Moonlight and Mistletoe

The fourth and final installment of Vail's holiday romance series ( My Wicked Valentine ) is a melodramatic twist on A Christmas Carol --and Dickens definitely would not be flattered. Carol, a divorced sculptor with a fiery temper and an obvious reluctance to repeat the mistake of her first marriage, is visited by apparitions of her lovers from Christmases past, present and future. A cleverly contrived explanation for these visitations is the only element of surprise in this energetic but predictable story. The book's abundant sexual humor frequently becomes decidedly lewd, even if not terribly graphic, and turns what evidently was intended as a funny, erotically charged fantasy into a sniggering, smutty joke. (Dec.)