Hello everyone!
I can't.
Time has LITERALLY flown by, and it's something that I haven't been able to really fathom, or figure out how to slow the entire thing down if I'm being honest with myself.
And now I'm staring at the end of the year and thinking 'where did the time go?'
But aside from that, we do in fact have another holiday story to look through, and it's another one about second chances.
Holiday ones usually are, come to think of it. People seem to be in a forgiving mood.
And in this one I return to the love of ice hockey while I'm at it, because I miss reading books on the topic. I may need to do some digging and find others in the genre again!
For now though, Holiday Hat Trick will just have to do the job twice as hard.
The book is a novella in the Portland Storm series by Catherine Gayle (which, as I've said, I'm still holding on to hope that it might someday get completed) and covers a second chance story for journeyman Q and his ex-wife.
See, Q had it all - a wife, a career, and a child on the way, but then the wife pulled the plug and divorced him.
Why?
Because Mia maintains that she lost herself in their relationship and couldn't really focus on herself while he was on the road and she was all on her lonesome and could do anything she wanted.
Ahem, sorry. That's actually just me talking. Let's get back to the book.
So anyway, Mia divorces Q and a year later he's headed home to finish clearing out his gym equipment from their house, to talk to his lawyer about potentially having joint custody over his daughter, Marley, and spending as much time with the girl as possible.
Most of this actually does come to fruition, but I suppose what annoys me the most is how Mia is completely inflexible when it comes to compromising with Q about what they might do.
Listen, I get that he just popped up for the three days over the holidays, but considering your long-term plan is to stick around your family, I'm REASONABLY sure that you could unbend a little and let him have this Christmas with his daughter, rather than waffling about 'oh but mah FAMILY'.
Newsflash for you, girl: you, Marley and Q are family, even if a broken one (which YOU broke).
It's those kind of thoughts from Mia that really get my hackles up because while she keeps trying to tell us she's the one to blame for the divorce because of an identity crisis she could have managed without going full-on nuclear AND making herself miserable in the process (and she is, she's so miserable you're left wondering why the hell she divorced in the first place), she's also not going to bend one single inch either.
There's a short instance in the text where she's actually all oh, she couldn't possibly go up to Portland because THAT would be too hard for her!
Her, with a job in photography that can literally go on the road and she can do anything with it, while Q is bound to where his team's going at any given point in time.
Anyway, her family is smarter than she is in any event and keep trying to get them back together when the solution that presents itself is to have Q spend Christmas with them, and through that, Mia figures out that MAYBE she CAN go back to Q and not lose herself in the process.
Q is obviously over the moon, especially with all the holiday shenanigans he gets up with just to spend time alone with Mia and steal some kisses while he's at it, and he's a good enough guy that he does some grovelling and apologising even though he shouldn't have had to do either.
BUT all's well that end's well, and instead of visitation rights - which, by the way, Mia is ALSO all tense about when the topic kicks up, like, girl, Marley's dad isn't a deadbeat and wants her in his life, why are you making it all about yourself?? - Q gets both his girls back on a permanent basis.
And while that's all fine and dandy I'm still of the belief that, due to the nature of the man's job, Mia could have just as easily not gone the nuclear route and simply communicated calmly that with a newborn baby, moving around as much just wasn't going to cut it, she goes home where she has a support system, and then they figure things out once he gets a permanent position.
It really all boils down to communication and with how we perceive Q - which is, he's not perfect but he IS a good man - as well as get a non-flattering picture of Mia because she's as flexible as concrete and as selfish on occasion like Scrooge honestly.
It's not a really good image, and I maintain Mia is an idiot, especially since she'd achieved basically nothing. What she figured out with her photography could have easily been done sans divorce, just with the separation that settled her permanently in her home town while Marley was little, something I don't think Q would have complained about much.
For the rest though, this is a lovely, family-oriented novella that brings about all the Christmas magic you could have hoped for.
And I do encourage people to pick it up, if only to form their own opinion - and to remember that COMMUNICATION IS KEY!
In love as in any other relationship.
xx
*image not mine
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