Reviewed by Donna
TITLE: Home For Christmas
SERIES: Texas #9
AUTHOR: RJ Scott
PUBLISHER: Love Lane
LENGTH: 173 Pages
RELEASE DATE: November 28, 2018
BLURB:
Can Connor show River a real family Christmas?
When Connor finds River on the roof of the campus admin building, he doesn’t know what to do. His friend is drunk, and shouting into a snowstorm, a bottle of vodka in his hand. The easy part is getting River down; the hard part is insisting River comes home with Connor for Christmas.
River doesn’t have a family, or any place outside of college that he calls home. Not that it matters to him; he’s happy being alone for Christmas in his budget motel, watching reruns of Elf. Only, Connor keeps telling wildly improbable stories of the perfect family celebrations at his parents’ ranch in Texas, and it’s wearing River down. He didn’t ask to be kidnapped. He didn’t want to fall in love with the entire Campbell-Hayes family. But he does.
From one Christmas to the next. This is Connor’s year to rescue River, and himself, for them both to mess things up, make things right, fall in lust and finally, for Connor to show the man he loves what being part of a family can mean.
REVIEW:
How excited was I to see that RJ Scott had gotten us the most perfect gift this Christmas! Another Texas book! This series is like crack and I’m pretty sure we all thought it was over, but just like her readers, the author obviously could not let this family go.
The main characters of this story are Connor and River. For those of you who are trying to remember that very full and complicated family tree to figure out which character was Connor, he is the youngest son of Riley and Jack. But now he’s all grown up and headed home to the family ranch for Christmas. But before he drives away from the college, he finds his friend River, drunk and standing on the edge of the roof in the middle of a snowstorm. Scared what might happen to the young man if he leaves him alone, Connor forces River into the car despite his protests and takes him home with him.
As much as I love Jack and Riley, it was great to get the perspective of someone else now that the kids were all grown up. Connor is a great character because while he at first comes across as a bit goody goody, like one of those perfect guys who always does the right thing, but then you start to get an idea of the pressure he feels being part of such an overachieving family. I loved that the author made clear that Connor’s family was absolutely supportive, and he knew that, and that was part of the problem. He was creating problems completely in his head about disappointing them, which is something that I think most people are prone to do; create problems where there are none.
And River, well River is a male diver. Need I say more, because that sold me right there! River is another character who has some realistic issues to overcome, and I appreciated that his problems weren’t something that could be fixed through the “power of love”. I also liked that even though he had medical issues, the author didn’t feel the need to make a big deal about them in the story. Just because someone has occasional seizures doesn’t mean they need to have one in the short time frame that the book is set over. Also, even though Connor and River seem to get serious about their relationship quickly, it remains new and awkward, with both men uncertain how to act together and where they stand as a couple.
Because this book does have different main characters to the rest of the series, I daresay you could read this as a Christmas story without having read the other eight books. However, the family involved is large and absolutely involved in each others lives, so it’s possible that you’d feel like you were missing out on some “inside jokes” as the young men interact with the vast cast of secondary characters. For lovers of this series, buying this book is clearly a no brainer, and I guarantee you’ll enjoy revisiting the Campbell-Hayes family.
RATING: 
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