Christmas Reading Challenge – 12 – Maybe this Christmas – Sarah Morgan

Delighted and excited to announce that @BookElfLeeds has a brand new reading challenge!

Jess had decided to seek out the Christmas Spirit in contemporary fiction. And like all good reading challenges; there’s a strict criteria to be followed.

The book must have Christmas in the title.
Some one has lost the Christmas Spirit.
A Christmas Miracle will therefore have to occur.
Some one will then regain the Christmas Spirit.

So please, make yourself comfy and enjoy the 12th and final review!

Again, massive thanks to @BookElfLeeds!

Who has lost the Christmas Spirit?

Ski instructor Brenna, working at the Snow Crystal ski resort in her small Vermont home town, and sexy former world champion downhill skier Tyler O’Neil.

In what form does the Christmas Miracle occur?

Being Honest With Each Other About Feelings.

This was a proper mushy old fashioned love story, and I was completely smitten by it. WHAT a great way to end a challenge that has had its ups and downs, on a seriously sexy high.

Brenna has been in love with Tyler since year dot, but he apparently hasn’t looked at her twice “like that”. He’s travelled the world being a champion skier and all round playboy ever since he was a teenager, and now he’s back at Snow Crystal with his teenage daughter, attempting to get back to normal after an accident ruined his skiing career.

Brenna is super confident on the slopes, has great friends and a job she loves, but she hates confrontation, and would die before letting Tyler know what she really felt. When Tyler’s sister in law Kayla, who stars in a previous book in the series this is taken from, decides to throw them together Tyler starts to recognize his own feelings for Brenna may go beyond friendship.

I love an unrequited love comes true story, this is purely escapist joyous fun. Easy to read but still well written, I’ve found yet another author that I will be happily looking out for again.

I also enjoyed how Festive this book was without being preachy or obvious. I’ve never been skiing, and don’t especially long for high speeds or danger in sport, but this book made me want to go to Vermont and be cold!

The book also has some really good characters, teenager daughter Jess especially was a joy, and I want to read the romances connected to Tyler’s two brothers that are the first two books in the series now!

So, that’s it! That’s all my Christmas Books done and dusted, and I’m not going to lie, I’m quite chuffed about it! I’m glad I took on this challenge as it has made me read books I normally wouldn’t touch and find new writers whose works I would happily read more of.

But….

This wasn’t a challenge and it didn’t really make me a bigger or better person. I didn’t feel stretched by this, and although I did feel warm and fuzzy a few times, it was in a purely disposable way. I feel that I’ve found a version of the Christmas Spirit that is, itself, purely disposable a fleeting pleasure rather than a message to last all year.

There are readers for whom these books do matter, they do make people change for the better and give them hope during dark times. In the acknowledgements for Maybe This Christmas, Sarah Morgan thanks these readers who have taken the time to let her know how much here books have helped them, and for those readers, I hope you carry on finding value and hope in these books. For me personally though, I’m going to take a VERY sharp turn to the left. I’ve got Shami Chakrabarti’s On Women on my desk to read and I’ve just started Sebastian Faulks’ Birdsong which I’ve been meaning to read for years. I need a bit of misery and anger now, and to be honest I’m really looking forward to it!

Listen to @BookElfLeeds and I introduce the Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge – HERE

Or just click here!