Secure Her Holiday Family (Texas Grooms, #5) Generated By Winnie Griggs Rendered As Manuscript

are a number of intriguing characters in this heartwarming tale of acceptance, With the hero and Gods help, the heroine finds happiness and a life worth living" RT Book s,/stars, Formerly wealthy Eileen has been ostracised by her community for two years since the death of her husband, but things slowly start to change when a man withorphan children need a place to stay and her home is the only one big enough to fit the whole crew.
Her characters are just always so well developed and the stories never

seem rushed, Loved Eileen, Simon, Nana Dovie and the kids, and I want my own secret tower room, Series "Texas Grooms" bookHer Holiday Family by Winnie Griggs


I enjoy reading the LIH books, good authors and good stories go together in this group.

Eileen Pierce was a reserved widow who had her life organized just as she wanted it and did not plan on being a mother any time soon.
This changes when Simon comes into her life with a group ofchildren looking for a place to stay while the woman that had taken care of them has a stroke.

Eileen looks on with interest when the church talks to the town about someone volunteering to care for them and the preacher singles her out because her home is so large and can accommodate all the children.

Before she can blink she has said yes and as time goes on she is glad that she did, The big old house comes alive with the patter of running feet through the halls and up and down the stairs,
You will enjoy as I did this story and how it unfolds, . . A heart becomes more open and learns to love again with all the antics of the children and Simon brings a smile to her many times,
Thanks Winnie. Often I find it hard to enjoy a book where the heroine has an unlikeable personality, but the storyline and other characters kept me reading and more than made up for her flaws until Eileen's reserved and prideful nature dissipated.
The author chose wait until nearly the end of the book to reveal to the reader as well as Simon the reason for Eileen's uptightness, which made it more of an effort to get to know her true character.
. . however I think it was an effective method of letting the reader experience Simon's journey of viewing the slow crumbling of her defenses, The romantic moments between the two are my favorite scenes in the book and definitely sighworthy :

Thank you to Harlequin Publishing for a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review THE CHRISTMAS CHILDREN

Reserved widow Eileen Pierce never considered herself the kind of woman who was cut out to be a mother.
She wouldn't know what to do with one child, much less ten, But when handyman Simon Tucker is stranded in town with a group of young orphans at Christmastime, she discovers she can't just turn them away,

Simon knows there's more to Eileen than meets the eye, Though his easygoing demeanor immediately clashes with her buttonedup propriety, Simon's kindness soon melts Eileen's stern facade, Simon and the children already upended Eileen's quiet, orderly life, Will they do the same to her guarded heart

Texas Grooms: In search of their brides, . . Eileen Pierce was wealthy and spoiled, but she is trying to hide just how far she has fallen from a town that already looks down on her, Can she continue to hide her secret when she is coerced into taking in ten stranded children and their temporary guardian

Simon Tucker is intrigued by the ice queen that offers them shelter while the caretaker of the ten kids he has been escorting to their new home recovers from her stroke.
Even more interesting is the fact that she obviously doesn't want them in her home, but she opens it to them anyway, He is sure that there must be more here than meets the eye,

The characters in this book were so believable I felt like I was right there with them, I understood what they were thinking and why they did the things they did, That isn't true of very many books, A lot of the time when I'm reading I keep thinking how stupid the characters are and they really get on my nerves, Griggs characters weren't like that, Yes, they had their problems, but they were believable, relatable, and worth reading about,

This book did take me a little longer to read than I expected, however it was still a great book to read during the holidays, I kind of wish we had a secret room where we could put up our tree,

I highly recommend this book! This historical romance can be quite amusing as a solitary widow who pretends wealth to keep up appearances in a small Texas town, finds ten children under her feet.
She's also got their temporary guardian, a cabinetmaker and handyman, Ah well, at least he's good for making repairs in her big and formerly empty house,

I was not convinced that such a small town would have a sweet shop and a toy shop, These items would have been largely made at home, People did not have a lot of money to spend and children needed shoes and clothes before toys which would have to be brought by train or cart.
I could see a general store stocking a few of these items,

Children in those times were seen and not heard, and were expected to work around the house or garden, I think the strictminded widow is too modern in her actions towards them but of course the story also had to be acceptable for today's readership, The tale follows the group through Thanksgiving and Christmas with a look at legal difficulties in establishing an orphan home and a gradual thawing in the relationships of the adults.
Plenty of fun. Wholesomeness and domesticity in spades, Her Holiday Family is a lowconflict Christian romance that satisfies that seldomindulged craving I have for stories that feed into the cozy and entirely false mythos of western America in theth century.
I have always beenand always will betrash for pioneer fiction, Dont me, I am fully cognizant that this genre is beyond problematic, THE HEART WANTS WHAT IT WANTS,

As I said, this romance is pretty lowconflict, and its not going to win any awards for innovative use of tropes, Once a wealthy socialite, widow Eileen is now an awkward outsider in her small Texas town, living alone in the huge mansion her husband built her, Enter Simon and a gaggle of orphans, For romance reasons dont question them ok, Simon and the children have to stay in town for the foreseeable future, and Eileens house is the only place they can stay seriously, do not question Romance Logic.
Starchy, uptight Eileen now finds herself the unwilling host ofchildren and their rustically attractive guardian,

And thats pretty much the whole story! Major conflicts in Her Holiday Family include, but are not limited to:feeding all the children when there arent enough dinner platesa sprained wrist following a fall from a treedismay and disappointment when poor weather forces the annual Thanksgiving Festival to be cancelled andEileen winning over the heart of a standoffish preteen.
Also, theres likea love storyI guess, Which was suitably chaste, but in kind of an amusing/endearing way, My favorite bit was when Simon LOST HIS MIND when he saw Eileens bare toes peeping out from the edge of her skirt no, not her entire foot, you perverts this is written for the kind of Christians who think Song of Songs is merely “allegorical,” as opposed to King Solomon writing about how much he loves titties.


