The Christmas Heirloom

One heirloom has been passed from generation to generation, from Lady Densby to Maddie Winslow. Lady Densby gave the broach to her companion, Sarah Gooding.  From Sarah the tradition began to hand it down mother to daughter.  After Sarah was given the broach in England, she immigrated to the States.

Move forward a few generations for Ruth Albright to use her broach as collateral for a loan, in order to rent a house for her daughter and her.  When she goes in every week to make a payment to redeem the broach, the owner of her house keeps trying to cancel her debt.

Now it's post World War II, and Fleeta Brady is the county's crack shot who wants to own a gun shop.  When Hank comes to town and beats her in the turkey shoot, he makes a connection with Fleeta.  When Fleeta takes her life savings to buy a gun shop, she's finds out she's been taken by a con-artist. But Hank was taken with her and comes back to see her.  He finds the lukenbooth in the nest of a jay bird that has been making a nuisance of itself.

Maddie Winslow has been paired with her best friend's widower in the Mission: Christmas to help a family in the community have a good Christmas.  She's been in love with this man since she was in high school.  When she finds the luckenbooth, she researches how it came down to her. Her grandmother, Fleeta to find out its history and the legend that goes with it--that the owner of the broach finds love.

The Christmas Heirloom is a great collection of novellas by well-loved authors who ply their craft with quality and attention to detail.  Sometimes these novella collections can become trite or sickeningly sweet, but these four stories are quite realistic and quite intriguing.

I appreciate Bethany House Publishing for providing the galley through NetGalley.com, so that I could read and review this book.  Five Stars, Two Thumbs Up, and an Heirloom Broach to hand down to your daughter.