Heaven and Nature Sing by Carolyn Miller
4 stars

This was a charming Christmas tale. The leads were delightful, which made it easy to cheer for them through their miscommunications. Creativity was well put to play with the fun party games. My heart even jumped into my throat at one moment of trepidation that beautifully suited the plot. This story was a great way to celebrate the Christmas season.

Content: gambling, alcohol

Far as the Curse Is Found by Amanda Barratt
1 star

This novella was a complete miss for me. The opening scene made me so uncomfortable that I merely skimmed it in hopes that the next would be better. I didn’t connect well with the characters or plot until partway through chapter four. Even then, the story never really grabbed me. I was really disappointed that the main girl chose to fall in love with a man right after he admitted to being an atheist. As a Christian, she should have been on her guard against loving him romantically, as she would be unequally yoked were she to marry him while he remained unsaved—and there was no guarantee at that moment that he would change the status of his faith.

Content: bar, alcohol, tobacco, skimpy clothing, profanity, barmaids, expletive phrases, prostitutes, Greek mythology

Wonders of His Love by Erica Vetsch
2 stars

This story was hard to rate, because there were things I adored about it but also things that irked me. Mostly, the irksome bits revolved around an overbearing mother-in-law—a trope I love writing but struggle to enjoy reading if there are very few redeeming qualities in the overbearing woman. The high points were definitely the Scotsman artist, his gorgeous paintings, and the leading lady, who was a doormat learning to break free. I wish her daughter had been more than a backdrop piece, but one cannot have everything in a novella, I suppose.

Content: none

What more can a reader ask for then a Christmas collection set in regency time written by three amazing authors? The answer is nothing. Joy the the World is the perfect set of stories to get you thinking all things Christmas.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. I was not required to write a favorable review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I know it's not Christmas, but sometimes it just feels good to settle in with a Christmas tale or three. Joy to the World is a set of three Regency Christmas stories about three unlikely couples. These are sweet tales that are just right for a cozy day of reading. So brew up some tea and grab a few scones, then settle back to enjoy your day.

I was given a copy of this book by NetGalley with no expectations. All thoughts are my own.

collection of Regency romance novellas. Each novella is short enough to be read in an evening and long enough to feel complete. I'd be hard pressed to pick a favorite because I loved all of them, but if I had to pick, I think Erica Vetsch's Wonders of His Love would get the edge because I loved watching Cilla Haverly come into her own, and who doesn't love a Scottish hero? (Of the three novellas, this one most clearly connects to the author's previous work, but it's written in a way that doesn't require you to have read The Lost Lieutenant or The Gentleman Spy.) I also adored Far as the Curse is Found, which had some delightful Beauty and the Beast references. It was my first Amanda Barratt story, but it won't be my last! And I found Carolyn Miller's Heaven and Nature Sing to be a delightful second chance at romance story.

This collection is just perfect for your Christmas reading (though I'd be willing to read it at any point in the year!)--I highly recommend it!

3 interesting Regency novellas from 3 talented authors set at Christmas time. Enjoyed reading this over the holidays and will plan on reading it again next Christmas!

This may very well be the very best collection of Regency Christmas themed stories that I’ve read to date. The story,ines absolutely sparkle, and I loved the characters in each story. The settings and dialogue are each suited to the time period. The extra details in the stories fired my imagination of being at a ball or in a beautiful Regency setting. But most of all, I loved the theme of faith that’s present in every book. These are wonderful stories by extremely talented authors. I am so glad to have this book in my collection to reread every Christmas season.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher. All opinions are my own.

This Christmas Story collection was delightful - truly one of the best I have had the joy of reading to date.

I requested it because I saw Amanda Barratt was a featured author in it and I absolutely love her writing. As always, her story was fabulous!
I was impressed by Carolyn Miller and Erica Versch's stories, as well. I will be definitely checking out more of their work in the future due to their wonderful stories in this collection.

If you like historical fiction and are looking for books to add to your Christmas 2021 reading list - I definitely recommend this one and encourage you to purchase your copy today!

***Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the digital ARC of this book. All views and opinions expressed in this review are my own.***

Very good set of short novels. Warm and cozy with a touch of troubling problems that need solved, people finding each other and some HEA.

I received an advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Independent Publisher’s Group, Kregel Productions for kindly providing me with a digital copy of this book for review.
This is 3 regency novellas set at Christmas time, by 3 different authors, and all being faith based.
I have to be honest, I was not familiar with any of the authors, so this was a good opportunity to discover 3 new writers in this genre.
I did enjoy all 3 stories but I think I ultimately preferred the first one as I felt that that one was the most Christmassy and I found I could picture the characters and setting much more easily with that story. The second story does get a honourable mention for its emotional content though- this one was a story to pull at the heart strings.
Although these are Christmas based stories, I still think they would be fine to read in into the cold months of January and February to help warm up the cockles of your heart. Quite a nice little discovery in my part.

