Christmas in Winter Hill

Terrible. With a capital ‘T'. I wasn't expecting fabulously fantastic, but this didn't even meet the Hallmark movie bar. The author needs to learn to actually do research when she doesn't know something, not just make things up to fit whatever fantasy she has in her head. Things she should have researched at a library or at least googled: the city of Phoenix. Adoption, abandonment and the termination of parental rights (yes they can be terminated without a parent signing paperwork). Asbestos (most likely it wasn't the floor tile that had asbestos, but the black mastik glue used to adhere the tile to the floor. It's not an issue unless it's disturbed - meaning someone has to pry the tile off the floor. The same goes for anything above the ceiling - just don't disturb it).

As for everything else, the story was thin. (Who takes a job in a far away small town without researching anything about it?) Insta!Love always annoys me. The main character was a cross between bland and obnoxious. Her precocious daughter was over the top (for the longest time I thought she had to be 4 maybe 5. Turned out she was 8.). The villain was the written equivalent to the evil magician in the Frosty the Snowman animated Christmas special.

I'm usually willing to give holiday themed stories a lot of leeway and forgive a lot of things, but where this book is concerned, you'd be better off leaving it on the shelf.

This is a lovely little story about hope and finding home. Several of the characters are wonderful and fairly real. The ending was wrapped up rather quickly. I was disappointed in some characters that they had the attitude of “Oops. Sorry” at the end. I did like that the focus was on Krista and her working on herself. It wasn't really a romance, but there were romantic elements.