I became immediately intrigued by the characters and realized at the end of each story how the author had cleverly imbedded a fascinating slice of history within it. I was excited to read the next, knowing I would be taken on an adventure ride through a transformational segment of someone's life. This is an ideal summer book for easy beach reading and a perfect holiday book for gift giving.

Mary Christmas is well written and was a pleasure to read. The short stories are stand-alone making it the perfect book to take along on a trip.

Great writing. With all of the heavy feelings in the world today it was nice to sit down and read the many stories.

For someone who is looking for a book of Christmas short stories, but is sick of the same, old, traditional style, MARY CHRISTMAS might be the perfect solution.

This collection of twenty easy-read stories which take place at Christmastime is definitely unusual. The plots range from a nine and eleven-year-old camping out in the fall-out shelter in their back yard, to a Russian mail-order bride dealing with the loss of her daughter whom she left behind in Russia.

I usually don't enjoy short stories, and I especially dislike anything which doesn't end happily. This book, however, was an exception to both of the above. I was surprised by how quickly I was drawn into the tales, and even the sad ones were enjoyable because they ended on a hopeful note. Somehow the reader knew that the protagonists would eventually make it through their pain and be okay.

My favorite story was "We Wish You a Merry Tonsillectomy". I fell in love with the spunky seven-year-old who concluded that her doctor must be pretty stupid if he thought he needed her date of birth in order to distinguish her from all the other Mary Jane Pulaski's in their town! Although I read this book over a month ago Mary Jane keeps bounding her way back into my thoughts.

I also especially liked "The Magic Shirt". It was impressing to me that in 19 pages the author was able to hook me into the plot, teach me some history, and put me in touch emotionally with several of the issues the Indians and their reservation priests struggled with. (In this story a young Indian woman who had been converted to Christianity went against her better judgement and agreed to help her brothers make two magic shirts. Their belief that the shirts would repel bullets caused one brother to die, and the second to be imprisoned.)

Rarely do I get this excited, much less captivated, by a collection of short stories. The first page of "Going Away" had me hooked, even though I deliberately chose not to read straight through this wonderful book. I took it story by story, preferring to come home to this book as though it were a rich, fulfilling dessert without calories. Each story struck a chord deep inside me, somewhere between a nostalgic moment and awareness that being a woman means finding inner strength to accommodate the change we each will face. I appreciate and laud the writer who provides a framwork that lets my imagination reach its own conclusions.