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The authors known as Christina Lauren sure know how to write a fun romance novel. I very recently read their The Unhoneymooners, and this brand-new book is a well-needed jolt of early holiday cheer, in addition to being a charming love story.
Maelyn Jones is enjoying her family’s longtime tradition of spending the week of Christmas at a cabin in Park City, Utah, with their “chosen family” — her parents’ best friends from college and their kids. Said kids include Mae and her brother, Miles; a set of 5-year-old twins, and two brothers, Andrew and Theo, whose parents own the cabin. Theo is Mae’s age, Andrew three years older, and while Theo and Mae have always been close friends, it’s Andrew on whom Mae has had a “crazy, silent, soul-crushing crush” since she was 13 (half her life: you do the math).
The visit goes just as usual until she does something she regrets and then hears devastating news the last day of the holiday. When Mae and her family drive away, she’s pondering on her life, living at home and working in a job she hates, and feeling all-round miserable and scared about her future. She “asks the universe, simply: Can you show me what will make me happy?” And within moments, a semi hits their car, and when Mae gains consciousness, she is completely confused to find herself on an airplane sitting next to her brother, six days earlier, at the very beginning of their holiday week.
Thus plays out a “Groundhog Day”-style story where our heroine resumes the same vacation a few times and has to figure out why. What is she supposed to be doing, and what is she supposed to be learning from this experience? Mae knows one thing, at least, for sure: She is not going to repeat the big mistake she made the first time around. She also decides to just go for it with Andrew and tell him how she feels. What does she have to lose, after all?
I love how the characters are so three-dimensional, with sometimes-witty barter among various relations in this “chosen family” and serious, important conversations as well. Mae’s “Uncle Benny” is particularly entertaining, as he has been her primary confidant through the years, and they have plenty of reason to talk during Mae’s crazy experience. The romance is lovely and sweet as well as steamy. No question that I was rooting for Mae and her true love.
The writing is clever, original and snappy. Take just one example: “I mentally high-five the handful of remaining neurons that appear to be doing their job up there” (in her brain).
And now, I am putting more Christina Lauren books on my to-read shelf.
Rated: High, for language and sex scenes. There are 5 instances of strong language, plus about 15 uses of mild and moderate language. There are a few sex scenes that are pretty detailed and last a page or two, plus some making out and references to thinking about sex.
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*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.
