Brenda Novak

Former mean girl and wife of a rich and powerful man gets a big holiday serving of humble pie when she must take a job as a housekeeper to pay her now-deceased husband's debts, and she gets some unexpected help from suspense writer Ted Dixon, whose love she once scorned. Original.

Take Me Home for Christmas

Anna Ureta

Received from author in exchange for an honest review.

Few things I’d just like to say before we get straight into the review. I’m not usually a big fan of romance novels, especially series. There’s nothing wrong with them, I just never found them quite interesting. HOWEVER, when someone personally requests me to do a review I can’t quite say no. True this book is not what I usually read but the plot seemed adorable so I decided to give it a try.

Not many in the town of Whiskey Creek can say Sophia DeBussi was the nicest girl in town. Especially her ex, who is now a successful author Ted Dixon. After she married Skip DeBussi her life spiraled downwards. He was rich and powerful, but abusive, and her life was a lot harder than everyone made it out to be. When Skip goes missing and winds up dead after running from the FBI, Sophia is left with nothing but huge amounts of debt and their daughter Alexa. Practically having given up on life, Sophia finds a ray of hope by becoming Ted’s housekeeper, who can’t seem to turn his back on her no matter how much she hurt him in the past. Will the season of Christmas, love and forgiveness rekindle their love?

I feel really bad for Sophia. She did nothing to deserve the treatment the town’s people are giving her. But thanks to her past and the person she used to be they don’t believe her. She seems like a very humble person and is doing the best she can with what she has given the terrible situation she’s been put into. Her husband has left her with nothing and a daughter to take care of; her bank accounts are frozen so she virtually has no access to any kind of money. She’s essentially homeless and NO ONE wants to help her because they all think she was part of her husband’s plan to defraud most of the town.

Then we have Ted who has some serious issues, a sort of decade long grudge he’s been secretly keeping inside. He clearly has feelings for Sophia, even though they were a couple more than ten years ago, but he won’t say anything or show any little bit of compassion because he’s afraid to be seen as weak of maybe vulnerable. I mean how would it look if the only person in town to help her is the person whose heart she broke many years ago. Looks almost like a desperate cry for help.

BUT, I was happy. The story had a happy ending, thank god, and things all worked out in the end as they were meant to. In a VERY SURPRISING WAY I definitely didn’t see that ending coming.
In a relationship two people need to give way. Ted needed to forgive Sophia, and she needed to learn to trust, and love, and open her heart to people who would care about her.

One thing that I didn’t enjoy, which WASN’T the author’s fault, was that this book is a series. I understand that it can be read as a stand-alone, but it would have been a little bit easier if I had more background story on all the other characters. There were several chapters where the citizens of Whiskey Creek are introduced, and even though there is a handy character cheat sheet, I felt like it was a lot of information and a lot of characters thrown at me and I had no idea who they were. I don’t like being thrown into series where there are a lot of character references that I don’t understand so it took away from the experience and the enjoyment of this book because.

Overall, Take Me Home For Christmas was a wonderful book, perfect in time for the Christmas Holidays.

3/5 Hearts of Love

Read more of my reviews at http://www.akiikomorireading.com

Janna Niemi

Quite good. I don't anything about the series so I'm not sure if should read them first but this book was okay. Not as good as I expected but readable. 

*ARC received from the publisher

Angela Guilherme

*I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

I had already read the previous book on this series, so I already knew some of its characters, namely the protagonist, Ted Dixon. His high-school sweetheart, Sophia DeBussi, left him in favour of someone rich and he never surpassed it. But now Sophia’s husband died while faking his own death and abandoned her and her daughter, leaving them completely penniless and ostracized by the people of town that lost everything they had invested with him.

However, Sophia feels free as she hadn’t felt since the time she dated Ted, since her husband was abusive and controlling and, if it hadn't been for the daughter she adores, Sophia would have wished she had never married him. With no resources nor friends, Sophia has to find a job to assure hers and her daughter’s survival, which doesn’t reveal to be an easy thing to achieve when one has no qualifications nor special talents, and is particularly hard when almost the entire town blames her for her husband's deceitfulness.

And that is when Eve Harmon steps up and “forces” Ted to offer Sophia the position of housekeeper at his house. Ted never forgot Sophia and is afraid the proximity will make him forget everything she’s done to him and drop him in her clutches once again. And he makes the mistake to start dating Eve...

But with proximity also comes the understanding of Sophia’s reasons and the knowledge of what went on in her marriage and of how she and her daughter are still suffering in consequence of her husband’s actions, even after his death. And, suddenly, nothing is more important to Ted than protecting them and helping them rebuild their lives, even if that means them leaving Whiskey Creek.

I really liked this story and its characters, especially Sophia, a woman battered by life and with huge problems to overcome but who can prove with her actions that she is not the same spoiled and selfish kid she was as an adolescent and that the image she portrayed didn't exactly represent the real Sophia. As for Ted, I was a little disappointed with him... I don’t care that he had good intentions, it is not ok to use a childhood friend like that. But I did like how protective he was of Sophia and her child.

I couldn't resist to read Eve’s story next...

Take Me Home for Christmas

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