4*
RaeAnne Thayne can always be depended on to bring us sweet, emotional, heart-warming stories. This year’s Christmas at the Shelter Inn, set near the fictional Lake Haven, ID featured in so many of her stories, is a friends-to-lovers, small town romance between Natalie, a digital nomad who writes travel stories, and Griffin, a family doctor who was her brother’s best friend and her long-time crush. When she comes home to help her pregnant sister who is on bed rest, it’s the first time since leaving for college following the deaths of both her mother and brother that she’s spent any measurable time there. She ran from the crushing grief and painful memories, and despite her growing feelings for Griffin and her love for her sister and adorable nieces, she’s ready to run away once her nephew is born rather than risk falling in love and being left behind again. Griffin also has ghosts and regrets from his past that he manages to compartmentalize so that he can be a great doctor and grandson to Birdie. It will take a Christmas miracle for them to shed the restraints from past trauma so that they can acknowledge what’s obvious to everyone else in their orbit.
Readers looking for a clean Christmas romance with all the charm and warmth of a close community will find it in this story. Add in a fun group of senior residents at the Shelter Inn and two precocious, darling little girls and it hits all the marks. Be warned that there are triggers: fatal accidents, cancer, miscarriage, and abandonment. However, Thayne writes with sensitivity and balance so that they don’t weigh down the story. Recommended.
I received a complimentary ARC of this book from Canary Street Press in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.
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