Married for Christmas

Willow Park, Book 1

By: Noelle Adams

Narrated by: Jane Cramer

Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

After years of dreaming, Jessica is finally getting married, but the marriage isn't exactly what she thought.

Daniel is her best friend, and she's known him all her life, but he's never gotten over losing his wife two years ago. His dream is to become the pastor of the church in their hometown, but the small-town congregation keeps balking over calling an unmarried minister. Since Daniel needs a wife and Jessica wants a husband and family, she proposes an arrangement that benefits both of them.

They can get married. They can be build a life together. They can celebrate Christmas as a couple. It's fine that he doesn't love her. And it's fine that she's not exactly suited to be a small-town pastor's wife. And it's fine that she's more attracted to her sexy, brooding husband every day.

Jessica can be practical about this marriage. She knows what she's getting into, after all....

©2013 Noelle Adams (P)2015 Noelle Adams

Awesome story

Worth to re read. Such a good story. Like all Noelle's stories. Excellent narrator. Heart warming and great message too

loved It!

this audiobook os wonderful! I have this book in digital copy and now on audio. the narration os lovely and delicate.

Sweet Christmas Love Story

What a wonderful read for the holidays. This sweet romance goes perfectly with a day spent baking cookies. The original review was posted on our review site.

Married for Christmas

Married for Christmas. I usually like this authors books. however could not get into this one

Realistic, angsty, sweet

Audiobook: Narrator - Jane Cramer

Another wonderful narration by Ms. Cramer as she gives life to this heroine. I loved that she performed this character in a very real and relatable manner. She truly is the perfect choice for this author’s heroines.

My heart hurt for Jessica and all the loneliness she felt while she’s struggling with some tough things in her life. Sometimes I was annoyed with Daniel and really needed his point of view here to help me to connect with him rather than judge him harshly at times. However, when the end wraps up and he finally shares all, I was very pleased with what he had to say.

This is a sweet, sometimes fun, sometimes angsty story that I felt was true to the situation as well as the characters and their backgrounds. I enjoyed listening to it as I did my holiday running around and it fit in perfectly with the season.

Enjoyable book

Really sweet and enjoyable book to listen too. I enjoy this author because they are sweet love stories but you are engaged the whole time. And the narrator is amazing!!

Great holiday read

This was a great holiday listen for anyone who loves a nice love story. I love most of Noelle Adams' books, and although this wasn't my favorite story, it was still a great read. The narrator did a great job telling this story.

Ummm no this is NOT a Christian story

In order to write a truly good Christian romance the characters need to be well developed and the reader should feel like there was some connection to Christ in the story. The only thing that made this story a Christian romance was that the main character's love interest was minister. The main character didn't have a relatio!ship with God and if she did it was superficial. This book shows that the writer has a superficial understanding of God and is just dabbling in the genre to try and find her voice. Writing Christian fiction or romance requires the ability to fully flush out your characters , have something to say that shows or reflect the character of God and have God be the main focus and not an after thought. It's a delicate balance to pull this off and not come off as preachy. There are few writers that pull this off like Tessa Afshar, Francine Rivers or Rachel Hauck. These women have written books that resonate and have not used sex to move the story along. Just because your characters have sex doesn't mean you have to go into detail about it. That alone precludes this being a Christian romance.

Overall its a good story. It just seems wrong to classify this as a Christian romance when the only thing remotely Christian about it is that one of the characters is a minister and not even a very good one since he was willing to perpetrate a fraud to get a job. It should be 1 star but the writing was sound and the idea was OK just not executed well and I don't want to be completely mean. If it wasn't classified as Christian it would be 3 stars.

Too much talking, not much action.

I usually like Noelle Adams’ novels for the emotion tugging experience. Here, I felt there was one climactic scene that made my heart pump and my eyes teary and one other highlight, but the balance of the story didn’t appeal to me.

We know Jessica has loved Daniel for a long time when the book opens, but I didn’t witness any behaviour on his part that made me go, “oh I see why you love him.” He was regularly portrayed as cold and distant as he dealt with inner struggles. And sometimes Jessica’s attitude annoyed me – for example, she gave Daniel no opportunity to adjust/discuss the inclusion of her dog in their bed/room. Some of Daniel and Jessica’s domestic arguments that arose from this and other situations felt lengthy and tedious.

By the way: if you’re looking for a clean read, this isn’t it.

What I did like though, was that Daniel was the pastor of a church, - he was a good, moral, giving person. I also liked Jessica’s appalling cooking abilities - she was imperfect in this and other ways. It made her real. I admired them both for wanting to embed themselves and contribute in real ways to their community. Unfortunately, all this was not enough for me to love the book.

Narrator Jane Cramer did a great job overall, but I pray the rest of the series improves. I’m hoping to again read/hear novels as good as SEDUCING THE ENEMY and PLAYING THE PLAYBOY.