Choir of Angels By Debbie Macomber

Summary

Shirley, Goodness and Mercy - “Shirley, Goodness and Mercy” is the fourth installment of Debbie Macomber’s Angels Everywhere holiday series. Unlike the three books that come before it, which each had separate storylines for our three angels, this short novella has them working together on one case. Also, unlike most of those other cases, this one doesn’t have a romantic element, which is probably for the best since the main character isn’t very likable, at least not at first. The vibe of this story reminds me of Donna VanLiere’s Christmas Hope series, and in some ways, it’s reminiscent of the first book of that series, The Christmas Shoes. Both feature a wealthy workaholic main character who has been living a rather selfish life, and both have encounters with little boys who help set them on a path to becoming better versions of themselves, leading to a heartwarming redemption.

Greg Bennett is a vintner who lost his latest crop of grapes to a virus. Without a loan, he won’t be able to replant the next year, but none of the banks in San Francisco seems willing to give him a loan. His third wife also left him, and he’s facing yet another potentially contentious divorce proceeding. Feeling frustrated with the course his life has taken, he takes a walk and ends up in a church. Though not particularly religious, he takes a seat in a pew and begins to talk to whoever might be listening, and that happens to be the archangel, Gabriel. Up in heaven, the three mischievous angels, Shirley, Goodness and Mercy, are chomping at the bit to be assigned to another case on Earth during the Christmas season, and Gabriel decides to give them Greg’s. But the heavenly messengers will have their work cut out for them, because up to this point, Greg has led a life that makes it hard for them to like the man. In college, he left the only woman he’d ever truly loved when she told him she was pregnant. Then he selfishly refused to help his best friend in the man’s most desperate hour of need, and as a result, the friend lost his wife. And when his own mother was dying, he never made it to her bedside, instead going to a divorce hearing with his second ex-wife, something for which his brother has never forgiven him. Now Greg has a lot to make up for. Much like the angels, I didn’t like Greg at first. He does show much-needed growth as the story progresses, though, and by the end, I felt more confident that he’d gotten his life on the right path.

Greg’s story also intersects with those of his son from the girlfriend he left, his best friend, and his brother. I was glad to see some reconciliation between him and the friend and his brother. Each of them had to grow as well, leaving their bitterness and resentment behind in order to find peace. I was a little disappointed, though, that the same didn’t happen with the son. I suppose this made the story a bit more realistic, and I understood the why of it. I just had hoped for a full slate of happy endings. At its heart, this is a gentle story about forgiveness, redemption, and about finding the things in life that are most important. The story is on the short side, and I wouldn’t have minded if it was a bit longer to flesh out the characters and their individual storylines more. It was also perhaps a bit predictable, but I still enjoyed its feel-good quality and had fun visiting with our intrepid angels again. “Shirley, Goodness and Mercy” was originally published as a stand-alone book, but was later republished in this anthology along with two other stories from the Angels Everywhere series. Star Rating: ****; Sensuality Rating: 0

Those Christmas Angels - “Those Christmas Angels” is the fifth book of Debbie Macomber’s Angels Everywhere holiday-themed series, which returns to its mostly romantic roots. In this one we have Roy Fletcher, a businessman who is deeply cynical about love and relationships following a devastating betrayal that affected both him and his mother, Anne. But Anne has come to terms with it and prays that her son will, too, so that he’ll be able find someone he can truly love and trust. Her prayer request lands on the desk of the archangel, Gabriel, who assigns Shirley, Goodness and Mercy to the case. They’re thrilled to be matchmaking again, but initially disagree over who would be the best match for Roy. Then along comes Julie Wilcoff, the daughter of Roy’s newly hired chief of security. Their first meeting is anything but cordial. In spite of that, though, Mercy thinks they’d be a perfect fit, so the angels engineer a little accident, which only ratchets up the tension between Roy and Julie. But eventually they find their way to a more romantic place that looks like it’s going to lead to an HEA if only Roy can overcome his distrust of women.

