A Home for the Holidays: A Novel
A witty, warmhearted novel about coming to terms with grief, taking a chance on unexpected connections, and finding family in time for the holidays
For wedding singer Mel Hart, the holidays have always retained a certain magic. Her mother, Connie, always managed to pull off spectacular Santa hijinx that convinced Mel to keep believing in Santa way longer than other kids. Those moments meant everything to Mel because the rest of the year, life was unpredictable because of her mother’s alcohol use.
But two weeks before Christmas, Mel gets a call from the hospital: her mother has died.
Then a woman shows up on Mel's doorstep, claiming to be Connie's estranged best friend, promising to tell Mel a different narrative—one in which Connie was almost a famous country music star, if only a man hadn't gotten in the way. Instead of spending Christmas alone in her dead mother's house, Mel agrees to stay with Barb for the holidays, finding herself in the middle of Barb's complicated family and uncovering secrets while fighting an attraction to Barb’s in-the-middle-of-a-divorce son. As Christmas approaches, Mel reckons with how little she knew about her mother's past while reexamining her own future.
A Home for the Holidays is a moving exploration of complicated grief, mother-daughter relationships, loving someone with addiction, and the redemptive power of opening one's heart to love in all its forms.
For wedding singer Mel Hart, the holidays have always retained a certain magic. Her mother, Connie, always managed to pull off spectacular Santa hijinx that convinced Mel to keep believing in Santa way longer than other kids. Those moments meant everything to Mel because the rest of the year, life was unpredictable because of her mother’s alcohol use.
But two weeks before Christmas, Mel gets a call from the hospital: her mother has died.
Then a woman shows up on Mel's doorstep, claiming to be Connie's estranged best friend, promising to tell Mel a different narrative—one in which Connie was almost a famous country music star, if only a man hadn't gotten in the way. Instead of spending Christmas alone in her dead mother's house, Mel agrees to stay with Barb for the holidays, finding herself in the middle of Barb's complicated family and uncovering secrets while fighting an attraction to Barb’s in-the-middle-of-a-divorce son. As Christmas approaches, Mel reckons with how little she knew about her mother's past while reexamining her own future.
A Home for the Holidays is a moving exploration of complicated grief, mother-daughter relationships, loving someone with addiction, and the redemptive power of opening one's heart to love in all its forms.
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Community Reviews
I love a good found family story, and this particular holiday season, I was looking for books that had more than a romantic plotline. I wanted something that touched on something deeper and I finally found it in A Home for the Holidays.
A Home for the Holidays focuses on our main character, Mel, who has just discovered that her mother has died. Greif stricken, Mel also has to deal with the fact that her mother was an alcoholic, which meant that she wasn't always there for Mel growing up. As she struggles to go through her mother's things, an old friend of her mother (whom Mel has never met before) enters the scene and all but scoops Mel up and takes her back to her house to share stories of Mel's mother; stories that Mel has never heard before.
What I loved most about this book was that it handled some challenging topics while remaining cozy and uplifting. Yes, the story has a sub-romantic plot piece, so it can still be categorized as a romance. However, it was so much more than that. It was the story of a mother and daughter and their loving yet strained relationship. It was a great depiction of grief and how complicated that process can be. The fact that the main character learned and struggled with the fact that you are allowed to feel all your emotions when you are struggling was a beautiful message about mental health in general. Life is messy, and it is unlikely that you will only have one emotion running through you at a time. Sometimes, you won't even know exactly what you are feeling, and that's okay too.
The book lost a star from me because the very ending felt rushed and cut off at the wrong point. It could have used stronger editing there, but the overall message of the story and the self-exploration that the character goes through was beautiful, and I would recommend this to many readers. However, be careful of triggers such as the death of a parent and alcoholism.
A Home for the Holidays focuses on our main character, Mel, who has just discovered that her mother has died. Greif stricken, Mel also has to deal with the fact that her mother was an alcoholic, which meant that she wasn't always there for Mel growing up. As she struggles to go through her mother's things, an old friend of her mother (whom Mel has never met before) enters the scene and all but scoops Mel up and takes her back to her house to share stories of Mel's mother; stories that Mel has never heard before.
What I loved most about this book was that it handled some challenging topics while remaining cozy and uplifting. Yes, the story has a sub-romantic plot piece, so it can still be categorized as a romance. However, it was so much more than that. It was the story of a mother and daughter and their loving yet strained relationship. It was a great depiction of grief and how complicated that process can be. The fact that the main character learned and struggled with the fact that you are allowed to feel all your emotions when you are struggling was a beautiful message about mental health in general. Life is messy, and it is unlikely that you will only have one emotion running through you at a time. Sometimes, you won't even know exactly what you are feeling, and that's okay too.
The book lost a star from me because the very ending felt rushed and cut off at the wrong point. It could have used stronger editing there, but the overall message of the story and the self-exploration that the character goes through was beautiful, and I would recommend this to many readers. However, be careful of triggers such as the death of a parent and alcoholism.
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