For this blog tour, we’re looking at . For this blog tour, we’re looking at One Big Happy Family by Susan Mallery.
First, the review I posted to the book sites (Hardcover.app / BookHype.com / BookBub.com / TheStoryGraph.com / Goodreads.com):
Hallmarkie “Messy Family Comes Together” Type. This is a Susan Mallery book, and it is Christmas book from Susan Mallery – so you know you’re going to get a lot of drama, but in a very Hallmarkie manner where the drama never gets *too* intense and everything wraps up with a nice dose of Christmas magic by the end. Considering the popularity of both Mallery and Hallmark Christmas movies, this isn’t exactly a losing strategy… if a bit “been there, done that”.
Where Mallery manages to spin things with this particular one are, well, the particulars – and there are a lot of things here that aren’t exactly typical. Irritable Bowel Syndrome shown in all of its complexities in a book? Happens some, not exactly overly common in my experience. Female tow truck company owner? I actually am related to one – a cousin – but she’s literally the only one I had ever heard of before reading this book. Age gap romance where the *woman* is the older *and* is on the back side of “middle age” to boot? Done, somewhat, but rarely in this particular combination/ age range. On and on it goes.
Oh, and for anyone who says that this gets way too far out there with just how “together” everything gets… if you’ve read a few of my other reviews over the years, you know about my own family history – same side as the cousin above, actually. You see, both sets of my grandparents were divorced long before I was ever alive. But my mom’s parents in particular? My grandmother remarried, also before I could ever remember anything. My step grandfather was my “second grandfather” (the other died 5 weeks after my birth). And yet there was more than one instance of my grandmother and step-grandfather living on my grandfather’s land over the years, including at least one stint in his house with him. So my sense of “weird family relationships” may be a bit skewed, having seen this type of thing – along with several of the exact scenarios Mallery includes in this book – in my own (extended) family over the years.
Ultimately a solid book of its type, and one for anyone looking for a good Christmas family drama to check out.
Very much recommended.
After the jump, an excerpt from the book followed by the “publisher details” – book info, description, author bio, social links, and buy links.
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