A small-town Texas Christmas story, where hearts are lost, love is found, and family always brings you back home. Griffin Holloway is desperate: the Maverick Ranch has been in his family for generations, but lately, it’s a money pit. He’d sooner marry one of his horses than sell the ranch. Marriage, though, could be a solution. If he can woo a wealthy bride, he might save the ranch–just in time … ranch–just in time for Christmas.
Jaxon O’Grady likes his solitude just fine, thank you very much. But when a car accident brings the unexpected to his door, he realizes just how much one person can need another.
Crossroads is the perfect place for Jamie Johnson: avoiding nosy questions about why she’s single, she’s happy to keep to her lakeside home. So she’s baffled when she gets the strangest Christmas present of all, in the form of a Mr. Johnson, asleep on her sofa. Who is he, and why does everyone think he’s her husband?
In this uplifting novel, three unlikely couples discover just what Crossroads, Texas, can offer: romance, belonging, and plenty of Christmas spirit.
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Jodi Thomas never fails to deliver a gripping, exciting, pull-you-into-the-story read and Mistletoe Miracles is no exception. It’s a wonderful addition to her Ransom Canyon series.
I loved this book about three couples looking for love but afraid that it might be too late. I was thoroughly entertained as I followed them to a HEA. At times I wasn’t sure they’d make it but Ms Thomas was at the helm and made sure the reader was satisfied with the ending of each. I heartily recommend it to anyone who loves romance, especially stories set at Christmas. Magical.
Love her books
Wow. Intense but good intense. Awesome book. Awesome writer. 6 stars.
I loved the way the author brought 3 stories into the same book, using chapter headings to indicate which story each time. She also tied the stories with a series of brief get-togethers where the character’s unique capabilities fit in with what was happening to the main characters in the chapters. Per the book’s title, there were plenty of miracles in this book at Christmas.
Jodi Thomas takes three largely unrelated stories and makes them a compelling whole. Great characters and a lovely resolution.
Jodi Thomas takes three largely unrelated stories and ties them into a compelling, satisfying read. The characters are sharp and interesting and the ending will warm your heart.
Three couples looking for Love. Each couple must go through life challenges, and learn to depend on each other! I got caught up in the characters and did not want it to end! I hope that there may be a continuation of the characters in another book!
I love anything by Jodi Thomas and “Mistletoe Miracles” fits the bill as a small town Texas Christmas story. Hearts are lost, love is found and family always brings you back together. I can’t say enough about how much I enjoy Mrs. Thomas’s stories.
Enjoyable with unusual plot twists.
This delightful story takes the reader down multiple paths in the love lives of a variety of characters. Far from your typical small-town Christmas story, this book brings plenty of romance and happy endings through some unconventional meeting of the characters. Truly an interesting book that keeps a reader captured in the storyline and trying to find out what happens in the end. A can’t miss book!
I loved this return visit to Crossroads Texas with Jodi Thomas to visit with old friends and meet some new ones. Besides the characters Jodi Thomss creates that crawl into your heart and refuse to leave, the story she creates for them is just as memorable. I love the entire Ransom Canyon series and this installment is just as well written and easy to read. This can easily be read as a standalone novel. A 5 star read all the way full of exciting new twists as only Ms Thomas can do. Don’t miss Mistletoe Miracles.
Favorite Quotes:
If they had to carry all their shortcomings in a sack, they’d both be permanently bent over.
You’re the oldest, Griff. You go first. At thirty-four, you’re about to go from ripe to rotten anyway.
“You don’t believe in soul mates?” “Sure. Mom’s found three so far. Every time she leaves a husband, she rolls back her age like rewinding the odometer on a car. I’ve heard husband number three is closer to my age than hers.”
It must have been dark. She’s not the kind of girl you’d ever be able to pick up, so that means she picked you up. What I can’t figure out is why she didn’t put you right back down.
I had so many housekeepers growing up that I started calling them by their number. I think we were on about twenty-three by the time I was in college…They must be working through the alphabet now. The ones my father doesn’t run off, my mother fires when she flies by on her broom now and then.
My Review:
I snickered and giggled-snorted at the comical descriptions and wry humor throughout this narrative, although I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy this book as I was initially appalled by the older brother Griffin’s presented plan of saving the family ranch. He instructed his brothers of the dire condition of their finances with their only foreseeable salvation being to find and marry wealthy women within two months and using said women’s resources to save them. Eww. This proposed plan sounded extremely cold and mercenary, which it most certainly was, and I know this happens to varying degrees all the time across all cultures, but as a feminist, I envisioned applying a high degree of pain to a soft part of his anatomy. Griffin was sincere in his belief of love also, eventually, being an aspect to this plan… stupid man… but that did seem to take the edge of my pique and kept me reading.
There were actually three well-nuanced and engaging storylines occurring at the same time, with each one being quite active, highly entertaining, observantly insightful, cleverly crafted, and involved varying degrees of duplicity. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I adored this large and vast cast of quirky characters and the real-life issues they encountered. I need to work this crafty spinner of tales into my reading calendar with regularity.
3 neighbors, 3 different stories.
