Monday, December 21, 2020

Review: Romancing the Holidays by L Austen Johnson

Romancing the Holidays
by L Austen Johnson

Publisher: Lore and Lyre
Pages: 210
Format: eARC
Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  Lucky Fall

After her parents’ death, Sarah felt like there was no luck left in the world. With her siblings’ newly out of the house, she’s free, for the first time in years, to do something just for her. So when her best friend surprises her with tickets to Dublin for the week of St. Patrick’s Day, she’s thrilled. She’s on a mission to reconnect with her parents’ past and visit the places in their photographs.

But when she falls—literally—into the arms of an attractive if snarky Irishman at a pub, Sarah might just have to add another quest to her list: find out said man’s name…and relationship status.

*

Pawsitively Perfect

After a rough breakup and particularly difficult winter, veterinarian Leigh feels ready to engage in the outside world again. That is until her dog, Pogo, slips his leash in a park and invades the picnic of gorgeous ex-Marine, James. It’s doubly humiliating when Leigh finds out that James just so happens to be the head of the non-profit that she’s is expected to work on an event.

Can Leigh get over her embarrassment and her fear of being hurt again to seize the reins—erm, leash—on love? Or do the two different types of “vets” just not mix at all?

*

All Thanks to You

When aspiring vet tech Rosalie meets a guy at a Halloween black cat adoption party—perhaps even The Guy—she fails to understand that he’s asking her out. They say goodbye with only the promise of a cat adoption in their future, and she thinks that is that…until she walks into her younger sister’s parent-teacher conference and realizes Jonah from the cat event is Mr. Keene, high school English teacher extraordinaire. She wants to date this lovable nerd, but after her bad luck with past relationships and her experience seeing her parents get divorced, she’s afraid to let Jonah in.

Will she find love with a fellow cat-lover, or will it all fall to pieces by the first snow?

*

Beaver Creek Resort

Claire is fine being a single mom. Contrary to what her sister Sydney thinks, she doesn’t need anyone new in her life, not after Mitch cheated on her when she was pregnant five years ago. And she absolutely doesn’t need a cheesy, Christmas-themed singles' event at the Beaver Creek Resort to help her find someone suitable.

Besides, the only attractive man she’s even met at the ski resort so far is the guy she crashed into earlier, and he was a total jerk. It’s not like he’s going to show up to the singles event and magically become charming and nice and caring…right? That’d be a Christmas miracle.


Kritters Thoughts:  A book with four short stories that each center around a holiday from St Patrick's day to July 4th to Halloween to Christmas.  

Typically when I read short story collections, I don't typically love them because I want so much more from the stories and they feel short and choppy with the limited pages, but not so in this one.  I felt as though the author was able to create full stories in quick pages and nothing felt as though it was instalove!  Each story had a great intro, heart and conclusion and there wasn't one that I didn't like less (although I am partial to dogs over cats!).  

I read this book around the Christmas and before reading I didn't know different holidays were included, so I wish I had been able to read each story around the holiday it is focused on, so I suggest that to future readers!


Rating: definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row

Ebook 2020 Challenge: 124 out of 100

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from Netgalley  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.


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