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Tuesday, October 8, 2024

Book Review for Christmas in Aspen by Anita Hughes

 Christmas in Aspen Anita Hughes

Published:  October 8, 2024 by St. Martin's Griffin

Genre:  Romance, Christmas

 


Taken from Goodreads:
  A heartwarming story of holiday magic and love scaling new heights


Editor Caroline Holt is on her way to her late mother’s upstate cabin in Hudson to spend the holidays. She was supposed to be in London, having a holiday romance. But this Christmas, she isn’t in the mood to get her heart broken again. Caroline loves being an editor, but in the last year burnout has taken over. She has been mourning her mother, and she is looking to get that spark back.

In the cabin, Caroline finds a letter addressed to her mother. It’s in a red envelope, and the return address is Santa’s Little Red mailbox, in Aspen, Colorado. The letter is from a man declaring his love for her mother. He’ll be waiting for her in front of the Little Red Mailbox at three pm on New Year’s Eve.

Unable to ignore her curiosity, Caroline takes the next flight to Aspen to meet her mother’s mysterious lover, but things start getting complicated when she meets another man in town. The more they run into each other, the more she is drawn to him. And when Caroline finds out the truth about the person her mother had loved, she unravels secrets of her own past.

By the end of Christmas week, Caroline gets a chance to rewrite her own destiny by confronting her fears of loving again and possibly leaving behind what she thought was a perfect life.

My Thoughts:  I read a Christmas book in September and it was 80+ degrees outside.   Yet, I fell into this book and read it in one day.    I enjoyed the setting of Aspen, Colorado.   I could picture the cute town with the quaint stores.  I love that a bookstore was mentioned throughout the story.  The author did a great job of bringing the town and all that surrounds the town to life with her descriptions.    

The characters… I did not love any of them.   They all seemed hard to relate to and immature.   They couldn’t talk to each other when they had disagreements or just life issues.   There was a lot of running away from each other.   They would run from each other and deal with the fallout later.  I wanted them to act like grown ups and talk about what was happening.  The secrets that they had from each other were big secrets.   Secrets that had to be talked about.  

I enjoyed the book but it is not one that will stick with me or one that I will rave about.  If you are looking for a quick and easy book to read, this book is exactly that.  

Thank you St. Martin’s Press for a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review,

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Meet Anita Hughes (taken from her website):
 Anita Hughes was born in Sydney, Australia and had a charmed childhood that included petting koala bears, riding the waves on Bondi Beach, and putting an occasional shrimp on the barbie. Her writing career began at the age of eight, when she won a national writing contest in THE AUSTRALIAN newspaper, and was named "One of Australia's Next Best Writers." (She still has the newspaper clipping.)

She received a B.A. in English Literature with a minor in Creative Writing from Bard College, and attended UC Berkeley's Masters in Creative Writing program.

Her debut novel MONARCH BEACH was released in June 2012, followed by MARKET STREET and LAKE COMO in 2013. FRENCH COAST and ROME IN LOVE were released in 2015.

ISLAND IN THE SEA: A MAJORCA LOVE STORY and SANTORINI SUNSETS and her first holiday novel, CHRISTMAS IN PARIS, were released in 2016.

WHITE SAND, BLUE SEA: A ST BARTS LOVE STORY, EMERALD COAST and CHRISTMAS IN LONDON were realeased in 2017. CALIFORNIA SUMMER and CHRISTMAS AT THE CHALET were released in 2018. Her recent Christmas books include, CHRISTMAS IN VERMONT, A MAGICAL NEW YORK CHRISTMAS, CHRISTMAS ON THE RANCH and CHRISTMAS AT THE LAKE.

ROME IN LOVE is now a Hallmark movie! CHRISTMAS IN VERMONT is now a LIFETIME movie!


She lives in Dana Point, CA with her family, where she interrupts her writing to watch the glorious sunsets.

 

 

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