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Coming Home for Christmas

Review: Coming Home for Christmas, by RaeAnne Thayne

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Coming Home for ChristmasAbout the book, Coming Home for Christmas

 

  • Series: Haven Point (Book 10)
  • Paperback: 336 pages
  • Publisher: HQN; Original edition (September 24, 2019)

Hearts are lighter and wishes burn a little brighter at Christmas…

Elizabeth Hamilton has been lost. Trapped in a tangle of postpartum depression and grief after the death of her beloved parents, she couldn’t quite see the way back to her husband and their two beautiful kids…until a car accident stole away her memories and changed her life. And when she finally remembered the sound of little Cassie’s laugh, the baby powder smell of Bridger and the feel of her husband’s hand in hers, Elizabeth worried that they’d moved on without her. That she’d missed too much. That perhaps she wasn’t the right mother for her kids or wife for Luke, no matter how much she loved them.

But now, seven years later, Luke finds her in a nearby town and brings Elizabeth back home to the family she loves, just in time for Christmas. And being reunited with Luke and her children is better than anything Elizabeth could have imagined. As they all trim the tree and bake cookies, making new holiday memories, Elizabeth and Luke are drawn ever closer. Can the hurt of the past seven years be healed over the course of one Christmas season and bring the Hamiltons the gift of a new beginning?

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About the author, Raeanne Thayne RaeAnne-Thayne

New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne loves words. Her love affair started as soon as she learned to read, when she used to devour anything she could get her hands on: cereal boxes, encyclopedias, the phone book, you name it! She loves the way words sound, the way they look on the page, and the amazing way they can be jumbled together in so many combinations to tell a story.

Her love of reading and writing those words led her to a fifteen-year career in journalism as a newspaper reporter and editor.

Through it all, she dreamed of writing the kind of stories she loved best. She sold her first book in 1995 and since then she’s published more than 40 titles. Her books have won many honors, including three RITA® Award nominations from the Romance Writers of America and a Career Achievement Award from RT Book Reviews.

RaeAnne finds inspiration in the rugged northern Utah mountains, where she lives with her hero of a husband and their children. She loves to hear from readers and can be reached through her website at www.raeannethayne.com.

Melissa A. BartellMy Thoughts

Cracking open a RaeAnne Thayne book, even when it’s a virtual ‘cracking’ because you’re reading a digital copy, is like hanging out with an old friend. The story will be new and exciting, but the voice telling it will be familiar.

This is especially true of Coming Home for Christmas, which isn’t just Thayne’s most recent release, but is also the tenth novel in her delightful Haven Point series. And while some may think the second day of autumn is a touch early to be reading a story set over the holidays, I found it a lovely respite from the heat and humidity of late summer.

As always, Thayne brings us a story rooted in family and relationships. Luke and Elizabeth are an estranged husband and wife, the latter having been missing for seven years when the novel opens with him storming into her current residence and demanding he return home with her. It’s an abrupt opening. Almost, I felt as though I’d missed a chapter, and yet, it set the pace of the novel perfectly, giving us a sense of urgency from Luke that carried through the entire book.

Both characters, as well as their friends and family, are written truthfully. No one is perfect; all are drawn with the charms and flaws of real people. This is what makes a RaeAnne Thayne novel so compelling: she peoples her fictional towns with the sorts of neighbors we all long to have, and populates their streets with the shops we all want to visit.

Is September a little early for a Christmas story? Maybe. But when you read Coming Home for Christmas, you’ll feel like you’re coming home to Haven Point, and you won’t mind that the calendar on your phone is a bit behind the one in the story.

Goes well with hot coffee and chocolate gingerbread.

 

Before I Let You Go cover

Review: Before I Let You Go, by Kelly Rimmer

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About the book, Before I Let You Go Before I Let You Go cover

 

  • Paperback: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Graydon House (April 3, 2018)

“Before I Let You Go is a heartbreaking book about an impossible decision. Kelly Rimmer writes with wisdom and compassion about the relationships between sisters, mother and daughter…. She captures the anguish of addiction, the agonizing conflict between an addict’s best and worst selves. Above all, this is a novel about the deepest love possible.” —Luanne Rice, New York Times bestselling author

The 2:00 a.m. call is the first time Lexie Vidler has heard her sister’s voice in years. Annie is a drug addict, a thief, a liar—and in trouble, again. Lexie has always bailed Annie out, given her money, a place to sleep, sent her to every kind of rehab. But this time, she’s not just strung out—she’s pregnant and in premature labor. If she goes to the hospital, she’ll lose custody of her baby—maybe even go to prison. But the alternative is unthinkable.

As the weeks unfold, Lexie finds herself caring for her fragile newborn niece while her carefully ordered life is collapsing around her. She’s in danger of losing her job, and her fiancé only has so much patience for Annie’s drama. In court-ordered rehab, Annie attempts to halt her downward spiral by confronting long-buried secrets from the sisters’ childhoods, ghosts that Lexie doesn’t want to face. But will the journey heal Annie, or lead her down a darker path?

Both candid and compassionate, Before I Let You Go explores a hotly divisive topic and asks how far the ties of family love can be stretched before they finally break.

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About the author, Kelly Rimmer Kelly Rimmer author

Kelly Rimmer is the USA Today best selling author of contemporary fiction novels including Me Without You, The Secret Daughter, When I Lost You, A Mother’s Confession and her most recent release, Before I Let You Go. She lives in rural Australia with her husband and children.

For further information about Kelly’s books, and to subscribe to her mailing list, visit www.kellyrimmer.com.

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My Thoughts Melissa A. Bartell

I was literally up all night reading Before I Let You Go, because once I started reading it, I couldn’t stop. It starts out as a conventional romance – Lexie and Sam, both doctors, are settling into the new home they’re remodeling – but almost immediately Lexie gets a call from her younger sister Annie, begging for help. Annie, it turns out, is a drug addict. She’s also pregnant, and being on drugs while pregnant is, because of a badly written law, criminal behavior in Alabama.

The book then tells the story from the parallel points of view of Lexie and Annie, though Lexie’s chapters are in the present, and Annie’s, which are dominated by journal entries addressed to Luke (we learn who he is mid-way through the novel) mostly detail the past.

Throughout it all, Sam is there, being the supportive fiance, insisting to Lexie that they’re a team, and ensuring that she takes care of herself, even when she’s trying to take care of others.

Sam is one of the best-written male characters I’ve seen in recent “women’s fiction” (I hate that term). He’s his own person, but he’s also a key support for Lexie, and in many ways, I felt that he was the heart of this story. Still, it’s really about Lexie and Annie, and eventually their mother, and Annie’s daughter, Daisy, and as a portrait of sisters who both love each other fiercely and frustrate each other completely, it’s a brilliantly crafted piece.

Goes well with Chinese take-out and cold beer.