Christmas Surprise!
Lauren Wood has created a real hero and romantic in this story and his name is Carlos and I sincerely hope that we get to read about his HEA as he is a real charmer and a very good guy. However, the storyline, which is really great, centres on Leo and Celia. Leo’s boss was a player before he found his beloved and settled down and married her and they started a family. Leo is tired of not meeting a woman that he could really relate to, someone he could love and who would love him right back. he invited a girl to a gig where he is playing in a band as a drummer. He looks in the crowd dancing and spots Celia who seems to stare right back at him in awareness. But he’s brought a girl to the gig so he asks his boss if he can get rid og the girl for him. Celia overhears this and does a runner as she doesn’t want to have to deal with such a player, so she leaves her friends and a nice guy called Carlos that she had been dancing with. Leo is very despondent that he missed Celia but eventually he tracks her down to the place where she worked as a waitress and he charms her in agreeing to go on a date with him – where he will cook her dinner. Celia agrees and that night their awareness of each other sizzles until it spontaneously combusts and they share a night of passion that was the best of their lives. During the night he gets a call from his boss to sort a woman out for him and take her home and he leaves Celia. She awakens and finds that he’s gone so she calls him and hears a woman’s voice in the background and this seems to be the trigger for Celia to just ‘lose it’ and she leaves after all he is just a player! Right?? except he isn’t! I do think that the next part where Celia quits her job and just leaves because of hearing a woman’s voice was way over the top and immature. She should have asked if she cared that much about him in my opinion. Life goes on and Christmas is upon them. Carlos does a good deed acting unselfishly to try and bring about a happy ending for others than himself. And a secret is revealed. No spoilers here from me. This is beautifully composed by Lauren and her characters are excellent. I’m sorry that I don’t particularly like Celia but Leo is a good guy and he does deserve his HEA. My favourite person in the book? I think you might have guessed that Carlos is my favourite and I do hope that sometime we get to read his HEA please. I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.
DEFINITELY RECOMMENDED
I read this book via KU so that I could read the bonus materials and they are excellent too and worth the book price on their own so remember to read them too!