Title: His Christmas Gift
Author: Sarah Mayberry
Series: Montana Born Christmas
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Length: Short novel
Available: Now
Since tragedy estranged defense attorney Jenna Macintosh from her family, she’s done her best to pretend Christmas doesn’t exist. Not so easy this year when she needs to work with client Lacey Gallagher, who is living on her brother Sawyer’s Christmas tree farm. All those fragrant pines dripping with twinkling lights are bad enough, but when disaster strikes, Jenna is stuck alone in a wooded cabin with Sawyer, the hottest man she’s ever met.
Experience has taught Sawyer Gallagher that smart city women like Jenna don’t want men like him, but when Jenna falls ill, he must abandon his plan to keep his distance and soon he’s trying to work out ways to make her his—and not just for Christmas.
Source: Review copy from Tule Publishing via NetGalley
This slice of Christmas sweetness returns to the Christmas tree farm in Marietta to tell the second Gallagher sibling’s story. Having met both Sawyer and Jenna in Three Nights Before Christmas, which told Lacey’s story, I was really looking forward to this one. However, because this book is so tightly connected to that one – in fact featuring many of the same scenes, but from a different perspective – I grew impatient, because I knew how much further the story needed to go before anything happened.
In fact, this book pretty much hits halfway before anything really new starts. This is mostly because without Lacey, neither Sawyer nor Jenna have any reason to know or meet each other. Jenna lives three hours away and Sawyer is busy with his tree farm, so although I understood why those scenes had to be retold, it still left me restless for new stuff.
With good reason, because once all the Lacey drama is put to one side and it’s just these two together, their relationship is sweet. It takes a long time to actually start moving (even without Lacey issues), but they’re both nice people and it was lovely seeing them get to know each other. Yes, Sawyer is a gruff hermit and Jenna has her own issues with family and loneliness, but I loved their Scrabble games and movie nights, and once things start happening it was all quite adorable.
Because this is only a short read, and so much of it is taken up with other things, it does speed up a bit towards the end. Some reactions feel a little over the top, and some decisions are clearly not going to turn out well, but it provides the necessary conflict to bring out the sweet, Christmas-magic ending. If you like a slow-build romance and don’t mind a swift sprint to the finish, then you’ll probably enjoy this. If you’ve already read Lacey’s story you’ll know what’s coming when, but once past that this is a nice tale and the end is lovely enough to raise a smile.
His Christmas Gift is Out Now!
Visit Sarah Mayberry for more details.
Book Gannet Reviews 