Sometimes a little Christmas magic can rekindle the most unexpected romances… Sheriff Kace Laramie and his brothers found long-awaited happiness when they moved to Coldwater, Texas, as foster children. But the feel-good story has one bittersweet twist–his brief marriage to local rich girl Jana Parker. When that blew up, Kace vowed never to marry again and has kept Jana mostly off his … his mind…until she comes back to town, needing his help.
Recently divorced for a second time, Jana just wants to create a good life for her young daughter–and keep her mother from marrying Kace’s gold-digging father. Asking him for help may be wrong given their history. But as the stakes–and their chemistry–make the Christmas season sizzle, Jana knows how much more wrong it would be to let a love this magical slip away again…
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Going to Cold Water and meeting the Laramie brothers and their extended family is always like going home. A chaotic home, where emotions are high, where everyone wants to know the other’s business, yet are willing to stand up for each other when need arise.
When it comes to creating a world where readers feel like part of the community is just one of the reasons why I love Fossen’s books.
The oldest brother, Kace, has been the caretaker of everyone else since their father walked out on the family, and he truly deserves a happily forever afterx1b.
I loved the connection and palpable attraction between Kace and Lana. And the way Lana’s little girl reacted to Kace, was truly heartwarming. Lana and Kace seemed to be on the same frequency, the same wavelength, they understood each other and why they were the way they were. Even though I am not big on angst, I wish there would have been a bit more about why Lana and Kace divorced the first time and a clear solution to those issues. But I felt them at the bottom of my heart, rarely is there a couple – even in romance novels – who so tangible belong to each other.
Even in the tumultuous disarray of all the family drama and Coldwater reacting to it, this tale delivers all the feels of family and home, a community where you belong to, and love that will survive even in the toughest times and the biggest obstacles. I laughed, I sighed and I swooned, and mostly I enjoyed the last installment of the saga of Laramie brothers.
~ Four Spoons
I loved the conclusion to Ms. Fossen’s Coldwater Creek series featuring the Laramie brothers! I’ve loved them all, but I think this one, with oldest brother, Sheriff Kace Laramie, and his ex-wife/only love Jana, is my favorite!
Ms. Fossen has a deft hand with supporting characters, creating this whole community of fleshed out people (and cows!) we meet in one book and revisit in another. So many entertaining, funny, lovable, admirable and pitiable extras in this series. They’re as fun to get to know as the main characters.
A COLDWATER CHRISTMAS wasn’t a heavy holiday story–it’s set during the lead-up to Christmas–but it does have more of a mystery than the previous stories. With plenty of suspects–some a little unsettling, some outright funny. The conflict starts in the very first chapter when the Laramie brothers’ estranged birth-father comes to town, and it goes on a twisty, fun journey that takes you to the ending resolution that everyone except Kace and Jana saw coming. Yummy love scenes, an adorable toddler and a very sexy hero make this a wonderfully entertaining read!
Favorite Quotes:
“Kace, the baby whisperer,” Nico joked. Kace gave him a look that could have frozen hell.
… a nurse came moseying into the room. Kace knew her, of course, and he groaned softly. It was Annabelle Mason. She was eighty if she was a day and as slow as a sloth unless it came to gossip.
In addition to bad art, her mom also had a penchant for experimental furniture. There was the tiger print couch, complete with roaring tiger heads for sofa arms. Odd-shaped yellow-and-green leather accent chairs that looked like blobs of melting butter or the remnants of a bad cold.
He was like a big ice-cream sundae to a dieting woman. Delicious and very much wanted.
Her mom was in a Peter-and-her-against-the-world kind of mindset that didn’t allow for the possibility that she was marrying an anus wart.
She wouldn’t have gotten that answer right even with a multiple choice.
