Book Review: Keep Me Warm at Christmas by Brenda Novak

Keep Me Warm at Christmas by Brenda Novak
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Keep Me Warm at Christmas was very different. It was Christmassy, yes. But it was also about grief, pain, and two people living in a house together falling in love, all while living in the small town of Silver Springs. It also shows the author’s research when the female MC, Tia, talks about her past life as a Mennoite woman, and even though I wouldn’t live there, I understand and respect them. Because I, too, like Seth, though it was like the Amish, but it’s not.

The story starts off with Tia coming to live in Maxi’s house. Maxi is a friend of hers and let her stay in the guesthouse, since Tia had an accident and the side of her face is messed up. She has to take care of the bird Kiki, and Tia thought it was a good idea-no one will bother her, she will be in the guest house, and everything is going to be fine…right???

Enter Seth Turner. The artist who is a widow since his wife died a long time ago. He moved into the guest house, and he was supposed to be alone and leave Tia alone…right?? That was the plan, not finding ways of getting her out of the house and falling in love with her. Also, he has to deal with his wife’s parents trying to get money outta him-which sucks, btw. Turns out, the father in law has a gambling problem, so that’s an oof. Also on top of that, Seth and Tia has to deal with a man who works for the paparazzi who wants a picture of Tia’s face-something Tia doesn’t even want to happen because she wasn’t ready yet.

Tia didn’t want no one to see her face-in fact, she’ll always find ways to hide her face from everyone. But as the story went on, you see her slowly start to relax and be okay with showing her face from the world. She was even brave enough to call People magazine to do a story on her, and they did it with so much grace that even she was shocked.

The whole thing with Ray Kouretas getting a shot of Tia and hounding her like that was a weird plot line, but as I kept reading, I understood completely, seeing that it connected to Tia. Though seeing Ray go through all those hoops to get her to give him what he wants was a bit of an oof to read.

And I really loved Seth’s mother, Aiyana, who helped Tia get to where she was today, and it was so sweet and cute to see her worry over her son while he’s dealing with everything that’s happening with Ray and his dead wife’s parents. All in all this was a cozy book to read, really liked reading it, and Brenda Novak’s work is pretty darn fun to read.

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