Roy is a successful businessman who several years ago had a serious relationship with a woman named Aimee. They were on the path to getting married until Aimee met Roy’s father, Burton, and from there, things went downhill. Burton and Aimee had an affair that turned into devastation and broken hearts for Roy and his mother, Anne, when both their relationships crumbled, and Anne was cheated out of a fair divorce settlement. Since then, Anne has picked up the pieces of her life and has reinvented herself as an artist, making a modest living, but Roy has languished in bitterness and cynicism. Anne’s Christmas wish is for Roy to find a woman who can love him for himself and who he can trust and love in return. After hiring a new head of security, Roy has a chance meeting with the man’s daughter, Julie, in which he’s pretty rude about her presence on his property. From there, the angel trio creates an accident in which Julie is thrown from her bike and it appears that Roy may have hit her with his car. The two argue incessantly over who was at fault, and although he admits no wrongdoing, Roy decides to head off an expected lawsuit by paying Julie off. Incensed that he would be so distrustful, she refuses his money, and gradually Roy starts to open his heart to her, thinking that she really is different. Romance begins to blossom, but when Julie refuses an offer to move in with Roy, his old tendency to distrust starts rearing its ugly head again, leading to a breakup in need of a Christmas miracle to get their relationship back on track. Although Roy has good reasons for being so cynical, I had a hard time really liking him because he takes it to a level that’s pretty sexist, lumping all women into the lying, cheating category with his ex. He’s emotionally closed off, and when in a pique of anger, can say some rather mean things. The only thing that saved his character for me is that he has a few softer, more vulnerable moments, and he does eventually come to his senses. But I would have liked it even better if he’d groveled a bit more once he did.

Julie is a PE teacher and soccer coach who’s been very athletic all her life. She’s quite tall and larger-boned for a woman, so she’s never had the male attention that her more petite, prettier sister did. She recently lost her mother and has been living with her dad ever since to help him out with the bills and to find comfort in their shared grief. Her father is finally ready to go back to work and gets hired by Roy to head up security at Fletcher Industries. Julie first meets Roy when she carpools part-way to work with her father, who drops her off in front of the building so she can bike the rest of the way. Roy rudely questions her presence there, leaving the impression that he’s an ogre. Then later there’s the bike accident. When Julie receives the settlement offer in the mail, she’s incensed, marching right into Roy’s office to give him a piece of her mind, which only gets her forcibly thrown out of the building. However, as time goes on, she and Roy start to come to an understanding, which leads to friendship and a little romance. But when Julie refuses his offer to move in with him, he thinks she’s angling for more money. After trying to reason with him and getting nowhere, she’s finally had enough, leaving the angels with their work cut out for them getting these two back together in time for Christmas. Julie is a tough cookie who’s weathered through the death of her mother admirably. She’s a bit of a spitfire who doesn’t put up with Roy’s shenanigans, but she also recognizes how hurt he was in the past and tries to help him overcome that by being a good person and proving she doesn’t want his money. I’m not sure if I could have dealt with his cynical nature as long as she did, but I admire her for staying true to herself, which eventually was what turned Roy around.

“Those Christmas Angels” was a pretty good read. I felt like the romance between Roy and Julie could have been developed a little better by either making the book a bit longer or by paring down Anne’s part in it. Roy’s mom gets a decent amount of page time and POV scenes in her own little subplot. After Shirley allows Anne to see her, the woman paints an angel, which her friend, who’s an art dealer, works on selling for her. I liked how Anne and Roy were able to find a bit of karma through that part of the story, but it did take away from Roy and Julie’s time together. The story takes place over only a month’s time, so their romance is a bit quick for two people who start out basically hating each other to come to a point of, not just falling in love, but being ready for marriage as well. However, the magic that the angels bring to the story and its generally heartwarming nature helped me to suspend disbelief to some extent. I just wish they’d had a few more scenes together to build both their characterizations and their romantic connection. Overall, I liked the story despite it’s extremely prickly hero and I enjoyed having another visit with Shirley, Goodness and Mercy who, while still rather mischievous, seemed a little better behaved this time around.:-) Star Rating: ****; Sensuality Rating: 2

