Review & Teaser: I'll Be Home For Christmas by Lori Wilde

I'll Be Home For Christmas
A Twilight, Texas Novel
Lori Wilde
October 27,2015
416 pages
Publisher: Avon Romance
Source: Publisher
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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…

If Twilight Texas is real, I'm immediately packing my bags and going there now! Lori Wilde's small town holiday romance is perfect to snuggle up with next to your fireplace with a warm glass of hot chocolate. Or wine. Or dog, cat...whatever. It's the perfect snuggle up book for the holiday season! Inspired by the movie The Vacation, Gabi decides to take a break from her life. Still grieving the loss of her brother, she's inspired by a snow globe to find that perfect town that's all about Christmas. She definitely finds it and more in Twilight! In a coincidental twist of fate the woman whom Gabi swapped homes with happens to have a brother. Who's hot. And looks good in a pair of wranglers. And who also happens to be her neighbor.

What I liked about this book is the predictability. I knew going in that Gabi was going to find a love interest, and I knew it was going to be Joe. What I enjoyed most about the book was the...unfolding of circumstances that allowed Gabi and Joe to become real for me. So often in romance novels the main love interests have situations that seem far-fetched so I appreciated the realistic qualities of the characters. Having that realistic quality also gave the characters depth. And who likes reading about flat, two dimensional characters anyways right? It's undeniable that Gabi and Joe are attracted to each other and it was entertaining to watch these two do the push-n-pull dance.

I'll be Home for Christmas was fun to read. It got me out of my reading slump and in turn I discovered a new genre I enjoy. I'm classifying this new genre as my guilty pleasure reading. If you enjoy reading small town romances I highly recommend Lori Wilde's Twilight Texas series. I'll definitely be picking up the rest of the books in this series!

EXCERPT

Gabi got out of the car and her designer heels sank into the damp earth. Not the proper footwear for navigating a pasture’s bumpy terrain. Maybe she should buy a pair of cowboy boots. Better yet, maybe she should get a motel room. What had she been thinking? In truth? She hadn’t fully thought this through. That’s what she got for not asking for details. An adventure was what she’d wanted and that’s what she’d gotten. Purposefully, she readjusted her chin, her spine, and her attitude. Okay. Bring it. She was on board with whatever circumstances threw her way. This was part of her journey. Had to embrace the new in order to strip away the old, right? The domed tent sat atop a plain wooden deck. Off to one side was a large chicken coop, and a black and white cow grazed contentedly in the field. Animals? Was she supposed to be taking care of animals? Katie hadn’t said a word about animals. Her heart, which had been nesting in her stomach, glided right on down to her shoes. Gabi had never had a house pet, much less been around farm animals. She hiccupped. Her lungs tightened and her head buzzed dizzily. Calm down. It was okay. She could handle this. Momentarily, she closed her eyes, let the fear wash over her and away, then brusquely dusted her palms. Move forward. The sun was sinking toward the horizon, bumping through gray clouds, sending cool fingers of winter to silver the long grass ruffling in the breeze. The scent of the lake and Christmas tree pine tinged the air, smelling both earthy and sur-real. She paused on the deck of the tent house, in-haled deeply, and listened to the silence. The chirp of a bird. The whisper of the wind. The gentle sound of her own breathing. Ah, peace. Nice. Very nice. She could get used to this. The ping of a metal axe against wood cut the quiet. Gabi lifted her head and glanced around. Less than fifty yards separated her from the Christmas tree farm, and through the branches of the trees she spied a man chopping at a fir that he felled in three easy whacks. He wore a blue flannel shirt that rippled in the back every time he swung the axe. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to the elbows, exposing forearms corded with muscles and giving her a show of strength, agility, and timing as he picked up the downed tree and tossed it effortlessly onto a flatbed trailer parked down the row of trees. Her gaze dropped to his masculine backside hugged by a pair of faded Levi’s. Uh- oh, she knew that butt. It was the same scrumptious ass she’d seen less than half an hour earlier at the coffee shop. It was He- Man.