A Movie Magic Christmas

McKenna returns to small town St. Nicholas, Colo. (after Colorado Christmas Magic) for this lackluster holiday romance. Hollywood starlet Catalina Jones was betrayed and abandoned by her high-profile ex, leading her to create a notorious Ice Queen persona as a defense mechanism. Now she takes a role in a Christmas movie based on St. Nicholas’s famed Scrooge Legend, which states that a person’s faith will be renewed and their wishes granted if they place a letter in the town’s Santa mailbox—and she sets out to disprove the claim by wishing for her soul mate. Of course, soon thereafter she’s reunited with her former best friend Jay Townsend, who, eager to reconnect, takes a job as the film’s still photographer. Jay doesn’t buy Catalina’s Ice Queen act and sets out to thaw her cold demeanor. Their connection is solid and, once they settle a misunderstanding from the past, a convincing love blooms. Unfortunately, the romance is crowded out by myriad unnecessary subplots, including one about the director requiring constant rewrites to the film, all of which readers are tediously subjected to. Series fans might have patience for the busy plot, but others can safely skip this. (Nov.)