🎄✝️💕 “Rediscovering Christmas” (Hope Crossing #6) (2024) 💕✝️🎄 – Book Review
Welcome to the Takeover + Review Blitz for Rediscovering Christmas by Mindy Obenhaus hosted by JustRead Publicity Tours!
About the Book
Title: Rediscovering Christmas
Series: Hope Crossing #6
Author: Mindy Obenhaus
Publisher: Love Inspired
Release Date: November 26, 2024
Genre: Christian Contemporary Romance
She feels she’s lost everything…
PURCHASE LINKS: Goodreads | Harlequin | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop | BookBub
More Books in Series:
My Review
As a long-time fan of the author, as soon as I see one of her books, it goes on my TBR stack. And, especially when it takes place in my home state of Texas – whether or not the town is fictional.
This is the sixth, and final visit, to Hope Crossing, Texas.
While we’re saying goodbye to our favorites, we will get to see another character get their happily-ever-after. It wouldn’t be a romance book if they didn’t. As a lot of characters from the previous books appear and/or are mentioned, I HIGHLY and STRONGLY recommend reading the previous books in the series. Some events from the previous books might be mentioned.
Readers of the previous books will be happy to see and/or hear about what’s going on in the lives of:
📺 Gloriana (The Cowgirl’s
Redemption – book #1)
📚 Jillian (Her Christmas
Healing – book #4)
🐕🦺 Aggie
(Jillian’s service dog)
🏫 Alli (Loving the Rancher’s
Children – book #3)
🥼 Gabriel
🚓 Brady
👨🏻🦳 Hank (Brady’s
dad)
🎄 Annalise and Hawkins (A Christmas Bargain – book #2)
Along
with their children.
This story features:
🏫 Tori
👦🏻 Aiden
🚒 Micah
👩🏻🦳 Peggy (Micah’s mother; involved with Hank)
Like most of her stories, Obenhaus not only tells an emotional and inspiring tale, but they can also cause some tears, as well as trigger points. This one resonated more so with me, too much at times. I’m used to giving trigger warnings for others – this is the first time I have needed them for myself.
And, this is EXACTLY why I put them in my reviews. Stories can unleash a torrent of emotions and/or be so closely related to events in our lives that it’s hard to view the book objectively to focus on the story’s lesson.
I recently lost my mother (November 9th), and like Tori – I too face losing my home. Only I’ll end up homeless. I have no resources to pay or move. I’ve been where I am for 16 years, and really have no place to go. It’s become about the only “safe place” I know. Seeing Tori lose her home in a wildfire was traumatic. She also thinks about the items she loses – one that resonated with me – the special Christmas ornaments.
In addition to the death of a parent, Tori is also a Gold Star wife so there is a military death, resulting in her being a single mom. Quite a few trigger warnings to get through.
Obenhaus starts right off with the worst – Tori heading home only to find her home in the path of a wildfire. A home she subsequently loses. This is on top of losing her mother as well as her husband.
While the town rallies around her and her young son Aiden, the last thing she wants is more “platitudes”. She, at one point, storms off after saying “if this is God’s best for me, then I’m done with Him”.
Aiden is confused about his mother’s attitude, though his Uncle Micah is there to help him. And, it’s clear the boy adores his uncle. Micah is the only father figure Aiden has known, and even wants Micah as his father.
Micah is not only a teacher, but a volunteer firefighter. He is awaiting his own news – a position teaching at TEEX Brayton Fire Training Field. For Micah, firefighting isn’t a job, it is a calling. Though it would take him away from Tori and Aiden.
Seeing how far from her faith Tori is after the wildfire, Micah works hard to bring her back. Though he has his work cut out for him. What helps is his emotional connection and lifelong friendship with Tori. A connection that is developing into more than just a brother-in-law relationship, though he seems to think Tori only loved his late brother Joel.
Tori is mad at God – who can blame her? (I couldn’t). But, for her son’s sake, she tries to curb her own disappointment.
On a different note, she’s beginning to feel more than just “in-law” love for Micah, but thinks he doesn’t feel that way. She’s glad he has been there for her.
Their friendship is what remains solid, though Tori can’t help but see that Micah has always been there, while her late husband Joel seemed more in search of hero worship.
Micah
will do anything to get Tori back into her faith.
Though the more time the two spend together, the more their friendship begins
to blur lines. Everyone around them begins to see it as well.
Tori is also wondering how to rebuild her life and create new memories when she misses the old ones.
Obenhaus once again tackles tough and realistic issues inside a beautiful story of redemption and a greater good. This is emotional, dramatic, tragic, and above all filled with faith.
That said …
This book became a tad more emotional than I anticipated. And, at times, it was difficult to read. I truly identified with Tori when it came to faith. I’ve been told to trust in the Lord, like Tori – a lot of good that has done me. And, yes – I’ve said the same thing she did. There were times we could’ve been friends, if not sisters with our similarities. Also, like her – I love Christmas, and it is my favorite holiday. I knew the emotions Tori was feeling about losing special Christmas ornaments.
As I am going to put up the tree for the final time in my home, seeing those special ornaments on the tree, it’s going to be a bittersweet and overwhelmingly emotional feeling.
While reading this book, I was fighting tears. I lost the battle when the author wrote in a song by the Christian duo For King and Country (Luke and Joel Smallbone). Earlier this year I was blessed with a free movie ticket to see Unsung Hero, the movie about the Smallbone family which also focused on their sister Rebecca St. James. I saw it the day before my birthday (4/28).
This book resonated on a deeply personal level.
Unlike Tori, I don’t know what will happen in my case. Just like she didn’t like the tentacles of uncertainty, I don’t either. It is overwhelming.
This is the perfect ending to the series. Obenhaus wraps up all of the characters’ stories perfectly, even expanding on a few. I still need to read A Christmas Bargain, the second book in the series.
Like the author, I’m sad to say goodbye to the residents of Hope Crossing. Though, I will be looking forward to the author’s next series and the characters we will be meeting.
Given that this is distributed by the faith-themed line of Harlequin, it will have strong faith elements.
RATING:
5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ – Goodreads
5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ – Bookbub
5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ – Personal Rating (see
rating explanation in this blog: https://readingexcursions.blogspot.com/2020/01/rating-system-2020-changes.html;
update: https://readingexcursions.blogspot.com/2022/07/what-goes-into-my-reviews-2022-edition.html)
About the Author
Tour Giveaway
(1) winner will receive a signed copy of Rediscovering Christmas and a $25 Amazon gift card!
Be sure to check out each stop on the tour for more chances to win. Full tour schedule linked below. Giveaway began at midnight November 25, 2024 and lasts through 11:59 PM EST on December 2, 2024. Winner will be notified within 2 weeks of close of the giveaway and given 48 hours to respond or risk forfeiture of prize. US only. Void where prohibited by law or logistics.
Giveaway is subject to the policies found here.
Follow along at JustRead Tours for a full list of stops!
I love the cover.
ReplyDeletesending you hugs & continuing to pray for you <3
ReplyDeleteThis should be a great novel. Thanks for sharing and hosting this tour.
ReplyDeleteSounds fantastic
ReplyDelete