Book 11, 2024
Jan. 17th, 2024 09:57 pm
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Have just finished reading The Night, which is the 5th "Love in O'Leary" book written by May Archer. The main characters in this one are Gideon Mason and Liam McKnight.
Five years ago, Gideon and Liam met in Las Vegas and impetuously got married. They had an instant, intense connection, but when Gideon went to get coffee, he returned to find that Liam was gone. Now Liam has hunted Gideon down in O'Leary and is asking for a divorce. Merry fa la la-ing Christmas.
Five years ago, Liam met and married the love of his life. Not two days later, he got a phone call that upended his world and left him raising his best friend's little girl, Hazel. In his panic to get home, Liam never got Gideon's phone number. Now that he needs to do some estate planning for Hazel, his attorney has advised him to tie up the loose end of his Vegas marriage. Only, the more time Liam spends with Gideon, the more he remembers why he married him in the first place. With the holidays just around the corner and Hazel insisting that Santa is real, will Gideon and Liam find a Christmas miracle of their own?
Oh my gosh, this story was just...aah! It was over almost at the beginning, because as soon as the adorably interfering O'Learians realized that Liam was Gideon's long-lost husband, they were determined to get them back together, meaning it was all over for our main characters. Cue every notary public in town suddenly being unavailable to notarize the divorce papers, no rooms to be had anywhere for Liam and Hazel (thus insuring they'd have to stay with Gideon), and Hazel herself working some Christmas magic of her own. A sheer delight from start to finish, very low angst, high heat (once it got to that point), holiday shenanigans, and utter hilarity.
Favorite lines:
♦ Kiddie Bop Christmas. Perhaps you've heard of it?--was a form of torture surely outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
♦ Maybe you were born knowing things that life made you forget.
♦ "You never really know which is the real Santa. That's where the magic happens."
♦ "Stop talking sense. This is O'Leary. Around here, logic is always the last resort."
♦ "My asshole cat who hates people genuinely adores my asshole grandfather who hates cats, and the feeling is mutual."
♦ "Jesus Christ in a manger! It's a poltergeist!"
♦ "They have gone too far this time. I am going over to Parker and Jamie's house this minute, and I can only hope they are having sex. Fuck, I hope they're naked and about to climax because I am going to knock on their windows and yell Christmas obscenities. I will bring eight maids a'milking and however many lords a'leaping right through their living room, and a bunch of goddamn klieg lights too, to make sure everyone sees the show. I will bring a fucking children's choir to sing Hazel's Kiddie Bop Christmas songs with their chipmunk voices and kill any potential boner Parker and Jamie might ever have again. I will camp out on their lawn dressed as The Grinch and demand cookies and eggnog every hour on the hour every damn night until New Year's."*
♦ "You've already fought a terrible toast fire and survived tea party etiquette lessons from a seven-year old."
♦ There were probably more awkward times to talk about shit like this than after you'd had a Santa-induced meltdown while trying to have sex, but I couldn't think of any.
♦ "It's going to be inappropriate jokes and fucking."
♦ Light companies sold the strands pre-tangled, right out of the box, to ensure maximum frustration.
I loved this story. Liam and Gideon are so perfect together, and it was great reconnecting with characters from earlier in the series. Makes me wish I'd read it in December, but at least I didn't pick it up in August. LOL! Eh, I would have loved it just the same. Five stars! Can we award more than five?