Reviewed by Sadonna

TITLE:  Christmas in Cedarwood

SERIES:  Cedarwood Pride

AUTHOR:  Megan Slayer

PUBLISHER:  Pride Publishing

LENGTH:  111 pages

RE-RELEASE DATE:  December 22, 2020

BLURB:

FROM POPULAR AUTHOR OF LGBTQ+ ROMANCE MEGAN SLAYER

Book twelve in the Cedarwood Pride series

Two men, one kid and the frayed nerves that come with the holidays…can they make it through to Christmas without a blow-up?

Colt Harrison knew when he met Ashley Willis that he’d found the one man for him. He loves Ashley’s son, Wyatt, as if he were his own son. But the stress of living together, compounded with buying a home and adopting pets has worn him down…not to mention the aggravation that comes with the diner he owns. He wants to make Christmas special for his family, but how can they have a great holiday when Colt’s never home?

Ashley’s got a two-week vacation from his job at the elementary school teaching art. All he wants is time with Colt and Wyatt. He loves Colt, but not the long hours spent at the diner, especially around the holidays. Can he be honest about what he wants from Colt and keep the man he loves?

Anything is possible if they embrace the magic of Christmas.

REVIEW:

Note:  While this is book twelve in the series, this works fine as a standalone.

Ashley is an elementary art teacher.  He has an 8-year-old son.  Recently he and his boyfriend Colton have purchases a home.  They’ve also adopted a couple of puppies.  So they have a their hands more than full on the home front.  In addition Colt owns a diner that he’s working very hard to make a success.  Unfortunately on the run up to Christmas, Colt seems to have to spend more and more time at the diner.  Something is always going wrong, someone is sick (or multiple someones).

Colt realizes that his focus on his business is costing him time with his family.  But he feels a responsibility to make sure that he’s doing everything he can to provide for his family.  He’s having a terrible time finding balance between work and family – like most of us in the 21st century 🙂  But things are coming to a head and he needs to do something fast to save his relationship.  So he cooks up a few surprises – some of which go well and others not quite so much 😉

Once again, I find myself wishing I had enjoyed this book more.  It started off well and then sort of fell into competing POVs of frustration and non-communication which got a bit stale.  There were a couple of pretty big niggles for me though – like a supposedly recovering alcoholic drinking wine?  I really liked Wyatt, Ashley’s son, and the way the author addressed the reality that kids many times take onto themselves the burden of their parents conflict.  Wyatt was constantly blaming himself for the difficulties that Ash and Colt had connecting and making their family work.  Both men tried to reassure him that it wasn’t the case, but kids have such a limited perspective that it didn’t always resonate.  Once they got past that and they were able to communicate better and Colt realized that he was going to have to relinquish something, things got better.  If you’re looking for a rather quick holiday story involving a new family overcoming the trials and tribulations of modern busy life, then you might want to pick this up.

RATING: 

BUY LINKS:

Amazon

Pride