In the town of Silver Bells, there’s always a feeling of Christmas in the air… Let love—and RaeAnne Thayne—melt your heart this holiday season! This New Year will bring widowed nurse Abigail Powell a fresh start in a different city. Excited about the chance to create an unforgettable Christmas for her young son in picturesque Silver Bells, Colorado, Abby has been hired to take care of her dear … to take care of her dear friend’s recuperating grandmother. But sprightly senior Winnie insists she doesn’t need looking after. What she does need is help decorating her historic mansion, Holiday House, for a seasonal town fundraiser. Abby warms to the festive task, but she’ll have to contend with her own personal Grinch: Winnie’s prickly grandson, Ethan Lancaster.
Ethan Lancaster is good at a lot of things. Relationships surely aren’t one of them. His ex-fiancée convinced Ethan he was incapable of love, and he believes her…up until the moment he impulsively kisses Abby. What is it about this vibrant woman and her sweet son that knocks his world off-kilter? He knows they’re leaving town after Christmas. He just didn’t expect they’d be taking a little of his heart with them. But as he and Abby work together on the magical Holiday House through the record cold weather, visions of a different future dance in his head…one filled with warmth, love and a new beginning for them both.
Don’t miss Thayne’s next release, The Path to Sunshine Cove: three love stories in one with the emotional pull of Debbie Macomber, Barbara Delinsky and Susan Wiggs!
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Few authors can match RaeAnne Thayne when it comes to writing sweet, charming, feel-good, sentimental Christmas stories that fill the reader with the warm fuzzies, and she’s done it again in Christmas at Holiday House, her latest novel, which gets 5 stars from this reader.
The setting is as much a character in this story as the rest of the cast of characters, and that setting is Silver Bells, Colorado, a picture postcard of a quaint ski resort town, the center of he family’s hotel/resort chain, and Holiday House, a huge grande dame of a Victorian mansion that’s housed several generations of the Lancaster family. The only one living there at the moment is almost 80-year-old Winnie, pink hair and all, who, just before Thanksgiving, had the brilliant idea of giving Christmas tours of her historic home, complete with a dozen Christmas trees, her many valuable collectibles on display, carols from a group of local ladies called the Silver Belles Choir, refreshments included. It’s intended as a fundraiser for her pet project, a ski resort experience for the alternately abled, a noble and admirable cause. But Winnie slips on the stairs, breaking her wrist, spraining her ankle and breaking several ribs–luckily she doesn’t break her hip, her leg, or her back. Her grandson, Ethan Lancaster, head of the family hotel chain, wants to put her into assisted living, or at least a one-story condo, but she’s not budging. Holiday House is her home and her pride and joy and she isn’t leaving.
Enter Abigail Powell, who is a nurse, has been widowed for 2 years, and is the mother of an adorable five-year-old boy named Christopher. She lives in Phoenix, but has decided to pack up and get a fresh start away from the city where her husband was shot and killed by a hospital mental patient–her destination is Austin, Texas, and she’s already found a place to live, a job, checked out the school system, and cultural opportunities there for her son. Then she gets a phone call from her former college roommate and closest friend, Lucy, who needs a big favor.
Lucy Lancaster has spent more than the last decade working for the Peace Corps and other places all over the world in need of her talented and giving soul. Knowing that she can’t get home in time to care for her beloved grandmother, siding with her against her brother’s idea of making Winnie leave her beloved home, and knowing that her best friend, Abby, is a nurse, she asks if Abby can spent the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas caring for Winnie at Holiday House, and Abby finally agrees, thinking Christmas in a house she’s heard about since her college days, in a ski resort town complete with snow, will be a wonderful Christmas experience for young Christopher, and is it ever.
Both Ethan and Lucy Lancaster were raised by incredibly dysfunctional, self-absorbed parents, whose many divorces, marriages, lovers, and the constant tug-of-war over custody or not wanting custody left both of their children with the idea that love and marriage were a disaster and definitely not for them. It’s hard to blame them for feeling that way, but their happiest memories were the times when they spent their summers at Holiday House and almost a year living there and being lovingly raised by their grandmother, Winnie. Ethan’s intended bride, Brooke, ended their engagement a month before they were to be married a year earlier because she knew that Ethan didn’t love her the way she loved him. Lucy too has resisted falling in love with José, her lifelong friend and Ethan’s second-in-command, and their friendship practically ends when he visits her overseas and professes his love for her. She suggests they sleep together, and he refuses, wanting sex between them to be more than a roll in the hay, but instead about love and a lifelong commitment, a commitment Lucy won’t make. How will it all turn out? I’m not telling.