These stories were so sweet, and the perfect read to get me in the Christmas mood! But really, this would be a perfect any-time-of-winter read, as the Christmas element was focused more as a time to bring people together and allow joy to rule in their lives. My favorite was the third story. The characters were just so well done and fleshed our for a novella.

FTC Discloure: I received a free ebook from NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Joy to the World
A Regency Christmas Collection
by Carolyn Miller, Amanda Barratt, Erica Vetsch
Independent Publishers Group
Kregel Publications
Christian
Pub Date 13 Oct 2020


I am reviewing a copy of Joy to the World: A Regency Christmas Collection through Netgalley:




This book offers three different heartwarming regency Christmas stories by three well known and loved authors Carolyn Miller, Amanda Barrett, and Erica Vetsch.




In the first story Heaven and Nature Sing, Carolyn Miller weaves a story of two music lovers, who are deeply devoted to one another, they were on the brink of getting engaged when family circumstances pulled them apart. How will they ever overcome their obligations and fears to find their way back into each other's arms?




The Second Story is Far As the Curse Is Found by Amana Barrett tells the story of a woman who is struggling to provide for her illegitimate child on the streets of London. One night she encounters a scarred veteran of the Napoleonic Wars on the streets of London. Can their love conqueror their broken pasts.





In the final story Wonders of His Love by Erica Vetsch we are introduced who a Scots painter who has a hidden identity finds work at a noble manor house over the holidays. He could never imagined he would fall in love with a widow there, a widow who is normally frozen to everyone. But now he desires nothing more than to thaw her frozen heart.




I give Joy to the World five out of Five Stars!


Happy Reading!

This is one of the best, if not the best, Christmas collections I have read.

One thing I enjoyed was that I have read all of Carolyn’s books and I have read Erica’s current series so I got read about or see again characters from the other books. That was especially true of “Wonders of His Love”.

Each story is well done and didn’t feel rushed at all.

Whether you are looking to extend the Christmas “feels” or looking for a book for next year I highly recommend this one.

Grab your copy at your local bookstore, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Christianbook.com or your favorite retailer.

A copy of this book was given to me through Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Joy to the World contains three novellas from three different authors, each in the genre of Regency romance, perfect for the Christmas season. My overall rating for the book is an average of my ratings for each story, shown below. Below the ratings are brief (as much as possible) reviews for each book.

“Heaven and Nature Sing” by Carolyn Miller – 2 / 5
“Far as the Curse Is Found” by Amanda Barratt – 5 / 5
“Wonders of His Love” by Erica Vetsch – 5 / 5

“Heaven and Nature Sing” is the tale of 2 people who were close to engagement a year past, but are now estranged and are thrust together during the holidays, which certainly allows for a romance to develop in a short time period. There’s history there. But strangely, the only way the author seemed to be able to inject romance was related to kissing. Everything was about finding ways to put them under a kissing ball (mistletoe) or thrust them into some other awkward situation with physical closeness, before they’d even had a chance to try to work out their issues from the past.

Other things happened that made me dislike the characters or made me scratch my head, like Edith (female lead) allowing the other young adults to set George (male lead) up to mock propose to her, and then Edith actually blaming George for the situation! She also spends at least half of the story thinking about George and then mentally berating herself for doing that…and then she gets angry at him for saving her from a falling tree branch. I also noted a bit of dialog in which George asks Edith if she wants him to “kiss it better” in a story filled with flowery, old-fashioned language both in the dialog and surrounding it. Sadly, this story did not go over well with me.

“Far as the Curse is Found” is the tale of two very broken people, albeit in different ways, who help each other out of the darkness. The connection between them is fast, but not in an unbelievable way. I think that Jenny’s background and brokenness are dealt with less than Dwight’s, and if the story had been longer, I would have liked to see more of how she had to overcome the trauma she’d gone through. It’s not treated frivolously, though, and she’s shown to be a strong character throughout.

Dwight undergoes the largest transformation, and I really like him every step of the way. Again, things may be a bit too quick, but it was explored well in the space the author had. The curse angle is a really nice glue for the story and ties into the story’s title and the book’s theme very well. Other reviewers have compared this story to Beauty and the Beast, which I can’t comment on, never having seen any version of it, but I can see some possible allusions. That aside, in case it’s not obvious, I loved this story!

