Sunday, December 12, 2010

Mrs. Miracle by Debbie Macomber

Seth Webster lost his wife in a car accident four years ago and he still is mourning her loss and trying to cope. After his wife's death, their young twin boys went to live with their grandparents but have recently returned to living with him and he is in way over his head. Trying to work full time, raise spunky 6-year-old twins and manage a house has left him feeling overwhelmed and multiple housekeepers have come and gone leaving him on his own.

Finally, Mrs. Emily Merkle arrives on his doorstep and sets the house to order, takes care of everything that is out of control and the boys absolutely adore her. The twins have trouble pronouncing her name and it comes out "Mrs. Miracle" which sticks and everyone around town begins calling her that. She seems to know everyone and everything and has her hand on what needs to be done in the Webster household as well as with other families in town.

The romantic love interest is Reba who is suffering from her own loss of a broken engagement and estrangement from her sister and family. Seth has seen her from afar but never gathered the courage to ask her out.  Events bring them together when Reba is suddenly in charge of the children's Christmas pageant, his twins are part of the pageant.  

Meanwhile Seth's in-laws, Jerry and Sharon, are having their own problems as their marriage is breaking apart as neither one can figure out how to get along or what they really want.   Sharon leaves Jerry when he forbids her from visiting the twins for Christmas.  Since she leaves all her medications behind he decides to bring it to her and hopefully resolve their issues.

Everybody's hanging on to old hurts and missing out on joys of Christmas because of it, but Mrs. Miracle will help them clean up the mess they've made of their lives.

Nice clean romantic Christmas story.  Mrs. Miracle is a modern day version of Mary Poppins.  There are some other subplots that bring the story along very nicely.  Even a few recipes included in the book and I did enjoy the quotes from Mrs. Miracle.  Good weekend on the plane reading.  This was made into a TV movie on Hallmark channel by the same name.