The Christmas Changeup (Hope's Turn Holidays #3)

by Marie Harte

Blurb:

A Small Town Christmas Romance

Striking out isn't an option...

Piper Mason remembers Grant Weston as the cute little boy with a crush she'd once babysat, back when she'd been thirteen and he'd been nine. Many years later, Piper is babysitting once again. This time it's her teenage niece while house-sitting for her brother. Except...no one told her to expect a house guest. A man too good looking to be real with a smile that blinds. A man who plays for a major league baseball team back in town for the holiday.

A man who's returned to make good on his twenty-year old pledge to marry her!

And he's not leaving until he's rounding home with the girl who got away.

Themes: Contemporary, Holiday

Rating: 4.25 stars

Heat Rating:

Review:

Love this holiday season begins with a decades old pact and the determination of man to get the woman that’s always held his heart. Marie Harte’s holiday series has been one of my favorite’s these past few years and I am enjoying the new additions each year, and this one is another great one. Piper Mason is housesitting and watching her young niece for her brother over the holidays, but she never expected to have a house guest as well, especially one as sexy and intriguing as Grant Weston. Piper remembers Grant mostly as the annoying pre-teen that used to drive her nuts and sneak into her room to bug her as a teenager, but the Grant on her mind now is very different. Grant has always had a plan, one that he has worked hard his whole life to fulfill and the next item to check off on his life list is marrying the woman who stole his heart at age nine and nothing Piper says will dissuade him from that. Grant and Piper spend more time together as the holidays move forward, getting to know one another as adults, and the more they learn the deeper their feelings get. But can a woman who has been burned in the worst way believe in a guy that seems to live in an entirely different world, one that just barely touches her reality? Piper and Grant were the best holiday romantic couple I have read in a while. Grant has obviously got some serious quirks, but they seem to mesh beautifully with his personality and when he shows his more sensitive and private side to Piper the reader falls even more in love with this hunky confident hot-shot. It would be easy to just write him off as another one of those arrogant athletes that come a dime a dozen, but underneath his swagger is the sweetest, most loving, and family oriented guy. Piper has dealt with a serious emotional betrayal, but thankfully she has had friends and family to surround herself with and she has never let her personal issues stand in the way of meeting her goals, but when she is confronted with the confounding and dangerously sensual Grant she isn’t really sure how to handle him to be honest. She was alternately totally confident in herself but at the same time terrified of giving another man a chance and risking the hurt to her heart, but when she finally opened up to Grant and let him prove how much he truly loved her the story just became epic. The heat between these two was off the charts and luckily the snow was thick on the ground or the town would have burned around them as they set fire to one another. It was great getting to see how well the past couples that came together in this series are doing and the growth of the younger generation is getting more and more interesting and I wonder if we might see them getting a story sometime in the future as well (hint hint Marie), but honestly I just hope that we get more in this series in the future. I am so happy I got to enjoy this story and watch the passion and love develop between two characters that were so obviously meant for one another. Keep the laughs, quirkiness, and holiday magic coming Marie!

*eARC provided by author for the purpose of an honest and unbiased review. No compensation was provided.