to all three destinations in order to make the newspaper's fast-approaching editorial deadlines, she almost bails out on what could be her big break. In addition to Christmas she also has an aversion to flying, particularly in small planes. And especially with local pilot Oliver Hamilton, who, in Emma's opinion, is far too reminiscent of her father --- an attractive man who flitted in and out of her life during her childhood and teen years, leaving a string of broken promises in his wake and her mother devastated. The more time she spends with Oliver, though, including an unexpected overnight trip because of a blizzard, the more Emma comes to realize that he isn't the bad-boy type she had pegged him to be. And as she gets to know each of the finalists, Emma realizes she also has misjudged something else: fruitcake. Along with sharing an intriguing personal story, each of the women serves Emma a delicious slice of the much-maligned dessert. Combined with her rescue of an abandoned dog and Oliver's enthusiastic efforts to change her mind about Christmas (and him), it just might be enough to entice Emma to celebrate the season. In an introductory letter to the book Debbie Macomber writes, "With all the demands and stresses of the holidays, I decided to give my readers a reason to laugh." Along with delivering a humorous and heartwarming tale, she shares the fruitcake recipes (which came from her family and friends). When you finish reading THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT CHRISTMAS, you can keep the holiday spirit going strong by making one, two or even all three of the fruit-filled delicacies. --- Reviewed by Shannon McKenna • Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.com. 
On that cold day I was born, in February 1955, my great-aunt gave me a classic fruitcake for the celebration of the occasion of my birth. Every year during the holidays I pull it out of the attic and take a look at it and it still looks great, and every year I try to get up the nerve to take a slice and try it.
- Dean Fearing, chef of The Mansion on Turtle Creek This job was going to kill her yet. Emma Collins stared at the daredevil pilot who was urging her toward his plane. She'd come to Thun Field to drum up advertising dollars for her employer, The Puyallup Examiner, and wasn't interested in taking a spin around southeast Puget Sound. "Thank you, but no," she insisted for the third time. Oliver Hamilton seemed to have a hearing problem. However, Emma was doing her best to maintain a professional facade, despite her pounding heart. No way would she go for a ride with Flyboy. The truth was, Emma was terrified of flying. Okay, she white knuckled it in a Boeing 747, but nothing on God's green earth would get her inside a small plane with this man - and his dog. Oliver Hamilton had a devil- may-care glint in his dark blue eyes and wore a distressed brown leather jacket that resembled something a World War Two bomber pilot might wear. All he needed was the white scarf. She suspected that if he ever got her in the air, he'd start making loops and circles with the express purpose of frightening her to death. He looked just the type. Placing the advertising rate sheet on his desk, she turned resolutely away from the window and the sight of Hamilton's little bitty plane --- a Cessna Caravan 675, he'd called it. "As I was explaining earlier, The Examiner has a circulation of over forty five thousand. As you'll see --- " she gestured at the sheet " --- we have special introductory rates in December. We serve four communities and, dollar for advertising dollar, you can't do better than what we're offering." "Yes, yes, I understand all that," Oliver Hamilton said, stepping around his desk. "Now, what I can offer you is the experience of a lifetime...." Instinctively Emma backed away. She had an aversion to attractive men whose promises slid so easily off their tongues. Her father had been one of them. He'd flitted in and out of her life during her childhood and teen years. Every so often, he'd arrived bearing gifts and making promises, none of which he'd kept. Still, her mother had loved Bret Collins until the end. Pamela had died after a brief illness when Emma was a sophomore at the University of Oregon. To his credit, her father had paid her college expenses, but Emma refused to have anything to do with him. She was on her own in the world and determined to make a success of her career as a journalist. When she'd hired on at The Examiner earlier that year, she hadn't objected to starting at the bottom. She'd expected that. What she hadn't expected was spending half her time trying to sell advertising. The Examiner was a family-owned business, one of a vanishing breed. The newspaper had been in the Berwald family for three generations. Walt Berwald II had held on through the corporate buyouts and survived the competition from the big city newspapers coming out of Tacoma and Seattle. It hadn't been easy. Now his thirty-year-old son had taken over after his father's recent heart attack. Walt the third, the new editor-in-chief, was doing everything he could to keep the newspaper financially solvent, which Emma knew was a challenge. "Hey, Oscar," Oliver said, bending to pet his dog. "I think the lady's afraid of flying." Emma bristled, irritated that he'd pegged her so quickly. "Don't be ridiculous." He ignored her and continued to pet the dog. She couldn't readily identify his breed, possibly some kind of terrier. The dog was mostly white with one large black spot surrounding his left eye. Right out of that 1930s show Spanky and Our Gang. Wasn't that the name? She shook off her momentary distraction. "I'm here to sell you advertising in The Examiner," she explained again. "I hope you'll reconsider." Oliver straightened, crossing his arms, and leaned against his desk. "As I said, I'm just getting my business started. At this point I don't have a lot of discretionary funds for advertising. So for now I'll stick with the word-of-mouth method. That seems to be working." It couldn't be working that well, since he appeared to have a lot of time on his hands. "Exactly what is it you do?" she asked. "I give flying lessons and I've recently begun an airfreight business." "Oh." "Oscar and I haven't crashed even once." He was obviously making fun of her, and she didn't appreciate it. Nor did she take his alleged safety record as an incentive to leap into the passenger seat. • Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.com. |
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