The Noel Stranger by Richard Paul Evans

Title: The Noel Stranger

Author: Richard Paul Evans

Read by:  Erin Mallon

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Length: Approximately 6 hours and 7 minutes

Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster.  Thank-you!

It’s not Christmas without Richard Paul Evans’s latest Christmas tale.  The Noel Stranger is excerpts from Maggie Walther’s Diary that tell a story of a woman who has her life shattered and her attempt to pick up the pieces.  Maggie owns a successful catering company and helps her politician husband entertain with style.  Her world is devastated when it is discovered that her husband Clive is a bigamist and he has another wife in Colorado. 

Maggie doesn’t know how to get out of her slump, but her best friend helps her to get out of the house and moving again.  She goes to get a Christmas tree and is immediately smitten by the owner of the Christmas tree lot, Andrew.  Maggie and Andrew go on a date and he asks her to accompany him for Thanksgiving to Mexico for vacation at a friend’s Condo.  Maggie says yes, and they are off on the adventure of a lifetime.  When Maggie discovers that Andrew has secrets from his past, will their relationship survive?

My stranger danger senses went off for this book.  I found it unbelievable that Maggie would leave the country with a virtual stranger.  It also seemed unbelievable that the stranger would be okay with separate bedrooms but would spend a great deal of money on you. It read like the fantasy someone would have where a rich stranger would show up and pay for the adventure of a lifetime, but it wasn’t very realistic.

That being said, I did enjoy listening to the book until the end.  Maggie became clingy and needy, and I didn’t understand her motivations.  She deserved better. I didn’t feel the love between Maggie and Andrew, and it seemed to me like Maggie was getting herself into another bad situation. The ending of the book really ruined this story for me.  I can’t say more without ruining the book!

Erin Mallon is a fine narrator, but she does have a strange inflection at the end of sentences that bothers me.  I feel rather petty saying that, but I do want to be honest about how I felt while listening to the audiobook.

Overall, I’ve enjoyed Richard Paul Evans other books in the Noel series, but I would skip The Noel Stranger and read his previous works if I had to do it over again.