Holiday Book Review: "Angels at the Table"

"Angels at the Table" by Debbie Macomber
First published in 2012
My rating: 4 out of 5
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"Angels at the Table" is a cute little Christmas tale featuring Debbie Macomber's signature holiday characters Shirley, Goodness and Mercy, prayer ambassadors from heaven who help answer humans' prayers -- with a little mischief and mayhem mixed in.

Lucie, our main character, is working her rear end off and saving up to open her own Brooklyn restaurant with her mother, and Aren is a newspaper food critic who's just moved to New York. It's New Year's Eve in Times Square and Lucie and Aren both end up alone and miserable, unknowingly standing next to each other at midnight.

Meanwhile, the angels have brought their prayer ambassador apprentice, Will, on a short sojourn to Earth, and he just can't resist sneaking away and working a little magic to bring the two lonely humans together. It's instant attraction and the Lucie and Aren spend most of the early hours talking at a diner, then make plans to meet at the top of the Empire State Building at a certain date and time if they wish to pursue the relationship after having some time to process the whirlwind romance.

Unfortunately, though Lucie and Aren were actually fated to meet eventually, the timing that January is all wrong and the relationship doesn't go anywhere. The angels have bungled things up rather badly through their interference and are tasked with bringing the Lucie and Aren back together at the time they were originally supposed to meet. Of course they can't help but get into some well-intentioned but disastrous mischief along the way and bungle things up all over again.

"Angels at the Table" was a fun, light holiday read that will imbibe you with Christmas spirit and, like most holiday novels, it has a happy ending that will leave you smiling.

Happy reading!