They say you can't get enough of a good thing, and if a Christmas story is good it should be worth reading all year round. Five seasonal tales in this collection make a great opportunity to sample these authors now the rush of Christmas has gone. The weather outside is still frightful, so relax with a book!

DREAM A LITTLE DREAM by Jill Shalvis: Ian's a firefighter - when Christmas lights overload faulty circuits in an apartment building, the girl of his dreams is trapped inside the burning edifice. She's smart enough to help herself survive, but can't get out. Can Ian rescue Mel, and persuade her to give him another chance?

EVERY YEAR by Kristen Ashley: Tabby and her fine man Ty are having a Christmas with her family in Montana, snow and all. Sometimes the greatest adventure is giving someone you love a good Christmas, especially if they've never had one. Who knows what he'll give you in return?

SILENT NIGHT by Hope Ramsay: Mayanne's car dies near Last Chance, South Carolina, with a snow front moving in fast. Walking with her three-month old son Joshua in her arms, she just hopes her cousin Jennifer will open the door to her. She hadn't the nerve to phone ahead. She holes up in the wrong barn and single man Daniel finds her when he returns from picking up his groceries for a lonely Christmas dinner. Lucky for her he doesn't shoot trespassers on sight.... This my favourite tale.

HAVE YOURSELF A MESSY LITTLE CHRISTMAS by Molly Cannon describes what happens when a professional organiser is the family's present for the most cluttered single man in town!

A FAMILY FOR CHRISTMAS by Marilyn Pappano brings a new paediatric doctor to Oklahoma, where he meets a young war widow bringing up her son with the community's help.

What I was not too keen on was that each story is followed by an excerpt from a book, so that the stories are relatively short and some readers will already have the books. Of course, this could prompt some to explore more by these ladies, and they each have a fine body of work by now.