The Magical Christmas Cat is another short fiction anthology by authors Lora Leigh, Erin McCarthy, Nalini Singh, and Linda Winstead Jones. All of them feature some kind of more or less magical cat and Christmas and all are (paranormal) romances.

Again, I’ll go through them one by one.

Stroke of Enticement by Nalini Singh

Annie is a (human) teacher, Zach is the uncle of one of her students and a changeling. When they meet, passion flares. But Annie is determined to only have a fling, while Zach knows that she’s his mate.

It’s a sweet story, featuring characters that were not really in the other Psy-Changeling books. It almost feels like we get “Behind the Scenes” glimpses of the leopard world, as Zach is just a “normal” pack member and not someone higher up in the pack hierarchy. An addictive read, as usual.

Christmas Bree by Erin McCarthy

In Enchanted Season, there was another story featuring the Murphy sisters. This time, we get the story of Bree, the second sister and the one most firmly rooted in her witch-hood, and Ian, a rational lawyer. Although they’re complete opposites, they are almost instantly drawn to each other. Will things work out for them?

I liked that – although there’s no actual Murphy Sisters series, Erin McCarthy revisits them for this anthology. [And next year, I wanna read about Abby, okay? :)] The story is nice and I liked the characters. The cat was really cool.

Sweet Dreams by Linda Winstead Jones

Ruby receives a mysterious little cat figurine on Christmas – from a secret admirer. Her neighbour, sexy Professor Zane, seems to know more about it than he would like her to know. Then the nightmare start for Ruby, of women being offered to some strange cat demon.

I have to say that this story was more horror than romance. I didn’t mind, I like horror stories, but it seemed a little out of place in this anthology. Also, it was surprisingly tame, having no full sex scene. I liked the ending, that [SPOILER] Ruby took care of things herself and didn’t wait to be saved. [/SPOILER]  

Christmas Heat by Lora Leigh

It’s a short story from the Breed Series by Lora Leigh.
Haley is at a party, when she overhears a conversation with some important information for the Breeds. The Breeds are supersoldiers, genetically enhanced by adding animal DNA to theirs [a bit like Dark Angel], who just recently got their freedom and are now trying to build a society.
Anyway, Haley tells Noble – one of the Breeds she knows a little bit – about what she heard and he takes her protection in his own hands, because he knows that she’s his mate.

I haven’t read anything by Lora Leigh and I was a little confused. Not too much that it would have stopped me reading the story, but I’m not entirely sure that I actually got the backstory, meaning what exactly Haley uncovered and what was the doctor’s role?
I thought the biological factors of the Mating thing were a bit icky – there’s this kind of small tentacle that comes out of the guy’s dick when he’s fucking his mate. Errrm… yeah… doesn’t get me going.
It didn’t really convince me. A reason for me to start reading this series would be, if their was much emphasis on the backstory – the society building and so on. But other than that, it didn’t really float my boat.