C. J. Carmichael

A Merry Bramble Christmas by CJ Carmichael
Love this book because of not only the characters but the location and it's Christmas.
Story starts out with Chet and Amy, the owners of the Bramble House and they have just right amount of staff to help with the guests that are checking in during the holiday season.
Oliver arrives and he's looking to locate his long lost sister and her family. Their mother had passed away and it was her dying wish to reach out to Trish and her boy Sawyer. He learns her spouse Dan a firefighter is now deceased.
Story also follows Gemma who's left Denver and just wants peace and quiet. She's known as the runaway bride as she left her spouse and doesn't even want to marry him. More details come to light during the book.
Story also follows other guests and the B&B and it's easy to keep track of everyone. Things don’t always go according to the plan, there are obstacles and situations and love the outcomes.
Love hearing of all the festivities and the town happenings. We also learn of others who live and work in town, love catching up with them all.
Such an awesome read for the holiday season.… (mehr)

From Netgalley in exchange for a review, this story runs almost parallel to Carmichael's The Cowgirl's Christmas. Eliza has converted her aunt's house into a B&B, but hears that her two timing ex is planning to stay for Christmas. Suspecting his motives - and not trusting her self around him, she arranges to disappear into the mountains on a holiday trip. Things dont go according to plan however, and all the guests are trapped, with little food or heating until the blizzards can be cleared. Eliza, despite being a guest, is willing to help out in the absence of the other staff, and she gets to spend time with the hunky Marshall.

The story is fast paced, the romance a little light (not even a sexy kiss between the two leads) and I wasnt exactly entranced with the story. It's an ok addition to Carrigan/Montana series, and an average book to read on a snowy winter's day, but wasnt in love with it… (mehr)

#5 in the Carrigans of the Circle C series and the first that I have read. It didnt take me long to realise that perhaps I was well into a series due to the massive back history dumps in rapid short succession (Mattie divorced her first husband after he sold everything out from beneath her, but now she's married Hal, who is lovely but has just been diagnosed with MS kind of thing).

Anyway, several chapters in, and Callan finds her father on a horse having a heartattack. Hours later and he's dead. Within days Callan and her sisters are left reeling from one shock after another - the ranch has been left to someone outside the family, and the family is not what each woman thought it was. Always able to out drink her male friends, Callan spends several nights in the local bar and wakes each morning with a hangover, in a house that's hers, but on a ranch that isnt.

The next few months are painful for both Callan and Court, with Callan coming to terms as to how different her father was to people outside the family, and that no matter how hard she would work, she would never have got his approval. One of his legacies was that Callan would spend her life being strong, she would never know how to love. Despite her best intentions however, Court begins to prove her wrong.

Once you get past the info dump in the first few chapters, this actually turned into a decent, clean romance. There's some heavy petting, but that's it. The family dynamic between the sisters and the extended family is good and there are plenty of opportunities for further books in the series, The author also makes the idea of winter horse riding in the Montana mountains a decent lifestyle choice!… (mehr)

From Netgalley in exchange for a review, this story runs almost parallel to Carmichael's The Cowgirl's Christmas. Eliza has converted her aunt's house into a B&B, but hears that her two timing ex is planning to stay for Christmas. Suspecting his motives - and not trusting her self around him, she arranges to disappear into the mountains on a holiday trip. Things dont go according to plan however, and all the guests are trapped, with little food or heating until the blizzards can be cleared. Eliza, despite being a guest, is willing to help out in the absence of the other staff, and she gets to spend time with the hunky Marshall.

The story is fast paced, the romance a little light (not even a sexy kiss between the two leads) and I wasnt exactly entranced with the story. It's an ok addition to Carrigan/Montana series, and an average book to read on a snowy winter's day, but wasnt in love with it… (mehr)