Holiday With a Twist by Shannon Stacey

Narrated by Samantha Cook

I usually enjoy Shannon Stacey contemporaries and I’ve especially liked her annual holiday novellas. I have the ebook of Holiday With a Twist but I’m glad I went with audio on this one because I’m sure the narration, which was very good, made it all the more enjoyable.

Lee Holloway is heading home to New Hampshire from Houston for Christmas. She broke up with her fiancé two months earlier and, because he happened to also be her boss, she also resigned from her job. Now, she’s homeless (well, she’s renting month to month, it’s not like she’s living in her car or anything), jobless and single. And, she hasn’t told her family.

Lee’s parents are in the process of selling their large family home and moving to a smaller condo. Also, Lee’s younger sister, Hope, has just left her cheating jerk husband. Hope has a four month old baby so Lee figures there’s enough drama in the family. She doesn’t want to add to it and she doesn’t want to deal with the pressure from her parents to move back to New Hampshire permanently. More altruistically, she also doesn’t want her parents to change their condo plans because they perceive she needs a place to live. Her plan is to get through the holidays, head back to Houston, find a new job (there are already potential offers coming in) and tell her family then.

She doesn’t figure on Croydon Dawson. Croy (not my favourite name, I admit), Lee and Aubrey (Lee’s high school bestie) grew up together. Croy and Aubrey dated during high school and college and Lee was inadvertently responsible for them breaking up. Croy and Lee argued and haven’t spoken in the intervening ten or so years.

Croy’s family have recently opened the Center Street Pub, using the first floor (in Australia this is called the ground floor by the way) of their sprawling family home. Croy’s oldest brother, Luke, lives upstairs with their dad. Luke manages the restaurant, the other brother, Jeff, runs the kitchen and Croy tends the bar.

As it happens, the Center Street Pub is the only place in town with a liquor license. In desperate need of some alcoholic courage to help her get through the holidays, Lee heads to the pub for a drink. I was happy that Lee and Croy quickly sorted out their old baggage – it’s not anything too terrible and besides, it’s water under a very old bridge. Croy had never thought of Lee in a romantic light before but seeing her now, he’s fascinated and attracted to the vibrant woman before him.

Croy and Lee begin a clandestine relationship – as Lee’s family don’t know she’s single, they can’t know about Croy. I had to suspend my disbelief a little here. Lee is supposed to be engaged. But her family don’t question her all that much about her (ex-)fiancé and don’t even seem to be bothered that she doesn’t talk to him on Christmas!

More than that, Lee is planning to head back to Houston. Croy’s roots, life and family are all firmly planted in New Hampshire.

The romance is very quick. I had to suspend my disbelief a little further to accept that they would be exchanging I love you’s in such a short space of time, even if they had grown up together. That said, I was prepared to go with it. They weren’t running off to Vegas to get married by the end after all.

The story is cute and sweet and sexy and entertaining on its own but not enough to really blow me away. However, the narration was so good I found myself enjoying the story more than I would have in print. Samantha Cook is a new-to-me narrator but I plan to listen to more of her work. She reminded me very strongly (in a good way) of Sophie Eastlake. Fans of Ms. Eastlake’s work will probably enjoy Ms. Cook’s performance.  They’re not the same person or anything. But Ms. Cook has a similar timbre to her voice and a similar style. Her male character voices are distinguishable and pleasant while not being super deep. Her delivery and pacing are also good and I enjoyed the way she portrayed the growing connection between Lee and Croy. I’m sure that helped me buy into the super quick romance.

Even though I listened to Holiday With a Twist after Christmas, I still enjoyed the holiday theme. As it happens, this novella length audio was a great way to start my listening year.

[section label=’Audiobook Information’ anchor=’Audiobook Information’]

Kaetrin


AUDIOBOOK INFORMATION

TITLE: Holiday with a Twist

AUTHOR: Shannon Stacey

NARRATED BY: Samantha Cook

GENRE: Contemporary Romance

STEAM FACTOR: Glad I had my earbuds in

REVIEWER: Kaetrin [button type=’link’ link=’http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01L2OFDEK/?tag=audiogalsnet-20′ size=’btn-lg’ variation=’btn-default’ target=’blank’]Buy Holiday with a Twist by Shannon Stacey on Amazon[/button] [section label=’Excerpt’ anchor=’Excerpt’]EXCERPT: