Love Found in a Christmas Village

By: Stephanie Guerrero

Narrated by: Susan J. Iannucci

Do dreams ever really come true? Supermodel Mandy Cartwright broke the heart of the only man who saw past her beauty and into her heart: Luke Morgan. With no joy left in the profession that tore her from his side, she returns to her hometown. When Mandy stumbles across Luke's family Christmas heirloom, she is magically carried into the Christmas Village and discovers that Luke has also been transported there too. Can love be rekindled for them both in the Christmas Village of Joy?

©2013 Teresa LIlly (P)2016 Teresa Lilly

Significantly cheesy, but still encouraging

This fairly short story, despite it's substantial cheesy-ness, was still worth listening to for me because of the encouraging Scripture verses & edifying words spoken throughout. The overall premise is quite humorous, and I chuckled every time the narrator said "Putz" (pronounced "Pootz") meaning "Christmas Village." Perhaps the author should have stuck w/ the latter nomenclature?

I could appreciate the female lead's struggles to overcome ongoing personal issues as well as the need for both leads to admit their mistakes, mature, and forgive each other.

I enjoyed the narrator's slow, calm pace, but two things irked me about the narration. First, when she occasionally conveyed someone shouting words (i.e. during a friendly snowball fight), she literally shouted INTO the microphone. (She should have pulled back away from it so she wouldn't yell in your ear.) Second, during some "scene changes" she continued speaking as if the new scene were an unbroken continuation of the previous one without as much as a breath. It was like going from one chapter to another without pausing to acknowledge a different setting or group of characters.

I wanted a chipper little Christmas romance, and this fit the bill. So, if you enjoy a sappy romance w/ an improbable (Hallmark movie-ish) plot, an occasionally over zealous narrator, and sugary-sweet "make-believe village" characters, this is for you!