Tome Thursday: Stay for Christmas

 

Hello everyone!

 

I know this particular book looks like it really ought to have been featured on the blog much, much earlier - oops!

 

I unfortunately lost blog space since I was doing some other reviews first, but I figured it might be a really great way to kick this all off, you know?

 

We started strong with Sandokan this Tuesday, and so now we're finishing the week off even stronger.

 

Serenity Woods is an author I will NEVER not feature on this blog, because her books are amazing. I've pretty much read almost her entire bibliography at this point, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I've been a fan of hers since the Three Wise Men days, and it's all just gotten better and better.

 

Now, after focusing on billionaire romances for a good bit, she's returning to the small-town sort of feel with tight-knit communities, families who help each other out, and some wonderful animals that'll warm our hearts along the way.

 

With that said, let's hop straight into this series prequel, shall we?

 

Because everything has to start somewhere, and we're about to in Stay for Christmas.

 

Links to some previous related works can be found at the bottom of the page, because this series is going to connect and follow several others that Ms Woods has already written, and while you don't necessarily have to read the other ones ahead of this, you'll definitely be scratching your head to figure out who's who if you don't. They're all worth it, so you won't be losing time at all, I promise!

 

Stay for Christmas sort of bridges the gap between the Billionaire Kings and this new, Sunrise Bay series, wherein we check the Noah's Ark sanctuary and the Kings working there, as well as set up what's going to happen with PAWS, a new program that this book sets up which will help animals and humans with therapy.

 

Our main characters, Cullen and Isla, have both been wounded in the past. Cullen used to work a highly dangerous law enforcement job before his partner ended up KIA (they missed a bomb and trigger during a pat-down), so he's been at the Ark recovering, with his retired German shepherd, Ghost.

 

Isla's up in the Bay with her son Max because her husband hit him (and hit her a year or so ago, natch), so she needs some space to figure out her next moves.

 

That, and she might just have a SLIGHTLY ulterior motive.

 

You see, while we get to reconnect with Noah and the gang, Isla and Cullen start slowly drifting towards one another, though Cullen is adamant of not putting down roots anywhere and keeping on the move. If he keeps moving, then the guilt and other emotions won't ever catch up with him.

 

That is, until Isla admits to something else: Noah may or may not have brought her on, not just to help at the Ark temporarily, but because she happens to be the sister of Cullen's deceased partner.

 

THAT comes as a huge shock, and you'll be able to feel it vibrate throughout the story. It's one of those things I should have seen coming, but the way Ms Woods writes it, I didn't, and I was just as surprised as everyone else.

 

Thankfully, this is an adult contemporary romance novella, which is to say, Isla and Cullen TALK THINGS THROUGH, and don't just yeet off into space when things look like they might be too complicated, and their budding relationship slowly begins to bloom.

 

Then Cullen gets a little bit ambushed by Noah and a new friend, Archer, who want him to be co-CEO of the new PAWS program they'll be setting up.

 

Things get EVEN BETTER when Brock King waltzes in with half a million to start up their initial operations.

 

Ain't nobody got class like this guy does, I'm telling you, and everything is INFINITELY better whenever one of the OG Kings is around! Brock pulls no punches and is just as suave at this point in the timeline as he was when he was wooing his now-wife, and I love him to bits. I always will.

 

Anyway, Cullen initially feels resentment for being blindsided, but again, simply by talking things through with Isla, and letting it all progress naturally, the jigsaw puzzles start falling into place.

 

Isla has Nix, Leon's wife, help set her up with a lawyer to kickstart divorce proceedings and the like, Cullen agrees to stay and run PAWS, they purchase the place where they'll have their HQ, and the two adults admit they're crazy about each other and want to see where this takes them.

 

They also manage to get through the anniversary of death with some modicum of good emotions, which works wonders all around.

 

The book finished with a NYE party during which it's revealed Noah and Abby are expecting a baby, Hal's just as charming as always, Stefan is just a really great guy, and Cullen and Isla agree to move in together and really get this show on the road.

 

And that, my friends, is what you call story telling magic, all wrapped with a bow!

 

Anytime Serenity Woods brings out another Christmas story, I'm hooked.

Cullen and Isla's healing journey in this book is marvelously beautiful. I love how it went in the completely opposite direction of the usual way these, best friend's sibling romances tend to go.

Plus, throughout this book, you can see the collective King hive responding to the world around them, and doing the most to keep it turning positively. Read: they see someone's struggling, and everyone pitches in to help them out of the rut they're stuck in.

Ms Woods has truly crafted something magical, and I cannot WAIT to read more stories in Sunrise Bay! Cullen and Isla are just the wonderful, slightly jagged, sweetly sexy start.

Absolutely recommend you pick this up as soon as it releases!

 

xx

*image not mine

 

Three Wise Men - The Billionaire Kings