Scan barcode
A review by brittanica_bold
How the Grump Saved Christmas by Claire Kingsley
4.0
This is one of my favorite times of the year, because fantastic authors like Claire Kingsley deliver lovey-dovey holiday stories that us devoted readers can gobble up!
This year, Claire allowed us to travel back into Tilikum (home of the Bailey brothers and the Haven heathens) with How the Grump Saved Christmas. Once I saw that red, snow-covered truck with the Bailey Brothers logo I was a goner! I knew I had to get my hands on this small-town romance.
What I liked about the book:
1. Let’s start with the obvious, this setting is to die for! I love Tilikum and I love holidays with snow, so this was a slam dunk for me!
2. I love Grinchy holiday romances! I love watching the person that hates Christmas end up having the best Christmas of all and spreading all kinds of holiday cheer as they save the day. Elias’s transition was so fun to watch, from his care for his assistant’s daughter with cerebral palsy down to his little lumberjack outfits!
3. I liked the MCs enough. I loved that this was a second chance romance and this couple definitely had hard history together.
Isabelle is hardheaded and throws herself into work, to the detriment of the rest of her life. I liked her determination and I liked her rationale for doing this once we found out what it was, but I also thought she was too hardheaded at times when it came to Elias. One moment she was too hard on him and the next she was falling into old habits. I get it, she was conflicted, but it was a little annoying the way it played out at times.
Elias was fun to watch transition from grump with nothing to jolly guy with it all. He was definitely sarcastic and an ass at times, but he had a great heart when he it let it shine. He was good, but he doesn’t have anything on those Baileys!
4. I really liked Elias’s assistant Alice and her daughter Maddie. For me, they really made this story glow. I loved how Alice was one of the only ones Elias would let in, how she gave him shit, but still did a killer job not only in the office but as a single mom to Maddie. Honestly, I wanted so bad to see her end up with a Haven. But that other guy is cool I guess…
Maddie was probably one of my favorite Claire Kingsley characters to date. A little girl full of joy with cerebral palsy that she didn’t let get her down and the brain of a thirty-year-old; it doesn’t get much better than that!
5. The thing I loved the most about this story was how Claire overlapped the timeline with her last book in the Bailey Brothers series Rewriting the Stars. So many of the conversations, events, and moments from Rewriting the Stars were given a new viewpoint and twist in this story, and I loved watching them match up!
What could have been better:
1. This was not spicy at all! Claire doesn’t usually go crazy with graphic sexual situations, but I was expecting something at least! The “spicy” scenes left a lot to be desired, especially for a second chance romance.
Final Thoughts: It’s fun, it’s festive, and it has a lot of heart, just like all other books by Claire.
Final Rating: 4 grumpy stars!
This year, Claire allowed us to travel back into Tilikum (home of the Bailey brothers and the Haven heathens) with How the Grump Saved Christmas. Once I saw that red, snow-covered truck with the Bailey Brothers logo I was a goner! I knew I had to get my hands on this small-town romance.
What I liked about the book:
1. Let’s start with the obvious, this setting is to die for! I love Tilikum and I love holidays with snow, so this was a slam dunk for me!
2. I love Grinchy holiday romances! I love watching the person that hates Christmas end up having the best Christmas of all and spreading all kinds of holiday cheer as they save the day. Elias’s transition was so fun to watch, from his care for his assistant’s daughter with cerebral palsy down to his little lumberjack outfits!
3. I liked the MCs enough. I loved that this was a second chance romance and this couple definitely had hard history together.
Isabelle is hardheaded and throws herself into work, to the detriment of the rest of her life. I liked her determination and I liked her rationale for doing this once we found out what it was, but I also thought she was too hardheaded at times when it came to Elias. One moment she was too hard on him and the next she was falling into old habits. I get it, she was conflicted, but it was a little annoying the way it played out at times.
Elias was fun to watch transition from grump with nothing to jolly guy with it all. He was definitely sarcastic and an ass at times, but he had a great heart when he it let it shine. He was good, but he doesn’t have anything on those Baileys!
4. I really liked Elias’s assistant Alice and her daughter Maddie. For me, they really made this story glow. I loved how Alice was one of the only ones Elias would let in, how she gave him shit, but still did a killer job not only in the office but as a single mom to Maddie. Honestly, I wanted so bad to see her end up with a Haven. But that other guy is cool I guess…
Maddie was probably one of my favorite Claire Kingsley characters to date. A little girl full of joy with cerebral palsy that she didn’t let get her down and the brain of a thirty-year-old; it doesn’t get much better than that!
5. The thing I loved the most about this story was how Claire overlapped the timeline with her last book in the Bailey Brothers series Rewriting the Stars. So many of the conversations, events, and moments from Rewriting the Stars were given a new viewpoint and twist in this story, and I loved watching them match up!
What could have been better:
1. This was not spicy at all! Claire doesn’t usually go crazy with graphic sexual situations, but I was expecting something at least! The “spicy” scenes left a lot to be desired, especially for a second chance romance.
Final Thoughts: It’s fun, it’s festive, and it has a lot of heart, just like all other books by Claire.
Final Rating: 4 grumpy stars!