My Review:
I have barely scratched the surface on this prolific wordsmith’s body of work, but I have vastly enjoyed every Dolores Fossen book I have ever picked up. Her engaging small-town stories are laced with quirky homespun levity, feature likable and relatable characters, and are easy to fall into and a snap to follow. Each time I have read one of her books, I have experienced a strong craving to stop and read her entire listing. A Coldwater Christmas was one of her best and a second-chance, adult contemporary, small-town romance that was as highly amusing as it was actively paced. I smirked and giggle-snorted at the delightfully comical visuals her clever words effortlessly called to mind. Ms. Fossen has a lifer fangirl in me – unless she switches genres and starts writing about zombies.
I’ve been enjoying Delores Fossen’s Coldwater series since its inception, and she pulled out all the stops with this fourth novel in the series. While I did have a few issues with it, I found it to be the zaniest of her novels so far–it kept me going from amused to laughing out loud, and for the sheer enjoyment of reading it, it get 4 stars from this reader.
As second-chance romances go, this novel won me over from the get-go. This novel is eldest Laramie brother, Kace’s story. He’s the sheriff in small-town Coldwater, Texas. He’s been divorced from his ex-wife, Jana, for years and although he’s had no shortage of female company in his bed, he’s not fallen in love again, although his current friend with benefits, Belinda, would have it otherwise. His day starts out with a a run-in with Petunia, an escape artist longhorn who always winds up in town, and another run-in with the town flasher. But he certainly wasn’t expecting a visit from Jana and her adorable toddler, Marley, who takes to him immediately, and it was very hard not to fall in love with that precious little girl.
Jana is back in town to prevent the marriage of her mother, Eileen, (who never approved of Jana’s short marriage to Kace when both were in their late teens, and Jana thought she was pregnant). The man Jana’s mother intends to marry is none other than Peter Laramie, 17 years Eileen’s junior, as well as the man who fathered and abandoned Kace’s mom and their 4 sons decades ago, and who was also the cause of their mother turning to drugs, the overdose of which killed her, and which landed the Laramie brothers in horrific, abusive foster families after her death. The 4 brothers finally ended up with a good foster family, and have their foster father, Buck and his wife, to thank for that.
Jana is also in the middle of divorcing her second husband, Dominick, who, in only a few years, caused her to lose her ranch, where she raised and trained horses, drained her bank accounts, and is still trying to bleed her dry, and if he can’t get the money from her, he knows that Jana’s mom is filthy rich. Jana is convinced that Peter Laramie is only marrying her mother for her money. She can’t seem to convince her mother of that, and she enlists Kace to help her stop the wedding.
From the moment Kace and Jana meet again, the sparks start flying–the one place they never had a problem with was their sex lives, and that clearly hasn’t changed, despite all the weird things going on, like stink bombs going off, Peter’s car accident, strippers showing up at Eileen’s ranch complete with phallic shaped balloons, the sudden appearance of boxes filled with vibrators–and that’s just for starters. Jana also believes that her father, who abandoned them 20 years earlier is still alive, and has a private investigator trying to locate him, although Eileen considers him dead, and no impediment to her upcoming marriage.
While I generally avoid romantic comedies, this one was a hoot and a half, and while I loved the zaniness and sexiness, I couldn’t quite buy this as a second chance romance, primarily because while Kace and Jana had sex practically every time they were in the same place at the same time, that seemed to be pretty much the extent of their relationship–where was the romance? Where else were they compatible? Aside from trying to break up Eileen and Peter’s marriage and deal with Jana’s ex, they barely had time to have an actual conversation, and as far as romances go, you need more than hot sex to hold a marriage together. Additionally, although the title leads one to believe that this is a Christmas romance, Christmas was barely mentioned.
In addition to the bizarre goings-on, there were some real dramatic elements in this novel, but I don’t want to include any spoilers, so I’ll conclude by saying that if you’re looking for a funny, sexy, relatively lighthearted, sometimes dramatic, second chance western romance, this one will certainly fit the bill.
I voluntarily read an advance reader copy of this novel. The opinions expressed are my own.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from Harlequin Romance via NetGalley and I also purchased one on Harlequin’s website.
