Mistletoe in Texas by Kari Lynn DellMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Although I think you can read this as a stand-alone it makes more sense if you have read the previous books and understand the interactions between the characters.
Hank Brookman was a rodeo bull-fighter but a messed up home life and feelings of insecurity have plagued him all his life then his rashness leads him into a potentially calamitous situation and gets him fired by the people he considered family. Then a moment of indecision left another rider crippled for life and Hank himself suffering injuries. He has spent months living like a squatter on a Reservation with an elderly woman, blaming himself for everything. Then when his landlady/employer dies he is kicked off the Reservation and his sponsor Gil (owner of a trucking business based in Hank's hometown) offers him a job working for the trucking company and an apartment. Suddenly Hank will have to face the father who constantly criticised him, the girl he'd been best friends with since they were nine that he humiliated in front of half the town, his estranged sister and all the former friends and family that he's ghosted in the past three years.
Grace McKenna has been in love with Hank since she was nine years old. The daughter of a religious zealot she had a one night stand with Hank shortly after he lost his job(view spoiler) but he humiliated her in the local bar, drunk and ashamed he was unkind and dismissive. Now the sports doctor at the local high school Grace doesn't know how she can face the love of her life again, especially since she has now become friends with his sister Melanie and other women from his close circle of friends.
If you have read the previous books in the series you will have seen Hank as the cocky, know-it-all, brilliant bull-rider who lost everything because of bad decisions and ego. This is truly a Christmas redemption story as Hank learns to see himself through the eyes of others and builds bridges between himself and his father, with the help of his counsellor/friend Bing.
Other reviewers have criticised Grace's choices, I have to agree with them but I can also see why Grace did what she did, at the end of the day its a plot device and sets her aside from the usual way these stories go.
I loved seeing Hank growing and reestablishing himself in the community, apologising and moving on, changing his behaviour and owning his actions. I loved that he was all in and present with Grace, it may have taken him years to realise that his little red-haired girl, the one who cheered him from the sidelines, the one who shared her homework, the one who was always there for him, was his benchmark for all women and the love of his life but when he does ... he's there no matter what.
Overall, another feel-good romance full of love and redemption, hope and renewal, family (in all its forms) and Christmas.
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