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.
Author Brenda Novak
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
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akiiKOMORI Reading 
I felt the same way reading it – i’ve since gone back and read the previous books in the series and I think reading them first would have given me more a “sense” of the town/characters…although, i had to say really dislike Ted after reading earlier ones
I definitely think going back and reading the other books would have done me a lot of good.
Ted does seem pretty jerky in the beginning but he warms up and turns out to be a nice guy so I’m happy~
I think if I’d read the earlier books I might have not read this one…probably a good thing I didn’t…haha