cover image The Twilight Before Christmas

The Twilight Before Christmas

Christine Feehan. Pocket Star Books, $7.99 (293pp) ISBN 978-0-7434-7628-7

Set in a homey American small town, where the annual community Christmas pageant is the highlight of the year, The Twilight Before Christmas treads ground that may feel unfamiliar at first to fans of Christine Feehan's gothic Dark series (Dark Melody, etc.). But things are not always what they appear. In the hands of this imaginative author, something as harmless as a spell of bad weather-specifically, fog in a village that never has fog-rapidly develops into an evil entity that uses Christmas decorations as deadly weapons to prevent said pageant. It's up to Kate Drake and her six sisters (witches all) to save the festivities and the town, with the help of ex-Army Ranger Matt Granite and a few other heroic hunks. As is typical of Feehan's novels, dark suspense and sensual romance co-exist here in unlikely but perfect harmony.