Two Christmas Audio Books

 Lady Osbaldestone's Christmas Goose by Stephanie Laurens

A delightful audio book read by a narrator with the perfect tone and accent for the story. It's a romance of course, but the characters are interesting and there's more to the story than just the romance. 

When all the geese disappear from a farm the village relies on for their Christmas birds, Lady Osbaldestone resolves to find them. Enlisting the help of the three young grandchildren in her care while their parents recover from colds, they set out to save their Christmas dinners and do a bit of matchmaking in the process. 

Their cupid's arrows are aimed at a local Lord recently returned from battle and keeping to himself to hide his facial scarring, and a lovely young woman bearing the burden of responsibility for her younger brother and the havoc he and his school chums create.

The writing was a pleasure to read, or heard read in this case. In the hands of a good writer, the genteel language of the era and the setting of polite society is a style of which I never tire. There's something about it that lifts any story to another level. Christmas stories like this are often a little too sweet to be palatable, but this one, thankfully, wasn't. Though there were parts of the story - children being corrected, and the young brother and his friends being "taught a lesson" - that could have come across as preachy, they were handled with a light enough touch to go down easily.     

The outcome was no surprise, but the journey to it was entertaining. A light-hearted diversion in a hectic season.      

On Christmas Day by Grace S. Richmond

Another audio book, this one with two of the author's stories: On Christmas Day in the Morning and On Christmas Day in the Evening. 

The first begins with an older couple making the best of another lonely Christmas Eve without their children, all busy now with work and families of their own. A wonderful surprise awaits them the next morning when they find all have arrived to celebrate the day together and mend any differences that may have kept them apart. 

In the second book, several years have passed with the family now gathering every year for the holiday. This year they want to re-open the local church and gather a community still at odds with each other over old differences. It won't be easy, but they'll decorate the church, find a preacher, prepare some music, then wait and see what God will do.

 With conclusions a little too good to be true, perhaps, they are still uplifting stories for the season.