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I love this book. I had a copy but lost it in a house fire, so I had to purchase the book again.

This book has 4 short stories about love. I absolutely love to curl up on a cold day with a hot cup of tea and re-read these stories.

I remember this poem from when I was little. I was really hoping for one in better condition than I received. It had scribbled names all inside and took away from what I may want to read to my child one day

The book is fine but I was disappointed to discover that it was actually a library book. I'm wondering what the deal is and certainly hope that people don't make a habit of selling books if they actually belong to a library.

SASCHA DARLINGTON’S REVIEW

When I started reading Together, an anthology of five novellas by Linda Lael Miller, I had an “ut-oh” moment because the first was a historical and I tend to stay away from most historicals. However, the writing was compelling, so I stuck with it.

Reading romance novellas requires that the reader suspends some of the expectations that they bring to novel reading. Obviously characters can’t be as developed as they are in novels and there is more of a chance of insta-love. Of the five novellas, four were historicals, although one involves time travel (or something like it), and I found that I didn’t really care about the insta-love. In most cases, the two already people knew each other, which kind of quells ragings about insta-love.

What I loved was Miller’s use of swoon. For some reason a lot of romance writers are forgetting the build-up in order to get to the main event, which is kind of sad because in real relationships all of the build-up is very swoon-worthy, the smoldering looks, the flirtation, the kisses…. Anyway, before I go any further into a tangent, Miller’s stories have swoon. If you’re a fan of that, you may love these stories.

I enjoyed all of the novellas with the exception of the last one. Please note, the blurb above is wrong for the last novella in this anthology. It’s called “Switched.” While it does incorporate a cat named Lazarus, very cool cat by the way, it isn’t about sparring families but about a pair of twins who switch lives. “Switched” falls into more of the romantic suspense line and I feel it would have been better as a full-length novel. Unlike the others, it is not historical and the “insta-love” to me felt really unbelievable. As I said, it would have benefited from a longer treatment.

My favorites of the novellas were “That Other Katherine,” which had a time travelish kind of theme and “The Scent of Snow,” about a woman who pretends to be a man’s wife and taking over his plot of land because she thinks he was killed.

These novellas are great to slip in when you have a short amount of time and just want a snack kind of read.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book is a compilation of 5 short stories all by the same author. In order within the book: In All Seasons: This story is of Melissande Bradgate, the daugher of a wealthy shipping merchant, and Christian Lithwell, the second son of an Earl. These two fall in love but tragic events tear them apart. When they are brought back together it takes a lot of time to see if they can be together again. I thought this story was ok but, like the other stories in the novel, I couldn't really get into the story line and characters I couldn't see any development. The Scent of Snow: This story is about Rebecca and her two half-sisters Annabelle and Susan. Rebecca thought her friend Lucas Kiley died but when he shows up after she's told the whole town they had been married so now they have to pretend to be married. I particularly didn't care for this one, it was unrealistic and puritanical. That Other Katherine: This story is about Katherine Hollis, who realizes that she is dying in a hospital in 1991 and after begging to live wakes up in the body of Katherine Winslow in the year 1895 during the midst of childbirth. Her husband Gavin hates her and the whole town knows about her most recent affair. This story was really interesting and I thought it had a lot of potential but then the ending kind of lost me, everything was wrapped up too quickly. Store-Bought Woman: Bess Campbell travels across the country to marry John Tate, only his brother Will is the only one she finds. They basically figure out how to make it work. This one was really cheesy and made me roll my eyes a bit. I didn't particularly like it. Switch: This book weirdly enough is not listed in the description, but anyways this story is about Jamie Roberts, who switches places with her twin sister, Sara, at Sara's request. Unknown to her she's walking into a world of danger. Luckily she finds she can count on Sara's previous lover, Rowan Parrish, to help her out. The concept behind this was weird, the whole Rowan + Sara and then Rowan + Jamie thing. Other than that there were some ok points to the story but I wasn't engaged much at all.