Reviewed by Lesley
TITLE: A Surprise for the Holidays
SERIES: Home For The Holidays
AUTHOR: Anna Sparrows
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
LENGTH: 97 Pages
RELEASE DATE: November 22, 2024
BLURB:
Bailey Peters is loving life. Scouted all the way from Adelaide, he’s been handed the Captain’s armband for the A-League’s newest soccer team, and he’s living on the Gold Coast, visiting beaches and enjoying the endless buffet of bikini-wearing beauties. Sure, his new coach gets under his skin with his cocky ‘I was a Premier League player’ attitude, and sometimes Bailey gets homesick, but these are minor issues he can deal with.
Except it turns out his coach is struggling behind the scenes, and that changes things.
English expat and former pro-football player August (AJ) Jacobs is floundering. Having aged out of the career he loved, he’s just moved to Australia to start a new job coaching. Unfortunately, the Captain of his team hates him, and the hot weather on the Gold Coast is unbearable. Then life throws him another curveball in the shape of a six-year-old daughter he hadn’t known existed and it’s all in time for an ungodly humid Christmas, too. A Christmas he now must make child friendly, when he’d planned on drinking and wallowing in loneliness.
REVIEW:
August Jacobs (AJ) misses his career a premier league football player (soccer for non-Brits). He has had to resort to a job coaching a brand-new team in the A league in Australia. He hates the heat, and he can, unfortunately, see too much of himself in the arrogant captain of the team. To top it all they do Christmas wrong. For a start, its sweltering and they have Pavlova for dessert! He has not made any friends and is very lonely. A fact that is made very clear when life decides to throw another curve ball his way. A six-year-old daughter back home in the UK that he knew nothing about and that he has been asked to take full time custody of. How is going to cope with a daughter without the support of his loving family who are half a world away
Bailey Peters cannot believe he has been scouted away from his home in Adelaide to the Gold Coast to become the captain of a new A league football team. He is loving the town, the team he is on and the bevvy of beauties who lover soccer players. What he doesn’t love though is being so far away from his family especially a Christmas time.
When Bailey catches AJ at a vulnerable moment he realises that there might be more behind the grumpy Brits behaviour. Maybe he can do something to make all three of their lives easier and to show the two of them how to enjoy a truly Aussie Chrissy.
As a Brit and avid Bondi Rescue watcher I think that Australian English and UK English are more similar that UK English and USA English so it always makes me smile to myself when I see a glossary of terms at the start of a non-American book and recognise most of the words and expressions. I do understand the need though. I have to also confess I do like books that feature British characters.
This was a really sweet book about making a family and overcoming first impressions. A lovely read.
RATING: 
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