Where Angels Go - “Where Angels Go” is the sixth book in Debbie Macomber’s Angels Everywhere series featuring the mischievous angel trio of Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy. The last couple of books in the series only had a single storyline that all three angels worked on together, but this one takes the series back to its roots with each angel working on a different case and occasionally coming together to offer advice. As always, the archangel Gabriel is overwhelmed with prayer requests during the holiday season, so he decides to send Prayer Ambassadors Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy to handle three of them. In the beginning this threesome often got into trouble, but over time, Gabriel has come to trust them more and rely on them in spite of the mischief they can sometimes get into.

Mercy is sent to work with elderly couple Harry and Rosalie. Harry has a bad heart and knows that his time on Earth is drawing to a close, and according to his doctor, it could be any day. With Rosalie becoming more forgetful, he wants to make sure that she’s taken care of when he passes on. He’s found a nice assisted living facility where many of their old friends now live, but convincing Rosalie to move out of the home they’ve shared for most of their lives is proving to be difficult. Harry asks for divine intervention to help Rosalie come to terms with it, so that he can pass on with peace of mind. This is a bittersweet little story, sweet because of how much Harry and Rosalie still love each other after all their many years together, but bitter because the life they’ve shared is about to end. I admired their devotion to one another and shed a few tears at the end even though I knew what was coming and it was rendered as gently as possible.

Gabriel receives a prayer request from Beth’s mother that she’ll be able to move on from her divorce and find a man to share her life with, and he tasks Goodness with making it happen. Beth got married young, and the couple’s shared immaturity prematurely ended their union. However, despite nine years having passed, Beth still finds it difficult to move on and hasn’t had much luck dating other men. For the last several months, she’s been involved in online gaming, playing World of Warcraft, where she’s found the perfect game partner. When her mother starts pestering her about bringing a guy home for Christmas, Beth starts to wonder if Peter, the man she’s been playing the game with, could be a potential life partner as well. They begin sharing more personal information, and when she discovers that he lives in Seattle, too, they make plans to meet in person. But upon coming face-to-face, she realizes he’s someone she already knows and isn’t sure a relationship will work out after all. Out of the three stories in this book, this is the only one that has a more traditional romance plot. But despite that, I think it may have been my least favorite. It’s not that I didn’t like. I did, but somehow it seemed a little underdeveloped for a romance. The magic that the angels bring to the story made it a bit more believable, but IMHO, there still wasn’t quite enough time for Beth and Peter to really come to a reconciliation. There also weren’t enough pages to develop a deep emotional connection between them.

The final storyline is Shirley’s. She’s sent to Earth to answer the prayer of Carter, a little boy who desperately wants a dog for Christmas. His parents have been promising him one, but due to financial hardships, they’ve had to, once again, turn him down. Then Carter finds a stray dog on the playground at school, which he names Rusty. The dog miraculously follows him home, and he thinks that if he pleads his case, his parents might let him keep Rusty. Unfortunately his dad is adamant that Rusty will have to go to the shelter, but Rusty’s heroic actions just might change his mind. This was a super-sweet story, that while somewhat predictable, ended up being my favorite. Maybe it’s because I’m a sucker for animal stories and cute kids, but I found this one to be rather charming.

As always, Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy can’t help themselves when it comes to their whimsical natures. They pull a couple of harmless pranks, all in good fun, but overall, they’ve matured as the series has progressed, learning to rely more on Gabriel and God when things aren’t going according to plan. Overall, “Where Angels Go” was an enjoyable trio of stories that kicked off my holiday-themed reading nicely. I look forward to seeing what trouble they might get into next in the final book of the series, Angels at the Table, but I’ll probably save it for next Christmas. Star Rating: ****; Sensuality Rating: 0
Review provided by The Hope Chest Reviews