“Wonders of His Love” is the tale of a Scottish portrait painter trying to make a name for himself in England and the picture-perfect young widow that feels as displaced as he does. Cilla had married the future Duke of Haverly, who then died before he inherited the title. She’s left in limbo, having practically become a servant to her very demanding and prissy mother-in-law. She reminds me a lot of me–defaulting to the a spot in the background, wondering if this will be her entire life. Even when she starts to make strides forward, she still falls back on old, “easy” habits. If the story had been novel-length, there would have been a lot more room to explore that, I think, but on the other hand, it might have started to get tiring, too.

Hamish is a different kind of character than I’ve read in this genre in the past (not that I have a very long history reading Regency romance), and I really liked that. I liked him in a lot of different ways, including the fact that the author didn’t dwell so much on him being tall and ridiculously handsome as every romantic hero seems to be. His talent and compulsion for sketching scenes, coupled with his ability to bring out the truth of a subject, were all really interesting facets to his character. That’s a lot of why I would have loved to see a particular sketch Hamish had made come to fruition, and I’m not sure if the author simply ran out of space or forgot about it.

This third story was my favorite of the three by a very slim margin. I’ll admit right now, though, that what pushed it over the top was most likely the inclusion of characters from two of Erica Vetsch’s other novels. As soon as I realized who the female lead in this story was, I was so excited. And sure enough, both the Haverlys from The Gentleman Spy and the Whitelocks from The Lost Lieutenant were in the story (the Haverlys moreso, which makes sense, given that Cilla is the duke’s sister-in-law). Both of these books I read just recently and loved, but if you haven’t read them, don’t let that put you off from reading this story. You don’t need to know their stories to still follow and enjoy this novella.

Final thoughts on the whole book: Overall, it’s a wonderful collection of Christmas-related Regency romance stories. I do think plenty of others will like the first story, based on large differences in personal preferences, and I recommend the entire book to fans of the genres mentioned above, or even those looking for good Christian romance in general. I have a feeling I’ll re-read this during a future Christmas season and will even give the first story another chance.

Anyone who knows me well knows that if there is anything that I enjoy as much as reading... it's Christmas! The traditions, the spirit of the season and the joyous music. To be honest, I love Christmas music so much that I could listen to it all year long! Naturally when I saw Joy To The World, I knew I had to add it to my TBR this holiday season.

Joy To the World is a collection of three novellas by different authors, with all stories named for a line in the beloved classic song of the same name. With my love of holiday music, I thought this concept was fantastic. Each story is unrelated, but all are Regency themed stories. You can read one, all and in any order... but you'll definitely want to read them all. In fact, you might just find yourself dreaming of a good ol' fashioned Christmas. I know I certainly was. I found it so intriguing to see how the holidays were celebrated in those times. Each story portrayed it so beautifully with tradition and romance that I thoroughly enjoyed.

One of the thing that I particularly love about holiday novellas is that I find their length to be ideal for this time of year. They are shorter and can better be fit into our busy holiday schedules. These particular stories really were a nice holiday escape I thought. And while some novellas can feel a bit rushed or unfinished, I did not feel that was the case at all here. They seemed to be complete and thoroughly developed stories, just shorter.

If you enjoy Regency romances and are looking for your next great holiday read, this is definitely one to check out.

**I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley for consideration. All thoughts are my own.

★★★★★

Who doesn't love a good Christmas romance? I do, if it's clean, if it's original, if it's creative, if it's not just another cookie cutter story. Carolyn Miller, Amanda Barratt, and Erica Vetsch teamed up to give us a collection of three Regency Christmas romances that just immersed me in the Christmas season. I always love the details that different authors include about the times. I also love happy endings. Most of all, I love novels and novellas that I could hand to my daughter without any worries. These were God honoring stories that showed the power of love and the power of a little gentle nudging from perceptive friends and family. ~smile~

Buy the ebook now, and you'll have time to read all three stories before Christmas time is over!

God bless you all, and enjoy every moment of this season and this year. God is good all the time no matter our circumstances. Just keep praying! God is faithful.

Christmas blessings,
Laura

I give this book five stars.
★★★★★

I received access to this ebook from Netgalley for review purposes.

Joy to the World

I really enjoyed these three stories set the regency era. Each author has created a compelling Christmas and family oriented stories. I love the singing of Christmas carols that includes Joy to the World in different settings. Every story tells the tale on how two people meeting in unexpected circumstances and how they overcome the obstacles. The main characters are likeable and engaging. It was nice to get reacquainted with Marcus and Evan from Ms. Vetsch's other books. It's a three in one book and it's a book that I can reread every Christmas season. 5 stars

Thank you #netgalley and the publisher for the complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.

To be quite honest, I’m not usually a fan of novellas. I guess I don’t feel like they are complete or that characters have a chance to be fleshed out. It feels like the difference between watching a movie and a 30-minute TV show.

