Call Me Mrs. Miracle by Debbie Macomber was a rapid read about overworked and underappreciated Holly Larson, who tries to give her nephew Gabe a happy Christmas. Holly has custody of Gabe while his father is serving in Afghanistan. To make matters even lonelier, Holly’s parents are doing charitable medical work in Haiti over the holidays. Nothing would make Christmas merrier for Gabe than giving him the one toy he wants over all others: an expensive robot that is the latest rage for kids that year. The only hitch: it costs $250 and Holly cannot afford it.
As luck would have it, Holly meets a charming young man named Jake Finley, whom she does not realize at first is part of the small family dynasty that runs Finley’s department store in New York City. Only after they have started to date a while does she ask him–and she does so with trembling insecurity–if he could put aside one such robot to ensure her nephew would have one for Christmas. Holly is fiercely independent when it comes to providing for Gabe and will not allow Jake to give a robot to her, as she insists on paying for it herself.
Holly works for a fashion designer who exploits her and singles her out as the only employee at the company who will not get a Christmas bonus. So not only is Holly overworked and underappreciated, she is also underpaid. Holly is despondent, as she was hoping on using that bonus to help pay for Gabe’s robot.
And who should come to the rescue but Mrs. Miracle. Hired as seasonal help in Finley’s toy department, Mrs. Miracle works wonders with the customers and is adored by the children, who see her as a grandmother figure. She shifts the merchandise and makes the accountants proud. She has the psychic awareness to nudge things along a bit to ensure people find the path to happiness.
Drama ensues at the end of the novel as the robot previously set aside for Holly suddenly disappears from the department store. No robots are available anywhere in the tristate area on Christmas Eve night. To make matters worse, store employees report that none other than Mrs. Miracle sold the robot to another customer. Why would she do such a thing? What will Holly do now?
This novel had Christmas content throughout, and the festive season wasn’t relegated to the final chapters as in some of her novels. Yet all Macomber novels have predictable happy endings and although I could see it coming, the fate of the missing robot was never a mystery (yet stop reading right now if you don’t want to know the spoiler): Gabe’s father Mickey returned from Afghanistan on Christmas Eve, and brought the robot that Mrs. Miracle had sold to him.