Everybody has their thing, For many, its cottagecore or the OTin Leverage, For me, its whitewashed stories about virtuous cowboys and schoolmarms who bake pies, attend barnraisings, and swoon over bare toes,


. sitelinkBlog sitelink Database sitelinkTwitter sitelinkInstagram sitelinkGoodreads What a good, emotional story, Eileen and Simon were really great main characters, Eileen was so proper, so rigid but so hurting too, Very few people got to see the real person underneath all that facade, Dovie is someone who has been boarding with Eileen for some time and she has only see some of what Eileen is going through, Dovie does prove to be quite the caring, friend to Eileen and the "family" that is now staying at the "castle", That is the name that one of the littlest girls, Molly calls it and she is simply in awe of the castle, As you can see,children is going to be quite challenge even for people familiar with children, which Eileen is not,
Eileen had such a barren, rigid childhood, it's almost not fair to say that she had a childhood, It becomes easy to see why order and discipline is a major part of her life, It might not have been fun but there were times that it steadied her life,
Simon, is like no one Eileen has ever encountered but he is a good man, She slowly begins to see that, And when he gives his word about something he does his very best to honor it no matter what, It was good to see Simon's childhood also had it's bumps and bruises too,
The children all bring something to the story of course, because no matter how well behaved they are children, Fern atseems to be one of the most challenging to Eileen, But it soon became clear to me that some of it was because they were so alike,
I liked the slow friendship that turns to a slow romance, As they watch each other, they begin to see more that they like in each other, Still, that also terrifies Eileen, An unexpected twist towards the end brings understanding to Eileen, Understanding of what she has to lose if she doesn't just grab her courage when it comes to Simon,
I was glad to see that there was a sweet Epilogue included in the book, Another old book but great story, This is one of the best Christian Western Romances I have read in quite awhile, Winnie Griggs put God in without beating you over the head with it and the romance was clean throughout, Her Holiday Family has been by far my most favorite book in the Turnabout series! It took me almost until the end of the book to realize who Eileen Pierce was from the very first book Handpicked Husband which was another good one!
Simon Tucker found himself the ward of ten children after Miss Frederick's the children's caretaker suffers a stroke on the train, as they were traveling to their new home.
Now they were stranded in Turnabout and needing assistant,
Enter Eileen Pierce who appears to be the only one capable of taking this large group in and the towns shunned widow, Simon and Eileen share an immediate connection in their efforts to care for the children,
This is such a awesome read and I thoroughly enjoyed myself! This was a much better installment of the Texas Grooms series than the previous holiday one I read last month.
It was more balanced between sweetness and seriousness and was overall more realistic,



Mrs, Eileen Pierce is a young widow and person non grata in Turnabout, Texas, She had a pampered but very lonely childhood, followed by a marriage where she was seen as a good hostess and a pretty thing to look at and dress up/show off.
Her short marriage to her husband ended when he embezzled money from the bank to pay bills that came about from his luxury lifestyle and he committed suicide when people started looking into the bank's affairs.
She had to sell most of the marriage's possessions to pay back the money her husband stole, but her fall from the town's graces is more to having a husband die via suicide than the downturn in financial affairs.
Dovie returns, as she is now living back in Eileen's house as a boarder she was living with Eve and Chase in the last book I read, Dovie is more like Eileen's confident and mentor, Eileen's one friend in town is Dovie's foster daughter Ivy, Eileen's world is very small,



Enter Simon Tucker, bachelor and carpenter who is escorting a family friend and her ten foster children to their new home in Hatchetville, They stopped in Turnabout because the family friend/foster mother had a stroke on the train and that was the first stop, While the doctor in Turnabout sees to Ms, Fredrick, Simon is in need of shelter and food for himself and his ten charges, At a church meeting, social pressures force Eileen to open her home to the temporary visitors to Turnabout, Ms. Fredrick passes away and Simon has to make some tough decisions now that he is the sole guardian of the group, Simon had a rough childhood, but has made the most of his opportunities since reaching his majority and decides to treat all people with true respect and dignity, no matter what the locals have to say about anyone.




Eileen and Simon were so well matched and fun to get to know as a couple, There was a strong chemistry between the two that when they finally kissed, it was worth it, Eileen grew a lot during the course of the book, gaining confidence in her abilities beside being pretty, And thankfully Simon was not the pictureperfect hero he had his flaws just as Eileen did, Dovie did her part time and again to help them along on their journey much as she did in the last book, but without needing to lecture Eileen or Simon on how they are treating each other.
Ten kids in a romance is a lot, and not all of them got screen time, but none were annoying or cloying sweet,



Just an enjoyable way to spend the afternoon,


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