Visions of Sugar Plums: A Stephanie Plum Holiday Novel - Hardcover

Evanovich, Janet

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312306326 ISBN 13: 9780312306328

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2002

Synopsis

It's five days before Christmas and things are not looking merry for Fugitive Apprehension Agent Stephanie Plum. She hasn't got a tree. She hasn't bought any presents. The malls are jam-packed with staggering shoppers. There's not a twinkle light anywhere to be seen in her apartment.

And there's a strange man in her kitchen.

Sure, this has happened to Stephanie Plum before. Strangers, weirdos, felons, creeps, and lunatics are always finding their way to her front door. But this guy is different. This guy is mysterious, sexy-and he has his own agenda. His name is Diesel and he is a man on a mission. And Diesel is unlike anyone Stephanie has ever met before in her life. The question is, what does he want with her? Can he help her find a little old toy maker who has skipped out on his bail right before Christmas? Can he survive the Plum family holiday dinner? Can he get Stephanie a tree that doesn't look like it was grown next to a nuclear power plant? These questions and more are keeping Stephanie awake at night. Not to mention the fact that she needs to find a bunch of nasty elves, her sister Valerie has a Christmas "surprise" for the Plums, her niece Mary Alice doesn't believe in Santa anymore, and Grandma Mazur has a new stud muffin. So bring out the plastic reindeer, strap on your jingle bells, and get ready to celebrate the holidays-Jersey style. Visions of Sugar Plums-the world of Plum has never been merrier!

About this title

About the Author

Janet Evanovich is the author of the Stephanie Plum books, including One for the Money and Sizzling Sixteen, and the Diesel & Tucker series, including Wicked Appetite. Janet studied painting at Douglass College, but that art form never quite fit, and she soon moved on to writing stories. She didn't have instant success: she collected a big box of rejection letters. As she puts it, "When the box was full I burned the whole damn thing, crammed myself into pantyhose and went to work for a temp agency." But after a few months of secretarial work, she managed to sell her first novel for $2,000. She immediately quit her job and started working full-time as a writer. After 12 romance novels, she switched to mystery, and created Stephanie Plum. The rest is history. Janet's favorite exercise is shopping, and her drug of choice is Cheeze Doodles. She and her husband live in New Hampshire, in house with a view of the Connecticut River Valley.

Reviews

A sugar plum for Christmas, indeed! Stephanie Plum, Evanovich's delightfully zany New Jersey bounty hunter, is the star of this too short but hilarious holiday romp. Grousing about the approaching Yule is something many of us can relate to and wishing for a helpful angel might strike a chord with some. But it takes a special imagination to conjure the handsome, if sort of grungy young stranger, Diesel, who magically pops into Stephanie's kitchen one morning just four days before December 25. Diesel joins Stephanie in her hunt for a bail skipper, Sandy Claws ("It was probably Klaus and got screwed up at Ellis Island"), though in fact he's after another target entirely and Stephanie's skipper is a means to that end. In addition to trying to catch Sandy Claws, Stephanie has to get ready for Christmas-which gives Diesel the opportunity to meet her unconventional family. "I'm always knocked out," he observes, "by the way a family can be at the upper end of dysfunction and insanity and still work so well as a unit." When that family includes a pistol-packing grandma, a niece who thinks she's a palomino and a sister on the verge of crisis, that's quite a statement. Throw in some elves, a mad hunt for a Christmas tree and a few fires and you have a Plum-crazy Christmas classic.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This magical little sweetmeat is clearly a Christmas present from Evanovich to the legions of fans of Stephanie Plum, Trenton bounty hunter. It begins just before Christmas, when a tall, long-haired blond in boots and jeans materializes in Stephanie's kitchen. Really--the door and windows are locked. He says his name is Diesel, and he needs Stephanie's help to find someone. She's looking for someone herself, a toy maker named Sandy Claws who has skipped his court appearance. Crazed elves (really little persons with fake ears), the inevitable blown-up car, and the latest in Grandma Mazur's boyfriends form a counterpoint to Stephanie's incompetence at getting it together for the holidays, her sister Valerie's possible pregnancy by the unfortunately named Albert Kloughn, and a small, boxed gift from Morelli. Through it all, the ingratiating and very pretty Diesel appears and disappears, trying to track someone who may be close to Sandy Claws and hinting that he is not all he seems. If you don't know the characters, you'd be pretty confused, but if you do, you can surrender to the hint of fantasy and the heavenly scent of Christmas cookies from the Plum kitchen. GraceAnne DeCandido
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312306326
• ISBN 13: 9780312306328
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160