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From the publisher:
Mallory Maitland knows all too well what it’s like to feel abandoned, which is why she’s sworn never to give up on her two stepsons — her late husband’s children. But when the teens land in hot water, she’s got a whole new problem: how to resist the caring and incredibly hot Chief of Police Gabriel Buchanan. All Mallory wants is to give the boys a magical holiday. She doesn’t need the distraction of wondering what it would be like to kiss Gabriel under the mistletoe.
‘Tis the season! Yes, I have embarked on my holiday reading with this charming new romance set in a small town with lots of Christmas cheer. Mallory is a young widow with two teenage stepsons. The boys had been sent to boarding school in England until their father passed. Mallory has given up any claim on the very wealthy estate in order to keep the boys with her. But they are not loving that option. They want to go back to England, but the wife who holds the money won’t pay and it is way out of Mallory’s price range. She decides that what they need is a Christmas miracle of sorts, and where better to find that then in the small town of Highland Falls.
Gabriel, her next-door neighbor is the police chief, a widower struggling to raise his own three sons. There is instant attraction between Gabriel and Mallory, but both are dealing with bigger issues than making themselves happy. But in making their boys happy, everything comes together in a Christmas miracle sorta way.
I enjoyed my first holiday book of the year, and even though I’m not sure if I read the first book in the series, I never felt like I was missing anything. I definitely need to escape reality these days, and this was a lovely way to spend a few hours outside the bubble.
9/2020 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™
CHRISTMAS ON REINDEER ROAD by Debbie Mason. Forever (September 29, 2020). ISBN 978-1538716960. 368 pages.
Stacy Alesi's BookBitch.com™ 
I am finding I am not thrilled with series books. I won a book from Brenda Novak which happens to be the third book in a series. Someone on her FB page told me I had to read the first two books first. The last thing I’m about to do his hunt out the first two books. As I am reading that third book it seems pretty much like a stand-alone. There are so many series out there and I am beginning to resent them.
Good writers know that not everyone is going to read their series in order. Really good writers know how to make it possible for new readers to read a book in the middle of a series and not feel like they missed anything, but also not rehashing the backstory to the point where it pisses off those readers who have read all the books. It’s a fine line and a difficult feat to pull off. Novak does it well. So does Lee Child, Tana French, Dana Stabenow, M.J. Rose, Jon Land, Harlan Coben, and so many more. That said, there are series that are best read in order. Karin Slaughter & Michael Connelly spring to mind. You can enjoy their books as stand alones, but you get so much more out of them by reading in order. You get more invested in their characters and their worlds. It’s just an added pleasure of reading to me.
Thanks for writing!