Twas the Night by Sandra Hill, Kate Holmes and Trish Jensen

It takes someone special to plan a wedding in Maine during winter and expect people to just come, but George is just that someone special to three best friends - and orphans - Sam, JD and Stan. Growing up, it was George who got them out of many a tight spot and became their father figure.

But when Sam Merrick's plane out of Philly gets grounded due to a snowstorm, he's forced to join the Santa Brigade - a group of senior citizens dressed up as Santa on a mission to spreed cheer to homeless shelters up and down the Northeast - since their bus is pretty much the only vehicle that seems to be able to make it to Maine by Christmas. First unenthusiastic, Sam quickly warms to the idea of joining the Brigade when he learns that his former girlfriend, Reba, is with them.

JD - a.k.a Kevin Wilder- is a former cop turned bounty hunter, who's on a quest to capture Callie Brandt, but with snow falling hard all over the northeast, JD quickly discovers that the only way to get her to a police station is to take her into the Satan Brigade bus with him. Only that then he starts to get to know her... and like her.

Stan -a former NFL start quarterback - was picking up park ranger Dana Freeman as a favor to George, but snow caught up with them too and they joined the Santa Brigade as well, as something blossomed between them.

I was surprised at the way this anthology was written, all three stories were so deeply interwoven that the authors, rather than separating them, told them in alternating chapters, each from one of the men's perspective; so it reads like one single story even though its written by three authors, and each one of the men has it's own voice but the story flows seamlessly. I liked it.

The story was funny and sexy and the characters felt very real, it was a lovely contemporary story aside from being a lovely christmasy read.

I think I liked Sam's story the most, maybe because he was the first one of the three friends that I met, maybe because I liked Reba the most as well, but over all, it was so nice to read this story on Christmas morning, cozied up in bed and nursing a cold - even with the general sickly feeling I had, 'Twas the Night cheered me right up.