All Is Calm, All Is Bright by Colleen Coble

I absolutely adore Christmas books, but I'm coming to realize that I really only love the fluffier books centered around warm love stories and not books with so much murder and danger set during such a happy and magical time of year.

I really liked the setting in All Is Calm: a dude ranch that provides a sort of therapy program for child victims of abuse by matching them up with horses that were also victims of abuse. That's powerful, and tugs at my heartstrings. But that was really my favorite part of the story. I didn't enjoy the villain's story, and I felt that the romance was a bit hard to believe. It moved so fast. I understand that that has to happen with novellas, but I wasn't able to convince myself that this "relationship" would last.

All Is Bright was better for me, but also lacked the fluff that I crave from Christmas books. There are some scary events that were hard for me to read about. I did really like Delilah and reading about her helping plan her friend's wedding and I thought the romance she had with Tom was really sweet.

Always a treat to read a Collen Coble story. All is Calm All is Bright was fantastic. It was filled with mystery and romance.? Thank you for this book.

This Christmas mystery collection takes readers back to two of Coble’s famous locations — Bluebird Ranch and Tidewater Inn. The first story is decent, but as with many novellas, the pacing is extremely fast and the love story develops incredibly quickly. The second has the gothic feel and gripping story that Coble is known for creating. It is definitely the stronger of the two.
In “All is Calm,” Lauren Everman has come to Bluebird Ranch, a place where she found solace as a foster child, to help train horses and escape from someone who wishes her harm. Special Ops Marine Brendan Waddell comes to the ranch to recover from injuries. He recognizes Lauren as a wanted fugitive, and when she claims innocence, he is determined to discover the truth before someone gets away with murder. In “All is Bright,” Delilah Carter is run off the road and left for dead. Sheriff Tom Bourne sets out to find out who wants to harm Delilah. As her stalker gets more and more brazen, she and Tom must find a way to stop him.

I enjoyed reading this set this past Christmas time. I liked the mysteries, romances, and characters.

Hope at heart at Christmas - and a bit of mystery&murder.

"All Is Calm"
Lauren Everman is on a run - well, not really, but the accusations about her of leaving somebody to attack a prized racing horse are quite harsh. Brendan Waddell is a Marine visiting his old friend who is running a ranch as a kind of help center for the foster kids. Finding a pretty horse trainer might be a nice surprise - if he wouldn´t think that Lauren is hiding something. He starts to investigate to help his friends Rick and Allie to be protected from the intriguing stranger, but his motives shifts soon as Lauren is obviously innocent...and all he ever wanted.

"All Is Bright"
Delilah Carter has always been helping and caring for others - but this also might be her cover from the hurting world and safe routine to avoid of being cared for. Sheriff Tom Bourne is too shy to ask a pretty woman out.
But this might change when somebody tries to kill Delilah.

2 romantic stories connected by the Christmas peace and the love coming off under the danger.
Colleen Coble can use reven the limited format of novelette to bring some interesting emotions, conflicts and situations out and can even call us out of going into hiding and routine as the oppposite of bravely loving and fighting.
Unfortunately the tiny form of novelette doesn´t give her space enough to play the mind of the enemies. But she still can write an attractive hero and sensitive yet brave heroine!

Enjoyable read -- always look forward to this author's works!

These novellas were just okay. I liked the second one better than the first, but neither were all that gripping. I feel like maybe if I was caught up in the two series I would have liked them better. The teaser for the third book in Hope Beach, Seagrass Pier, was so good and actually makes me eager to continue that story -- so I added it to my wishlist. ;)

All in all, I wish I would have liked this book more than I did, but it wasn't terrible.

*I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley for my honest review