Take Me Home For Christmas by Brenda Novak

Contemporary Romance

What Goodreads says:

"Too bad all memories aren't pleasant. Everyone in Whiskey Creek remembers Sophia DeBussi as the town's Mean Girl. Especially Ted Dixon, whose love she once scorned. 

But Sophia has paid the price for her youthful transgressions. The man she did marry was rich and powerful but abusive. So when he goes missing, she secretly hopes he'll never come back—until she learns that he died running from an FBI probe of his investment firm. Not only has he left Sophia penniless, he's left her to face all the townspeople he cheated…. 

Sophia is reduced to looking for any kind of work to pay the bills and support her daughter. With no other options, she becomes housekeeper for none other than Ted, now a successful suspense writer. He can't bring himself to turn his back on her, not at Christmas, but he refuses to get emotionally involved. He learned his lesson the last time. 

Or will the season of love and forgiveness give them both another chance at happiness?"

Take Me Home For Christmas is Ted and Sophia’s story.  Ted is part of the Friday coffee group in Whiskey Creek. 

Characters:  All of the regulars at Friday coffee show up in the book.  Ted and Sophia have been secondary characters in previous books.  In Take Me Home for Christmas their characters are fleshed out and we get to know them much better.  Sophia’s daughter Alexa plays a major role in the story.  There is a cast of characters list at the beginning of the book.  You can go there if you don’t know who or how some of the secondary characters fit into the town.

Plot:  This is pure redemption and forgiveness.  For Ted this is forgiving Sophia and for Sophia it is forgiving herself.  Part of the plot does deal with two very difficult issues; alcoholism and spousal abuse.  All of this is part of the journey to an HEA.

Writing:  As with the other books the writing brings to story together.  There are surprises and they are presented with dialog.  This is a book written in the active mode so everything moves with action and dialog.

World Building:  The world of Whiskey Creek as been developed in previous books so the only world building in fleshing out Ted and Sophia’s place in Whiskey Creek.  It would add to the enjoyment of the story if you had read the previous books but Take Me Home For Christmas can stand-alone.

I enjoyed the story.  There were things that I found a little too pat but this was a journey to a HEA and it was an interesting and different journey.

MIRA published Take Me Home For Christmas by Brenda Novak in 2013.

I received an ARC of Take Me Home For Christmas from Netgalley.