Happy Christmas in October!
Each day this week, I'm reviewing a Christmas-themed book, reviewing how well the book embraces the holiday as well as giving my two cents on the book as a whole. Please join me in celebrating the holiday a wee bit early and post your holiday book reviews and recommendations in the comments of any of this week's reviews!
As a bonus this year, I've got some fantastic guest posts! So check back for those as well!
The Book:
Sourcebooks Casablanca
Book 1 in the Smokin Hot Cowboys series
Contemporary Romance
Published October 6, 2015
Source: Received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Amazon Kobo Goodreads
Blurb:
Trey Duvall, a rancher and local firefighter, is out of luck. His ranch has suffered from several 'accidental' fires and there is no explanation in sight. All he wants for the upcoming holiday is to get to the bottom of this mystery, but what he gets instead is hotter than any ranch fire when he meets city-girl Misty Reynolds.
Review:
Christmas Component:A Cowboy Firefighter for Christmas is heavy on the Christmas theme! Though the book takes place in the heat of Texas, there's still a ton of Christmas cheer. For starters, Misty, the heroine, is tagged as the town's "Christmas angel" shortly after her arrival. She stays in an inn fully decked for the holidays, with some creative Christmas trees and the story takes place leading into Christmas.
I'm giving this one a full five of five Christmas presents for being so full of the holiday spirit.
My thoughts:
Unfortunately, though A Cowboy Firefighter for Christmas was delightfully full of Christmas moments, I found it a really rough read.
I ended up DNF-ing the book at the halfway mark, for a couple of reasons.
One is that if I had to read the words "Christmas angel" one more time, I was going to throw my Kindle at the wall. The point that Misty was seen as this holiday savior was made so frequently, and always with her protesting it (because she had very bad memories tied to the holiday and wants to avoid it entirely), drove me batty.
I also found that the steamy sex scenes felt jarringly out of place in a book that otherwise seemed steeped in more conservative, traditional values. I really expected fade-to-black style scenes, something gentle to go with the sensibilities of the rest of the book.
Finally, there's a point of conflict midway through the story that revealed some rather off-putting qualities about one of the characters. While I suspect it might later be framed as a sign that this character was obviously already in love and thus unwilling to *truly* believe the worst, at the time, the character comes across as being willing to use another in a rather unkind way. I absolutely could not stick with the book after that.
Ironically, if the story had an edgier tone to it, I probably would have been on board until the end. But because it's very light, good Southern values, down-homey in tone, I found that when the story deviated, the contrast threw me.
A Cowboy Firefighter for Christmas gets a lot of love on Goodreads and Amazon, so I'm clearly missing something. Maybe the last half of the book makes everything come together in a wonderful, romantic way?
Bottom line:
I didn't enjoy A Cowboy Firefighter for Christmas, but you might! I DNF'ed this book at the half-way point, so no starred review. If you read and loved this one, please let me know in the comments what it was that appealed to you!
DNFed
Remember, come back every day this week for more Christmas-themed books!
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