A Christmas "fable" by the author of A Stranger for Christmas (not reviewed) and Morning Glory Mother (1997). Annabelle Perkins, a spinster of 57 who waits tables, has a little bronze lamb she wants to take to Bethlehem as a gift for baby Jesus. Her mother had always told her that they would take it together. But now her parents are dead. Annabelle deposits $200 on a $2,000 Christmas trip to the Holy Land. She doesn't earn much and has a bad heart as well, but she puts in an extra day a week at the restaurant and by November is ready for the trip. Then, however, she learns that the daughter of one of her regular customers is going to drop out of college'she's run out of money. Baby Jesus whispers to Annabelle, —Give me my gift now.— So Annabelle anonymously sends her savings in a postal money order to the girl. Next year, Annabelle again saves up for the trip, but this time she reads that an ex-boyfriend has a daughter who needs a kidney transplant (price: $50,000). Baby Jesus whispers again. And Annabelle sends the money to the ex, anonymously. Next year, the same kind of giveaway occurs. Now she's too weak to work overtime (and thus save for the fare). But, lo, a miracle takes place. . . . You have to like baby Jesus an awful lot to dig this story. But, after all, Christmas is His birthday. Read full book review >

A treat for Mother's Day and, although less gripping than Pearson's nonfiction about her dead husband and single-parent child-raising (One on the Seesaw, 1988), a pleasant enough jam-smeared cràpe suzette for beleaguered moms. Divorced Alison Andrews lives next to Martha Harris, Mother of the Year and a former beauty queen, whose children have planted 16 rosebushes for her on various Mother's Days. Totally devoted to her children, Martha seems never to be forgotten by them. Alison, on the other hand—with only skimpy morning glories around her house- -has two teenagers who never remember her for anything and from whom kind words come like pulled molars. They never clean up, and they commit misdemeanors beyond number. Indicative of his attitude, her son Jamie says that he knows ``why God sends babies to mothers.'' ``Why?'' ``Because if they didn't go to mothers they would land on the sidewalk and go splat! They need something soft to land on.'' On the day before Mother's Day this year, Alison boils over when she overhears her two kids being bribed to attend their school's Mother's Day pageant. She decides to take half of the Disneyland money she's saved up and run away from home. She goes only as far as the nearby Delphi Hotel, however, where she plans to spend the whole Mother's Day weekend, beyond reach of her kids, and have room service galore. And so she does. But her children, while they may seem impossible, aren't dumb. They track her down, though all their begging can't get her to return home- -until they spill the bad news about Mrs. Harris, which galvanizes Alison into action. An amusing, affectionate, if somewhat rosily superficial portrait of motherhood. Call it a Hallmark Novel. Read full book review >