Reviewed by Valerie
TITLE: Christmas Mountain
AUTHOR: Garrett Leigh
PUBLISHER: Fox Love Press
LENGTH: 236 pages
RELEASE DATE: November 9, 2021
BLURB:
The probation officer caring for his dead brother’s baby. The wounded gentle giant with the biggest softest heart.
Rami: Sweet Fen Hawthorne is my favourite thing about working in the prison. His broad shoulders and sunny grin. His twinkly flirtation. And he likes me as much as I like him. More seems inevitable until life happens.
One day I’m there, then I’m not, and second chances don’t really happen when your car breaks down halfway up a snowy mountain, do they? Besides, I don’t remember flirting with a bearded lumbersexual, only dreaming about one.
Fen: Do dreams come true?
Christmas Mountain is my home. But it’s the one place on earth I never imagined seeing Rami Stone again, and now I’m snowed in with him. Trapped, with only a roaring fire for company, and it’s a fantasy come true. The air is thick with more than snow and the eighteen months we’ve been apart fades away.
As the snow clears, though, so does the haze. Rami says he comes with baggage. But so do I, and I’m here for the heavy lifting.
I’m here for forever.
REVIEW:
“You two have lost each other once. Are you really going to let that happen again when fate has worked so damn hard to bring you together?”
Christmas Mountain is a heartwarming, second chance holiday novel about friends who lost track of each when tragedy interfered. They never had the chance to date, despite their attraction to each other.
Garrett Leigh has a talent for creating strong chemistry between her leading men early on in her books. I’m not talking about sexual attraction – although there is that – but something deeper, a real affinity for each other. She hits her mark in every book and gets this all-important element right every time. Here, Rami and Fen are meant for each other like peanut butter and jelly.
Rami is troubled and on his way to see his sister for help at her family’s mountaintop homestead. However, a snow storm strands him on an impassable mountain road. He’s shocked when he’s rescued by Fen, whom he hasn’t seen in eighteen months. He had no idea Fen and his sister were neighbors, nor did Fen put the pieces together. It’s immediately evident their mutual attraction hasn’t waned at all. Rami’s mouth is watering for the mountain man of his dreams, a literal lumberjack with “glorious shoulders”.
They’ve both endured hardship in the intervening months. Fate seems to have brought them together again through a wildly serendipitous meeting, but their lives are complicated and there are barriers to a relationship. For one, Fen has left his life in Manchester, now living and working on his family’s old timber and Christmas tree farm hours away from Rami’s home. And Fen doesn’t do hookups. He appears to be demisexual, so a close emotional relationship is a prerequisite to sex. There won’t be enough time to attain that before the snow melts and Rami moves on to his sister’s house. They’re on borrowed time.
Ms. Leigh utilizes one of my favorite tropes (and one of her hallmarks) – hurt/comfort. It’s a while before Fen opens up about events in his past, and they’re not always on the same wavelength. Fen can’t understand why Rami won’t make a career change. He tries to explain to Rami that “what we do isn’t who we are” but Rami struggles with an identity outside of his job. When Safia and Paddy, Rami’s sister and brother-in-law, try to convince Rami to move to their home, he balks, even though it would solve the problems that brought him to their house in the first place. He thinks living a rural life on Christmas Mountain would be an awful fate, which is unintentionally dismissive and insulting to Fen, whose way of life is carrying on his family’s’ farm.
Safia, Paddy, and their children play a big part in the story and are clearly Fen’s found family. Rami’s nieces and nephews are wonderful, particularly two-year-old Charlie, who takes to the gentle giant without hesitation, trying to climb up his legs like trees. Their relationship is one of the highlights of the book. Charlie is a very well-written character and brings joy to everyone, including the reader.
A surprise character comes in the form of Dante Pope, a former prisoner in Ms. Leigh’s fantastic Salvation. Rami is his probation officer back in Manchester. He doesn’t have an active role, just a few mentions, but it’s still a nice surprise.
Ms. Leigh makes the most of a story set at Christmastime by creating a vivid, festive atmosphere with her characters visiting a holiday market, the village streets, a pub, and with family at the homestead.
I liked the long-suffering, slow burn for the sexy times, but I was not a fan of the overall slow pace of the book. That aside, Christmas Mountain is a lovely holiday story of found family and second chances. There’s a nice bit of suspense added near the end, and the ending itself put a big smile on my face. I recommend this read for Garrett Leigh fans, of course, and any contemporary readers who enjoy the extra charm of holiday stories.
RATING: 
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