Those we love always come home. Christmas has always been a happy affair for the Friessens, but this year, as the family returns home, they are faced with more than a few challenges—from the crazy whirlwind of an on-again, off-again romance to a fairytale marriage now on the rocks, with more secrets than the family knows what to do with.Can the Friessens pull together this holiday season, and … this holiday season, and will the gift of love be all they need?
“Best family series ever! I love the dynamic of this powerful close family. Three brothers, a cousin, and all the spouses and children make for an interesting, spellbinding story you won’t want to put down.” Amazon Customer “This is a series that you will go back to time and again to reread. Lorhainne Eckhart is that type of writer. Love her stories about family and their journey. This is a great read, full of love for family that sticks together.” Joann Moore “I have read all of Lorhainne Eckhart’s Outsiders and Friessens books. In fact, I rarely read the same book more than once, but I have read the entire Outsiders series twice and some of the individual books more than that. Ms. Eckhart’s books are so filled with raw emotion and family relationships and all of those dynamics.” Aherman “This is a tight-knit family, along with their cousin Andy, his wife, and their children. The kind of family we all wish we had.” Susan H.
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Wow. Christmas sure is a troubling time for the Friessens this year. Between Katy and her problems with Steven, and Becky with Tom, there are a lot of worries to go around. And total mayhem of course with such a large family all getting together at once. Another great story of the Friessens.
I loved this one!
Overall 5
Performance 4
Story 5
I’m a somewhat new fan of Lorhainne Eckhart’s books. I actually have about all of them in Kindle format but just haven’t made time to read them. As a fairly new audiobook addict, I’ve jumped at the chance to receive a few of her audios in exchange for a review, including this one. The only problem with this is that I’ve listened to her series out of order. It didn’t matter for some of the books but I really wished I’d read books 6-9 in order.
That being said, In the Family was a wonderful book and I don’t regret listening to it out of order. I know this sounds like I’m contradicting myself but just because I prefer reading/listening to series in order I don’t want to discourage anyone else from picking this up even if they haven’t read the preceding books.
In the Family, as you probably guessed from the title, is all about the Friessen family but the primary focus is on two young couples, Katy and Steven and then Becky and Tom. I knew about both of these couples from listening to First Love and In the Moment.
In the Family really got all of my emotions involved. For a while I thought it was going to be too depressing for me but it didn’t turn out to be that way at all. I actually think that it’s one of the most realistic Christmas season books I’ve ever experienced. Christmas isn’t always wonderful every year for all families and this year the Friessens are coping with things they never really imagined would happen. I don’t want to say too much else because it would give the story away.
While a lot of In the Family dealt with unhappy things there were also light-hearted moments. I cried both happy and sad tears while listening to it – and this is my favorite kind of book. If you are already a fan of The Friessens series you absolutely will want to read/listen to this book.
I almost forgot to say anything about the narration… In the Family is the first book I’ve listened to by Melanie Taylor and I liked it very much. She’s great at doing different voices, including the male ones, which I think a lot of female narrators have trouble with. The only thing that kept me from giving the performance 5 stars (and this quite possibly was not her fault) is that there was almost no space when going from chapter to chapter which was a bit disconcerting. I also hate it when audiobooks have too long of a pause between chapters but I think I prefer that to having almost no pause at all, which was the case for In the Family.
I’ve been somewhat critical when reviewing the performances of a few of Ms. Eckhart’s books but Melanie Taylor was really, really enjoyable to listen to.