Series Name:
Louisiana, # 3
Review By Veronica
A Bayou Christmas is a joyous and heartfelt Christmas story.
Favourite Quote:
The space between Nick and me seemed less now, our thighs nearly touching as we’d both gravitated toward the center during our conversation. I shivered slightly, not from fear, but from excitement.
Goodreads Synopsis:
It’s her first Christmas with her birth family…
Thanks to a bone marrow donation from her newly discovered sister, interior designer Allison Miers has just beat cancer and has been welcomed into her new family, the Bertrands of Cypress Bayou. She’s been curious about her birth family for years, and it seems they’re all trying to make amends for her mother abandoning her—even offering a trust fund if she’ll stay a year and give the town a chance.
As Allison arrives in town amidst preparations for the Cypress Bayou Christmas Festival, she’s quickly overwhelmed by the drama and competition between both sides of her birth families. Local mechanic Nick Landry is the most normal person she’s met so far, and it doesn’t hurt that he’s also handsome and friendly. Just as Allison starts to wonder if she’s finally found a new home, family, and a man to love, she discovers that Nick—just like both sides of her family—has been keeping his own secrets.
Family is all Allison has ever wanted, but should she listen to her head or her heart this unforgettable Christmas?
A Bayou Christmas is the third installment in the Louisiana series, and Lord, it’s everything I could have hoped for. This book is short, sweet, and the perfect way to escape for a couple of hours. You should read the previous two books before starting this as there are spoilers and the plot is so interconnected with each book in the series, you may feel a little lost just jumping into the third installment.
A Bayou Christmas follows Allison, the long-lost sister to Leah and Carly. I have been excited to spend some time with Allison and see her thoughts about her adoption and her new family. She is my favourite sister, and I wish I could spend more time with her. Allison is a smart, funny, and caring woman, and her passion for all things décor leaps from the pages. I loved being able to explore Cypress Bayou with her, and it was wonderful being able to see the town through the eyes of an outsider. Allison’s character has been through a lot up to this point in the series; she had lost her adoptive mother and was diagnosed and beat cancer. There is this wall around her heart at the beginning of the book. As the story progresses, we watch as Allison’s character grows and opens her heart to those in her new family and Nick.
There is lots of family drama in this book, which I am sure fans of the series will love. I loved watching the family dynamics in this book and how our main characters try and deal with their often overbearing mothers.
Allison and Nick are so lovely together. Their love story is perfect for those who love friends to lovers and slow-burn tropes. Their romantic relationship progresses pretty slowly, and they don’t get together until the end. But the journey of getting there was so charming and heartwarming. There was something so wonderful about them just getting to know one another and watching them form that friendship first that just made their relationship more realistic. I like the fact that theirs wasn’t an insta love story.
I am really hoping that Susan writes a story about Elizabeth, her character has been solely misunderstood, and a story about her and her family would be so interesting.
Thank you Susan Sands for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.