I really liked how this worked. You never know what is going to happen, especially in a small town. Three unlikely couples, how will things end up for them? This is centered around the holidays, but not necessarily a Christmas love story. I recommend it!
Three (soon to be) couples in three stories whose lives intersect in this small Texas town. Now by three stories I don’t mean there are three separate books, but three different plots. I know when I first started reading this book I was a little confused but I quickly fell into the flow and loved each and every character. They all have their issues, but love helps them overcome and become better people.
I am not sure which one of these was my favorite because they all grabbed a piece of my heart in different ways. Jax, who was a victim of a fire and is leaving a hermit life until he sees a car crash close to his home. Sunlan, she has lived her life being sheltered or controlled by her parents and finds a way to escape that and be her own person, but at what cost? Wyatt, he has a tough life in the military but through a misunderstanding by the local sheriff finds that maybe life isn’t meant to be lived alone. There are many other characters but this just highlights a few of them.
This book touched my heart, made me laugh, and even raised my protective instincts. It had everything I like to see in a book and enjoyed every moment in Crossroads.
Here are some of my favorite lines:
“Then you’d better come back soon. I’m not sure we speak the same language. Some guy in tight pants rushed down a while ago and asked me if I’d seen a sangria pillow. When I looked blank, he added real slow, ‘Sangria-colored pillow.’ I thought that was a drink, not a color. I told him I saw it riding off on a whiskey horse with a brandy mane toward a tequila sunset.”
“A pool would sure be nicer than the pond. Last time I went for a swim I came up for air, and a cow licked my ear so hard I didn’t get the snot out for a week.”
I read hundreds of books each year, and there are a few authors who stand out from the crew, each for different reasons with their own style of writing. Jodi Thomas is a true storyteller. She has such a handle on the words, the ways to pull the readers into the tale, to build up characters that are easy to connect with and fall in love with, care for like they were your best friends. The vivid images she paints with her words draw the pictures so clear that they come to live in the reader’s mind. I adore this series and Mistletoe Miracles, it was just as marvelous as the rest of the books, with three couples finding their destinies, love, and soulmates over the miraculous time of Christmas.
Each of these tales is unique. The lives the characters have lived have been challenging, their lone existence in a way satisfying yet the longing for a mate is there somewhere deep in their souls. Nothing comes easy, each couple has to face their own challenges, and with some, it is an instant connection under false pretenses, with other a marriage of convenience, and with the third, it takes a longer time to heal the wounds in their souls and bodies before they are ready for a new relationship. Yet in each story, there is the magical wonder of the holidays, where everything seems possible, and falling in love seems so natural.
The book is build so that each couple takes turns to tell their tale of falling in love. The intervals are clearly marked, and there is never a question who’s story it is at the hand. With the intertwined tales, the interest, and intrigue of the romances allure, and I inhaled the book at once, smiling, sighing, swooning, and even tearing up several times because of the touching, compelling, nearly spellbinding way the stories unfold.
With the clean and sweet romance stories, this book is easy to recommend to all romance readers.
From heartbreak to dreams come true, from saving lives to risking them, from small-town charm to adorable four-legged friends, the book with its three couples and their stories covers life, loving, and living in a fluently flowing, brilliantly written, pleasing tale that delighted, captivated, and mesmerized all at the same time
~ Five Spoons!
MISTLETOE MIRACLES (A Ransom Canyon Romance #7) by Jodi Thomas is a heartwarming addition to this series and is perfect for putting you in the Christmas romance spirit.
In this book, there are three stories intertwined. All set in the small Texas town of Crossroads. Each has a hero and heroine that have given up on love, been broken by people who supposedly loved them, or never believed in the possibility of love for themselves in the first place.
Griffin’s Problem has Griffin Holloway desperate for cash to save his ranch that has been in his family for generations. He would rather cut off a limb than sell even a small portion of his land. The solution he and his brothers come up with; he must marry a wealthy bride before the end of the year. These bachelors have no idea how to go about their plan, so they seek the help of a pair of elderly sisters in town who run a boarding house. The sisters find a bride for Griffin, but the bride has conditions.
Midnight Crossing has Jaxon O’Grady, former firefighter, living like a hermit on his family’s isolated piece of land. When he witnesses a car crash off the nearby isolated road, emergency personnel rescue the woman, but Jaxon finds and saves her injured dog. After realizing the danger this mystery woman is in, Jaxon takes her in as well to his isolated cabin and he begins to realize he is needed.
The Johnsons has Jamie Johnson finally settled in her dream lakeside home and happily teaching. To avoid nosy neighbors and unwanted male attention, she has invented a husband away in the service. When she returns from a weekend school trip, she is shocked to find a man asleep on her sofa. The town believes Mr. Johnson has returned. Now what is Jamie going to do?
This is such a wonderful read! Ms. Thomas has taken interesting individual characters and put them in unusual situations and we get to enjoy watching how they come together. I wanted every hero and heroine to get their HEA and the Christmas setting makes it even more magical. Well written with believable, broken characters who are perfect for each other. All sex scenes are behind closed doors. This is a book that I just did not want to end and I highly recommend.
Written for and posted first on The Romance Reviews.