I just adore Ms. Fossen’s books. This one is no different. I just get sucked into the world that she creates and get lost there. I adored Marley (Jana’s little girl). Let’s just say she is the sweetest thing (especially since Marley LOVES Kace). Kace is the sheriff in Coldwater. He and Jana were high school sweethearts and each other’s first love. They married young and because she came from money and Kace was a foster child, Jana’s mother was able to create doubts in Jana’s mind. Enough doubts for them to divorce. Jana is back in town after being gone for over a decade and her second divorce. She wants to stop her mother from marrying his father. To do that, she figures she needs Kace’s help.
The story is one that just enchanted me right from the beginning. My poor e-reader really got a work out. I just couldn’t put this one down. Add in stinky bombs, strippers, helium balloons of a man’s certain anatomy part, a conniving ex-husband and you get a book that kept me up late into the evening. This was written in my favorite dual POV format. It really made the characters so much more humanized and someone to connect with.
This book is sexy and as such, I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone over the age of 18. Get ready to laugh yourself silly at times as well.
Delores Fossen lights up the holidays in Coldwater, Texas with A Coldwater Christmas.
Kace Laramie is having a day, then to top it off his ex wife Jana Parker shows up and his long ago ran off Father Peter Laramie is in town now what can go wrong.
This book will have you laughing and feeling all the way through!
Kudos to Delores on another excellent adventure.
A Coldwater Christmas by Delores Fossen is a second-chance romance for the oldest Laramie brother, Kace, a small-town sheriff of Coldwater, Texas. His day starts off with the usual run-ins with a longhorn named Petunia and the town flasher. However, he is not prepared to confront his past: the woman he had never stopped loving: Jana Parker, now divorced with a toddler, and the unexpected appearance of his father who abandoned him and brothers when they were children. Jana and Kace attempt to rekindle their love but a series of problematic pranks keep getting in the way. There is enough going on to give Kace a headache or two. No one knows what is going to happen next in their quiet town. It’s a great contemporary romance with emotional yet humorous drama.
You never know what’s going to happen next in Coldwater, Texas. Just ask Sheriff Kace Laramie. It’s usually nice and quiet in Coldwater but this day turns out to be anything but quiet. Kace spots the town flasher outside the police station about to do his thing. A red Porsche with Oklahoma plates runs the town’s only traffic light and the town librarian’s pet longhorn, Petunia escaped again and was stopped in front of Much Ado about Stuffing where the bull had just whizzed enough to make a deep puddle. After all those things are taken care of since Kace had to send his deputy after the car that ran the red light Kace’s ex-wife parks behind the police station and enters the building with a fussing toddler. What in this world does Jana Parker want? And what is his red light-running, Porsch-driving father doing in town? Coldwater is about to become a gossipmonger’s dream. Beware of Smelly Bob stink bombs!
A Coldwater Christmas by Delores Fossen is the fourth book in her Coldwater, Texas series. Ms. Fossen continues her humorous yet emotion-packed storyline with this telling of the oldest Laramie brother, Kace’s story. Kace has been the rather grumpy brother but now we get to see a different side of him. He just never forgot his first love Jana and now being in frequest contact with her sends sparks shooting between them. Jana is newly divorced again, had to sell her horse ranch and is staying in her grandmother’s house just ourside of town and trying to stop her mother from marrying Kace’s father. Both Kace and Jana were abandoned by their fathers in their youth so both have abandonment issues to deal with. For some reason Jana’s 1 1/2 year-old daughter Marley gravitates to Kace every time she sees him. She feels very comfortable with “Tace” as she calls him. I love stories where the young kids contribute so much to the fun and warmth of the story. Delores Fossen has another winner in this return to Coldwater, Texas!
I received A Coldwater Christmas from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my fair and honest review.
I found the book very well written, and enjoyed the storyline. There was good Chemistry between Kace and Jana, and I thought the engagement between his dad and her mom was a interesting one. The book is filled with many twists and turns, and at times I couldnt help but laugh outloud. I would certainly recommend this book to others.