Reviewed by Lesley
TITLE: The Map Home
SERIES: Collier’s Creek Christmas
AUTHOR: Elle Keaton
PUBLISHER: Dirty Dog Press LLC
LENGTH: 177 pages
RELEASE DATE: November 26, 2024
BLURB:
Stolen toys and a naughty St. Nick. Will a holiday crime spree bring two hearts together?
Ask Dakota and he’ll say the wall around his heart is high and the moat deep for a reason. Love is a lie.
If Tad knows one single truth, it’s that Dakota is his personal North Star. Dakota, the boy Tad bonded with at fourteen, has grown into Dakota, the man he loves. The second, more frustrating truth, is that Dakota is one of the most stubborn people on the planet.
Dakota craves a simple existence. Work. Sleep. Eat. Hang out with his best friend. Keep things platonic. No one knows him better than Tad.
The holidays have arrived, and it’s supposed to be a time of celebration, but some blackhearted person steals the donations to the town toy box. Dakota finds himself working the case of the purloined toys, while Tad fills in at the town newspaper. It’s inevitable their paths will cross.
Tad is fine with crossing paths–and more. Is it going too far adding Dakota Green to the top of his Christmas wish list?
And what will it take for Dakota to realize that he deserves happiness? That Tad, the person who knows him best, is the one for him?
REVIEW:
This is the final book for the Collier’s Creek Christmas Series this year and of course the series ends on a happy note.
Dakota learnt never to truly trust anybody after his mum abandoned him when he was fourteen years old. His best friend Tad and his family the Gillespie’s saved him from going into the foster system by taking him in and letting him stay with them on their ranch. He owes them everything. He has worked hard with their support and the support of Tad is the newest deputy sheriff in Collier’s Creek. The only thing is his feelings for Tad are definitely not brotherly. Not that he will ever let Tad know his feelings because there is no way he is good enough for Tad or so he thinks.
Tad has moved out of the family ranch after getting his degree in journalism and is now working at Jake’s Tap as a bartender. He has had a crush on Dakota forever and he knows Dakota feels the same and is afraid to admit it and he doesn’t know why.
There are also 3 other storylines running through this book as well as Tad & Dakota’s love story. There is a mysterious man claiming he has purchased a parcel of land next to the Gillespie’s , Curtis the local newspaper owner is following up on this story when he mysteriously falls in the snow and asks Tad to look after the town newspaper and follow up on this story. A possible missing person and somebody stealing all the stuffed toys that have been donated for the Christmas Toy Drive are the criminal mysteries they need to solve. I think that more could easily of been made of the mystery’s and at least one I was quick to figure out and to be fair so did the characters. Maybe more of then will be made of the characters involved in future books and this was just scene setting?????
We did get to see glimpses of characters we have met before in the series which I really like but this book can be read without having read the rest of this series.
RATING: 
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