STARRY NIGHT.

STARRY NIGHT by DEBBIE MACOMBER.

'Tis the season for love and second chances ...

Carrie Slayton, a big-city society-page columnist, longs to write more serious news stories. So her editor hands her a challenge first: Carrie must score the paper an interview with Finn Dalton, the notoriously reclusive author.

Living in Alaskan wilderness, Finn has written a bestselling book about surviving in the wild. But he stubbornly declines to speak to anyone, and no one even knows exactly where he lives. With her career at stake, Carrie sacrifices her family celebrations and flies out to snowy Alaska. When she finally finds Finn, she discovers a man both more charismatic and more stubborn than she expected. And soon Carrie is torn between pursuing the story of a lifetime and following her heart.

- Back Cover Blurb

Carrie Slayton's feet were killing her.

- First Sentence; Chapter 1

Joan reverently ran her hand down the piece, and then raised her eyes to Carrie's. "My son gave you this for Christmas?"

"Yes. What can you tell me about it?"

Joan nodded. "It's an oosik."

"Which is?" This wasn't helping.

"It's a walrus penis bone."

Carrie gasped. "A what?"

- Memorable Moment; Page 225

SOURCE ... A charity shop buy.

READ FOR A CHALLENGE? ... Late in signing up this year and unable to even begin to estimate what level I'll be able to attain I'm never the less participating in this year's Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge details of which can be found here.

MY THOUGHTS ... I have heard of people hiding what they are actually reading in the covers of the book they feel they should be reading (remember stories of all those adults hiding their copy of Harry Potter amongst the pages of a newspaper?). 

Not that I went as far as to do this with Starry Night but its so far from my usual type of read and so, well,  slushy that I may well have considered it if I was reading it anywhere other than in the privacy of my own four walls.

I am of course joking but seriously ...

• the slushy romance
• the reliance on sentimental clichés
• my finding the reclusive hero of the story, Finn, a bit too possessive of 'his woman' for my liking 
• that at 245 pages more of a novella, I thought the story (especially  the ending) too rushed 
• a common gripe of mine when it comes down to books being marketed as 'Christmas reads', this wasn't exactly Christmassy though its settings  certainly lent itself to a winter read perfect for this time of year
• the writing, err, put it this way if I hadn't have known any better I'd have thought this the attempt of a school girl

All of these things aside though I really rather liked this book's cheesiness, that the romance was chaste; that we got to learn of the falling in love from two perspectives, both of them quite different, ... that it featured a dog that came to no harm.