Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: Home for Christmas
SERIES: Texas #9
AUTHOR: RJ Scott
NARRATOR: Sean Crisden
PUBLISHER: Love Lane Books
RELEASE DATE: November 7, 2019
LENGTH: 3 hours, 54 minutes
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:
It was many years ago that we first met the Campbell-Hayes family. We watched Jack and Riley fall in love and start their family and watched it grow, and grow. In Home for Christmas we follow the next generation; their son Conner.
Conner is studying at college and has been in love with his best friend River for ages. And after their very hot encounter during a Halloween party he had hopes it was the start of something more. Only River started to avoid him instead, culminating to finding him drunk and on the roof of a building in the middle of a snowstorm. Not daring to leave his friend alone, Connor drags River back to Texas with him to spend Christmas with his family.
For River spending time with the exuberant and loving Campbell-Hayes family is a blessing and a curse. He loves being part of a loving and welcoming family, but it also hammered home how utterly alone he was. How much he missed growing up, not having anywhere to call home.
I liked River and Conner together, they were sweet and cute and they’d danced around each other long before this book picked up, up on that roof. On the other hand I also felt like it was too easy. I mean there were issues that needed to be dealt with, things to say and work through. But I never felt like it was given much space. For the most part Conner didn’t even try to listen to River. Try to talk with him. And whenever there was a modicum of seriousness either it was interrupted by lust or a family member. So yeah, I can see them together, they just need more time to work through some stuff before they can really be something more.
Sean Crisden captured the characters just right. He captured Rivers longing for a family and place to belong, at the same time as being afraid of taking a leap and trust. But also the fear Conner had for River when he found him balancing on that ledge. He also made you feel the longing and attraction between them and the love the whole family shared. He brought this family and story alive and made you long for Christmas.
If you haven’t read any of the previous eight books in the series you could probably still listen to this book without much hassle. Sure you’ll miss out on some of the back-story but it’s not something that will leave you unable to follow the story. If you have read all the books, this will be a nice interlude to catch up with the family we’ve loved for so long.
RATING: 
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