The Christmas Challenge by Sinclair Jayne

Blurb: Prodigal daughter, infamous flirt and fiery-haired champion barrel racer Tucker McTavish blazes back home to Marietta with both a secret, and a personal challenge. She will keep a low profile at her twin sister’s Christmas wedding. Which means no whiskey. No kissing. No scandals. No fun. What she needs is a miracle, so it’s too bad when she visits the legendary Miracle Lake to plead for inner strength: a tall, dark, and handsome bad boy is waiting with a challenge of his own.

Extreme sports guide Laird Hunter doesn’t do boring. And he thought he didn’t have secrets. He thrives in carving his own trail through tight and dangerous spots, but when he finds out his entire life has been built on a lie, he heads to Marietta for answers. But when he meets the redhead with the killer smile, laughing eyes and body with more curves than a mountain road, he finds himself asking a whole new set of questions.

Will these two daredevils – with more than a few secrets between them – find the one person from whom they don’t need to hide ?

 Available November 15th 2016

5 stars

I received this ebook from Netgalley in exchange for an honest/unbiased opinion.

I floved this book.  This is a Christmas novel I can get behind!  In my experience Christmas books tend to be fluffy, fast reads but this one wasn’t like that at all.  These characters had depth and complex personalities.  Their problems were not just as simple as ‘boy meets girl, they fall in love’  No no no.

Tucker was a whirlwind of self-doubt and insecurity mixed with a blend of out-spokeness and simple pleasures, such as ice skating and hot chocolate.  But she wanted to change on the inside.  You could read how much she wanted to get that connection back with her twin sister.  How every time she was judged for her past, she shook it off and kept trying to prove herself.  It was humbling to read for me.  She forgave others so easily when they read her wrong.  Even when they didn’t ask for it.  I wish I could do that.

And Laird has his own inner demons to face.  He was definitely a lost soul, armed with only a starting point of Marietta.  He set out to find himself.   He was a little harder to read.  Strong, silent type, a perfect match for the fast talking Tucker.  Their chemistry was amazing!  You could see how they both struggled with the importance of facing their inner challenges and the attraction they had for each other.

All in all a beautiful read.  And since this is the third in the series I’m definitely going back to read the first two!  Happy reading.