So I was prepared to like this book, but perhaps not love it. Well, Joy to the World had me sit up and take notice. It was good. It felt complete. And I’ve now had to change my opinion regarding novellas.

Rather than describe each story, since you can find that information above, I’m going to focus on sharing a non-lover-of novellas thoughts. Though I favored the second and third stories, they were all good. They were unique and each story will easily manage to stay with me, where others sometimes tend to fade with time.

These authors were able to fully develop characters and take us into a story that was extremely hard to set aside. Though I haven’t had the opportunity to read any of their previous books, it quickly became obvious that each is very skilled at their art.

It’s the perfect collection for Regency fans.

What Concerned Me
Nothing comes to mind.

What I Liked Best
As I mentioned earlier, the stories were well developed and easily captured my interest. I would highly recommend this as a gift to yourself, or as a gift for a lucky friend or two.

My thanks to Kregel Publications for a copy of this book. This has not influenced the content of my review, which is my honest and unbiased opinion.

Joy to the World is a book containing three stories focused on the Christmas season in Regency England. These novellas are each a quick read that will help you prepare for the holiday!

The first tale is Heaven and Nature Sing written by Carolyn Miller. When Edith Mansfield is invited to attend her godmother's Christmas gathering, she has no idea that George Bannerman (her former fiancee) will be there, as well. Will Edith finally have an opportunity to be honest with George about why she broke off their engagement?

The next tale is Far as the Curse is Found, by Amanda Barratt. Dwight Inglewood, Earl of Amberly, has returned from war a severely wounded man. To protect himself from the rejection of the world, he has generally kept to himself at his country estate. When he goes to London to prepare his townhouse for sale, as he walks the dark streets, he meets Jenny Grey. When Jenny suddenly loses her job, Dwight offers her work on his estate in an effort to save both Jenny and your young daughter from a life of poverty. In the end, Jenny is not only saved from destitution, but she has the opportunity to point Dwight in the direction of our amazing God as a means to bring new life to the deadness of his world!

The final tale is The Wonders of His Love, by Erica Vetsch. After Lady Priscilla Haverly's mother-in-law injures her ankle, Cilla decides to throw a Christmas party to help raise everyone's spirits. When a painter is brought in to create portraits as gifts, you will not believe what happens at this festive event!

Title: Joy to the World: A Regency Christmas Collection
Author: Carolyn Miller, Amanda Barratt, Erica Vetsch

Pg: 336

Genre: Christmas, Christian Historical fiction, Christian Historical Romance

Rating: 4 stars

Publisher: Kregel Publications



Joy to the world is a Christmas Novella collection set in the Regency period. Which is a time period that outside of Jane Austen I don’t really read. But I did enjoy this one. And while I liked Heaven and Nature Sing by Carolyn Miller and Wonders of His Love by Erica Vetsch. My favorite was Far as the Curse is Found by Amanda Barratt which gave me Beauty and the Beast with faith feels. All in All this was a sweet Christmas novella.



I received a copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. All opinions expressed are mine alone.

What a wonderful collection of Regency romances to get you in the mood for Chtistmas! Each is based on a verse from the classic Christmas carol, Joy to the World (hence the title). The stories are clean, yet passionate, and leave you wishing each was the first in a series of full-length novels- the characters are THAT memorable.

In "Heaven and Nature Sing," a pushy godmother brings George and Edith back together at a Christmas house party a year after their engagement is broken. I got a bit impatient with these two, wondering if they'd ever put their cards on the table and face the family pride that kept them apart. "Nature," indoors and out, helps on that point.

"Far as the Curse is Found" is simply the BEST retelling of Beauty and the Beast ever! The Earl of Amberley is a wounded war hero who wears outward scars from the Battle of Waterloo. He soon discovers the fragile yet determined Jenny Grey is wounded, too "Though the scars she carried might be less visible than his own, they were in no less need of gentleness and healing." SIGH. He offers her employment and protection; she eventually counters with friendship and faith. Neither of them expected the consequences of this Christmas together. I was in tears before I finished the last page!

"Wonders of His Love" examines how far you will go to stand up for your dreams. Lady Cilla has been told what to do and who to be her whole life. Now a young widow, her bossy mother-in-law, the Dowager Duchess of Haverly, has taken it upon herself to plan out the rest of her life. But she made one mistake - the Christmas at the center of this story involves her gift of portraits for the new heir of Haverly, and this requires an artist...a talented one who sees beneath Cilla's proper exterior and across the chasm of social standing that divides them. I'll be hearing Hamish's Scots brogue for weeks! This beautiful story is so perfectly paced and layered that I actually forgot I was READING, and the epilogue is simply perfect.

What a totally lovely book. I will be following each of these authors diligently from now on! I received a complimentary copy from Netgalley and was not required to post a review.