Yuletide Homecoming by Linda GoodnightFive years ago, Rafe Westfield broke his fiancée’s heart when he left to join the military. Now the battle-scarred soldier is back in Snowglobe. Amy Caldwell tries to keep her distance, but the holidays, family and a sweet stray dog keep bringing her and Rafe together…maybe this time, forever.
A Family’s Christmas Wish by Lissa Manley
Abandoned by her husband when she was eight months pregnant, single mother Sara Kincaid vowed to rely only on herself. But then she makes a deal with handsome widowed father Owen Larsen to provide babysitting services in exchange for his carpentry work on her inn. Can two pint-size matchmakers help them see beyond the past in time for Christmas?
A Snowglobe Christmas: Yuletide Homecoming\A Family’s Christmas Wish by Linda Goodnight
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I was looking forward to reading about Seth and Lisa because they seemed to be lovable characters within the community. However I wasn’t really into it. I would recommend it to people who really enjoy love stories that are super sweet, easy going, slow-paced, and to cat lovers.
I liked where the story was going. Mia Ross’s character descriptions were great. But I didn’t feel they match their actions and subsequent responses. Overall, their relationship never developed into anything relatable and believable to me personally. It fell flat and was an incredibly slow for my style. Emotions were stereotypical and monotonous. The voices were indistinguishable at some points.
As far as content is concerned, the bottom line is they just had major communication problems and neither one of them could see past that. Seth had PTSD and Lisa played victim to her own fantasies in trying to the hero of their relationship and tries too hard to read every single one of his emotions. But not even those parts of the story took off. Ultimately they were just using each other and the emotional exchanges weren’t well-developed enough for me to be invested in it.
There were hints at making heart-wrenching decisions but I couldn’t relate or care less. Likely it was because the rationale behind them was still justifiable in either case because nothing matched. It didn’t seem to be about internal conflict either. Even the characters could talk themselves out of anything without reprieve and it was difficult to know if any of it even mattered in the first place.
The plot lacked direction and couldn’t count on the either the writer or reader to figure it out. I really did appreciate the faith-based aspect and charm that she brought to the characters, however.
I’d like to read another book by Mia Ross in the future, the stories all sound so intriguing.
