Sleigh Bells in the Snow
by Claire McEwen
Series: 12 Days of Heartwarming Christmas #3, Christmas Town #3
Published by IndieWrites on October 9, 2018
Genres: Sweet Holiday Romance
Pages: 160
Format: Kindle
Goodreads
Get Your Copy at: Amazon
Also in this series: A Christmas Carousel Proposal, A Miracle for Christmas, Pride and Presents, Our Christmas Promise, Defending Christmas, The Hope Chest, Paint Me a Christmas, A Gift Horse, Santa School, The Dark Horse, His Christmas Carousel Baby, Five Golden Wishes, Christmas Town Homecoming: A 10-Book Connected Holiday Romance Collection
Scarlett Ray owns a home décor shop full of Christmas cheer, but she isn’t feeling much holiday spirit. Her to-do list is overwhelming and it’s tough to navigate the first Christmas since her parents’ divorce. Then she learns that her landlord is planning to tear down the beautiful, historic building where she lives and works!
Chase Bailey hates to remove such a great looking building, but it’s falling apart and beyond repair. Plus, he needs to turn a profit so he can start a trust fund for his autistic brother. His decision seems simple until Chase meets his quirky, fiery tenant. Scarlett swears she’ll challenge him every step of the way to save the old building she loves.
Chase and Scarlett gear up for a fight, but the battle lines get blurry when they find themselves working on the same volunteer project. It’s hard to stay enemies when anger becomes friendship, and friendship feels a lot like love.
Will Scarlett be able to save her beloved building?
Sleigh Bells in the Snow by Claire McEwen is a lovely book. I enjoyed the banter between the two main characters, the lovable corgi Holly, and of course the fantastic Christmas Town. Ms. McEwen did an excellent job on taking this bridesmaid tale and weaving into a great story. Scarlett is the first main character, and I love the passion that she has for everything. Chase is the second main character, and I enjoyed getting to know his hidden depths.
Scarlett Ray
The main female character is Scarlett Ray; she is a bridesmaid and a shop owner. She is helping Lisa by being the decorator for Lisa’s wedding to John on Christmas Eve. Scarlett is feeling a bit overwhelmed, with the holiday, Lisa’s wedding, the Christmas art auction, her mom’s Christmas party and now looking for a place to relocate her business and home. There are a lot of things that we learn about Scarlett throughout this story and that Scarlett learns about herself. One thing that comes to my mind is she is very stubborn about the future of the building that she has her shop and lives in currently.
What I liked:
I like the way that Scarlett dresses and her fascination with the retro. However, she was so in love with the vintage things that she didn’t realize the bad condition of her home and shop. I like that Scarlett truly cares for her family and didn’t want to ruin the holidays with what has been happening to her. Okay, this next one isn’t about the character it’s about her dog Holly. I love that little dog and the way she dresses. She has more sweaters than me!
What I didn’t like:
Scarlett wants to save her building, but she doesn’t know how or try to come up with a solution. She just wants Chase to figure it out. The other thing is that she didn’t try to get to know Chase or even meet him before jumping to conclusions and labeling him as a bad guy.
Chase Bailey
The main male character is Chase Bailey, and he is Scarlett’s love interest, landlord, and wealthy real estate Scrooge. Okay, the last bit about him being a Scrooge is from Scarlett Ray herself and isn’t true. Chase is just a very multilayered person that you have to take the time to get to know the real him. There are some surprising twists to Chase that I didn’t expect to see.
What I liked:
Chase, underneath the façade that he has built is generally a nice guy. He loves his family especially his little brother and wants to make sure that his family is okay on the money front. Chase, also likes vintage things but not quite as much as Scarlett. He does lots of charitable things for Christmas Town and tries to be a good person. Chase loves animals, any species of animal which is good for Holly the corgi.
What I didn’t like:
The only thing that I dislike about Chase is that he doesn’t even try to see if he could fix the building, keeping the historical part of it intact. He goes right to the bottom line.
Five Star
I am giving Sleigh Bells in the Snow by Claire McEwen a five-star rating because it’s a terrific little Christmas read. I thought that Ms. McEwen did a fantastic job on this story and weaving these two great characters into it. I hope Chase, Scarlett, and Holly figure everything out.
Anyways until the next time enjoy this review brought to you by,
Happy Holidays!
If you would like to see other reviews from the 12 Days of Heartwarming Christmas, please go HERE.
About Claire McEwen
When Claire McEwen entered the first chapter of her very first manuscript into Harlequin’s So You Think You Can Write Contest, she was completely surprised and totally thrilled to receive an email from a Harlequin editor, requesting to read the rest. That story became her first book, A Ranch to Keep, published in 2014.
Claire’s stories have been described as heartwarming, witty, sweetly sexy, complex and original. For inspiration, Claire draws on her many past misadventures and an overactive imagination. She likes to write emotional stories with heroes and heroines who have to overcome personal challenges and make difficult decisions on their road to love.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
- 2018 Goodreads Reading Challenge
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