Suffice it to say that it was impossible not to fall in love with this story, it’s characters–young and old, the charming setting, the time of year, and everything from tree trimming, to skiing, to cookie baking, Christmas carols, a gingerbread house contest, and the entire town and inhabitants of Silver Bells, Colorado. As has been the case in every RaeAnne Thayne novel I’ve read, I wish that I could move there, and I think that after reading this incredibly sweet, sentimental story, you’ll feel that way too.
I voluntarily read an advance reader copy of this novel. The opinions stated are my own.
Christmas at Holiday House was such a heartwarming story. It made me laugh, it made me tear up, and when it was over, I was sad for it to be done. I loved all the characters and I really loved this new town the author has created. RaeAnne Thayne did a wonderful job telling a truly delightful holiday story. I can only hope she decides to return to Silver Bells in the future.
ARC provided by NetGalley & Publisher for an honest review
Welcome to Holiday House in Silver Bells, Colorado where you will find love, laughter, family and good friends and lots of Christmas fun.
Abigail Powell is a nurse, widow and single mother of a five-year-old little boy named Christopher. Her husband was shot and killed by a patient he was tending to in a Phoenix, AZ hospital emergency room. Now two years later Abby has decided she and Christopher need to move on to a new start in their lives in Austin, Texas. But first Abby has agreed to spend a few weeks over the holidays in Silver Bells, Colorado taking care of her college roommate, Lucy Lancaster’s grandmother Winnie who was injured in a fall. In addition to doing this good deed Abby decided spending Christmas in Silver Bells would be a good experience for Christopher, As it turns out, there is snow tubing, learning to ski, building a snowman and the annual gingerbread house competition which are fun things for Christopher who has no experience with snow. And there’s the bonus of getting to know and love Winnie. Also there’s Ethan Lancaster. He is such a kind and caring man. Abby finds herself attracted to him. But she and Christopher are leaving for Austin after Christmas. Or are they?
Ethan Lancaster is the CEO of the Lancaster Hotels. He is very successful at running the company but not quite as successful at talking Winnie into selling the Lancaster family home, Holiday House and moving into a condo. He feels Holiday House is too much for Winnie to handle by herself especially after being injured in a fall. Winnie wants no parts of leaving Holiday House. Ethan is grateful his sister Lucy’s friend Abigail Powell steps up and arrives to help care for Winnie. Yes, he was leery of this arrangement at first. He never expected to fall for Abby and love her son Christopher as well after all his ex-fiance Brooke told him he was broken inside. Well who wouldn’t have issues when the train-wreck relationship of their parents who divorced, had affairs and multiple marriages and fought over who got stuck with himself and Lucy did such a lousy job of parenting? But Ethan realizes that he is capable of love when it comes to Abby and Christopher.
Christmas at Holiday House by RaeAnne Thayne is a wonderful, emotionally satisfying and fun Christmas romance. The characters are delightful, ones I would like to meet and get to know in person. Winnie Lancaster steals the show – what an inspiration! There’s lots of Christmas activities throughout the story which is what I love about Christmas romance books. It’s really a 2-for-1 romance story as readers not only get to see Abby and Ethan find their HEA but the storyline includes Lucy Lancaster’s realization that she can fall in love and have a HEA too. I really enjoyed this book!
There are actually two romances going on in this story but more than that, this story is about Christmas, recovering from losses, overcoming the past and beginning fresh, plus enjoying friends and family! That might sound like way too much to put in a book but the author is just that talented! Her stories are always filled with wonderful characters, towns that become part of the story and so much emotion. I am drawn in from the very beginning of this story and when it ends, I want to cry! I am not ready for this book to end! Abby’s husband is murdered two years prior to the opening of this book and she’s still trying to put together the pieces of her life but her son, Christopher, is turning 5 and she has decided that a new city is the next step in her life. Before she moves, however, she will go to Silver Bells, Colorado to help out her college roommate’s grandmother who needs nursing help through the holiday. She can never guess how much it will change her life. Christopher is an amazing boy! I fell in love with him from the start! So cheerful and full of life! Abby is a little overprotective but she’s a single mom so… She meets “Grandma” Winnie and instantly falls in love with her. Then comes her grandson, Ethan, and they first rub each other wrong but things can change. I really enjoyed the romance between Lucy and Jose. It was very honest and real. Lucy has been globe-trotting for years because she doesn’t want to commit to anything and Jose wants her to face life. Jose’s brother, Rod, is the sweetest character ever! Holiday House was a place I want to live! The people in the town are amazing! A fantastic story with so many takeaways! I loved it all!
I was given a copy of this book in exchange for my review
What a neat book a couple of romances and a holiday story all in one.
This book sure shows how the home you are raised in can effect how you plan your life, two love stories that almost never happened here are the proof.
I don’t know if RaeAnne just writes with compassion but her stories make me feel so compassionate and oh the ending on this one just wraps up the warm fuzzies with a big bow.