Festive Cove, Washington - Present Day

Ulysses Conrad Pearson has returned to Festive Cove, Washington, his childhood home, to heal old wounds. Ulysses and his mother moved to Charleston, South Carolina, after the death of his father, a fireman, who died in the line of duty on Christmas day. His father’s heroism saved the life of one of Ulysses’s classmates, Audrey Lamour, but when his father rushed back into the Lamour’s burning house to try to save Audrey’s parents, Ulysses lost his father and Audrey both of her parents.

At the age of thirty-three, Ulysses still grieves for his father. The one person who may be able to help him is the one person Ulysses also resents, Audrey Lamour. Ulysses knows that the resentment he harbors for Audrey is illogical, but she survived while his father perished. What if his father had not been called to duty? Why did his father have to try to save Audrey’s parents? Ulysses carries these questions along with the wound of his father’s death inside of him everyday and hopes that in confronting Audrey, he will find the peace he is looking for.

Audrey Lamour is a successful painter and single mother. She has never forgotten the firefighter who saved her life, nor the death of her own parents on Christmas day. It can be difficult around the holidays for Audrey, thinking of what was lost in the past, instead of what she has now in the present, but her daughter, Stacy, deserves all that Christmas has to offer without the dark shadows of Audrey’s memories hovering over them. It is as a portrait artist that Audrey finds release for her demons. She painted a portrait of Grant Pearson, the firefighter who saved her life twenty-five years ago, and now she is working on another portrait of him. To Audrey, he is, and will always be, her guardian angel.

When a man by the name of Conrad shows up at her studio wanting her to paint a portrait of him, Audrey can’t help but notice how attractive he is. Burned by men before, Audrey is wary but intrigued. Conrad seems to be everything she ever wanted in a man, handsome, successful and, more importantly, honest. Will this Christmas bring Audrey love and a man she can trust?

CHRISTMAS HEAT begins with a premise that will immediately capture the reader’s interest and would have made a perfect book for the upcoming holiday season, except for an unfortunate direction the story takes. Ulysses Conrad Pearson goes to Festive Cove to deal with his father’s death by confronting Audrey, but at the last moment he decides not to tell Audrey his real identity. Therefore, a heartwarming romantic story centered on an issue that would have made for some emotionally intense and interesting moments becomes centered on the question of how Audrey will react when she finds out who Conrad really is.

The premise of CHRISTMAS HEAT is so compelling -- and the emotions Audrey and Ulysses still harbor over that fateful Christmas day -- if it had been dealt with straight on, it would have made for a better story. In addition, the romance between Audrey and Ulysses lacked chemistry, probably because readers are told how they feel instead of being shown.

Mr. Archer has talent; unfortunately CHRISTMAS HEAT misses the mark.

Nickole Yarbrough