I’ll Be Home for Christmas
A
Twilight, Texas Novel
By Lori
Wilde
Avon Romance
October 27th,
2015
Mass-Market ISBN:
9780062311412 * $7.99
E-ISBN 9780062311429 * $5.99
About
the Book
Nothing says Christmas like New York Times bestselling
author Lori Wilde and Twilight, TX, and now Lori returns to Twilight for a
brand new heartwarming holiday tale. The matchmaking members of the Cookie Club
are up to their old tricks again!
Christmas in Twilight, Texas, is all merriment and
mistletoe. The Cookie Club is whipping up their most festive sweets, the
townspeople are scrambling to get their holiday shopping done, and Joe-a
hometown guy with a restless heart-is dreaming about the woman he wants to kiss
most…
…And who happens to be staying at his sister’s place
over the holidays, while Joe’s sister is away. But Joe isn’t quite sure he
wants to be a living Christmas present to runaway law student Gabi Preston.
Joe thinks the sassy sweetheart he nicknames “Trouble”
won’t inconvenience anything but his healthy sex drive. But when he discovers
the reasons Gabi escaped from her life, he aches to give her everything she’s
never had. As the magic of the season draws them together, the gift of love is
the only one worth giving…
My Thoughts:
Talk about being a hot mess after a read, and at the same time enjoying Joe and Gabi's story immensely. I'll Be Home For Christmas will put you in the Christmas spirit, then again anytime you enter Twilight you end up feeling the spirit of Christmas. I don't know how many of you all remember you all remember the movie The Holiday where there two women who decided to change places during Christmas. So, Katie Cheek and Gabi Preston decided to do the exact same thing. However, we are only spending time in Twilight, and we aren't privy to Katie's adventure. Which is okay, because that would probably make the story extremely long. Anyway, back to my thoughts.I'll Be Home For Christmas is a pretty darn good story. Yes, it has The Holiday elements, but also made me think of Green Acres which is an old TV show about a farmer who marries a city woman. Not that Joe automatically marries Gabi, but they come from two different worlds. At least that's Joe's thinking, but when he gets to know Gabi he finds a girl who is a fighter and trying to find herself. Now Gabi has decided she wanted to find Christmas for her brother and herself. Possible spoiler, her brother is dead. I didn't realize this until about few chapters in. Yeah, I wasn't quick on the uptake, besides the point. Gabi is trying to find her true self in Twilight, what's the worst that can happen? I guess falling for resident bad boy. A little fling never hurt, right? Anyway, this is a wonderful story of two people trying to find themselves over the Christmas holiday. Giving hope that anything is possible when Christmas happens and doubles the chances in Twilight.
I enjoyed this story, because it actually touched on a couple points: 1) Gabi has guilt because she couldn't help her brother. I like how Lori mention Anissa Ayala in the story. Now many of you might not know this story, but it was an extremely controversial incident that happen in California in the early 90s which was made into a Lifetime movie. Yes, I did watch that movie. 2) Joe feels he needs to rescue the damsel in distress in his life, like his ex-wife Tatum. I was a little worry she was going to cause a little more trouble. Fortunately Joe has good head on his shoulders. 3) Family, it's everything and the Cheeks showed Gabi a true meaning of Christmas. 4) Gabi realizing she needed to let go of the past, which led to me being a hot mess. Overall, I'll Be Home For Christmas will get you in the mood for Christmas. Who knows you might end up singing that song in your head. So, if you are in need of holiday cheer, you might give this a try.
Exclusive Excerpt:
Resisting the urge to spin around and go back to park his butt in the empty chair beside the tasty woman eating cake, Joe Cheek climbed into his pickup. He barely had time to grab a cup of coffee, much less chat up the stranger who looked like she could use some company.
And he certainly didn’t need the distraction. He had enough trouble focusing on the tasks at hand. Not to mention that a pretty face had led him astray more times than he could count.
He’d just come from delivering the Christmas trees he’d donated to a local orphanage and had to hustle back to the farm to relieve his hand, Lee Loper, so that Lee could attend his son’s school play. The entire week had been insanely busy, with no letup until Christmas. Not that he minded hard work, but Joe was accustomed to playing as hard as he worked and there hadn’t been much room for good times lately.
How he gotten so out of balance?
No need to ask. He could trace it back to Gramps’s car accident.
In August, his spunky eighty- one- year- old grand-father had been T- boned by a teen who’d just gotten his driver’s license. Gramps suffered a broken leg, and Joe had flown home from Florida where he’d been working as a contract welder for a friend of his.
Gramps had been in good spirits and Joe’s large extended family all planned to pitch in to keep the farm running while Gramps was out of commission, but then his grandfather developed a blood clot that caused a mild stroke and landed him in the rehab hospital.
Once it became clear that Gramps would not be able to run the farm on his own after his recovery, the family regrouped. The consensus was that everyone had such busy lives that even taking turns to look after the place and the animals, continuing the Christmas tree farming was untenable. Especially with the busy holiday season approaching.
Joe’s vote to keep farming Christmas trees was the lone dissent.
Call him sentimental, but he loved the farm. And he loved Christmas. No matter where he was, he went all out with decorating, parties, and up-holding family traditions. Some of his most treasured memories centered on helping Gramps with the trees— the smell of pine and soil, the crisp feel of needles, the brisk winter air.
Christmas tree farming was in his blood. Losing it would be losing part of his childhood. He couldn’t imagine not having that constant in his life. Yes, he was a wanderer at heart, never staying in one place for long, but the Christmas tree farm was his anchor. The place he could always return when life got rough, the place that never changed.
When he said as much to his family, they’d stared at him and asked if he was ready to make the commitment required to keep the farm going. Without blinking, he’d said yes.
But now, reality was catching up to him. His thirst for variety was in direct conflict with his love for the farm.
Just get through this year, he told himself. Gramps was doing well. The doctors were optimistic he’d be out of the hospital in time for Christ-mas. The old man was tough, a fighter. No one could say for certain that he wouldn’t be able to run the farm again once he was back on his feet.
Until then, Joe had to keep his mind on his goal.
Purchase
Here:
I’LL
BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS –
I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS on Goodreads
A TWILIGHT, TEXAS series on Goodreads
About
the Author
New
York Times and USA Today
best-selling author, Lori Wilde has sold seventy-eight works of fiction to four
major New York Publishing houses. She holds a bachelor’s degree in nursing from
Texas Christian University and a certificate in forensic nursing from Kaplan
University. She is a member of the International Association of Forensic
Nurses.
Her first NYT bestseller, the third book in her
Twilight, Texas series, The First Love Cookie Club has been optioned for a
television movie. The town of Granbury, Texas, upon which her fictional town of
Twilight, Texas is loosely based, honors Lori with an annual Twilight, Texas
weekend each Christmas. www.twilighttexas.com
A popular writing instructor, Lori is a two time RITA
finalist and has four times been nominated for Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice
Award. She’s won the Colorado Award of Excellence, the Wisconsin Write Touch
Award, The Golden Quill, the Lories, and The More than Magic. Her books have
been translated into 27 languages and excerpted in Cosmopolitan, Redbook,
Complete Woman, and Quick and Simple magazines. She lives in Texas with her
husband, Bill, and her two New American Shepherds.
Connect
with Lori Wilde
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