Title: The Christmas You Found Me
Author: Sarah Morgenthaler
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Publication date: September 24, 2024
Length: 304 pages
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Library
Rating:

When you pick up a holiday romance, certain things are for certain: Christmas spirit, lots of cookies and twinkling lights, and a happy ending. The Christmas You Found Me provides all of these ingredients… but adds in moments of near-tragedy and oodles of tears too. (But no fear! It’s not a spoiler — just look at that cover! — to promise that all will be well in the end.)

On the day Sienna’s divorce is final, her best friend Jess publishes an add in the local paper:

Wanted: Husband for Hire

Temp to full-time position, based on satisfactory job performance.

Eligibility requirements: Ability to lift, push, or pull 50 pounds. Willingness to perform ranch work in extreme weather without whining. Experience with livestock a plus. Broad shoulders preferred.

Benefits include medical, dental, 401(k) matching. Salary negotiable.

Current husbands need not apply. (Previous husbands of Sienna Naples are ineligible for the position.)

And sure, Jess means it to be a cute joke to lift Sienna’s spirits and get the entire (tiny) Idaho town to laugh along with Sienna… but the ad leads to a few random propositions, and one sincere applicant.

When Sienna reluctantly agrees to meet Guy Maple, she already feels bad. She’s not actually looking to hire a husband, after all. But then she gets a good look at Guy — a hot, attractive, polite, but apparently underfed man with a desperate air to him. He’s embarrassed but determined: if there’s any chance this job is a real thing, he wants it. Guy is a single dad with an adorable 4-year-old daughter who’s in end-stage kidney failure. Dialysis multiple times a week isn’t enough any more; she needs a new kidney, or she won’t survive.

Health insurance isn’t the problem, but money is. Because of their ongoing medical crisis, Guy is only able to work short-term gigs, and has no family to fall back on for assistance. Emma absolutely qualifies for a kidney donation based on her medical condition, but to stay on the transplant list, Guy has to be able to demonstrate the financial means to afford the ongoing anti-rejection medication that will be required… and he can’t.

Sienna’s heart breaks hearing him talk about his daughter, but she really isn’t looking to hire a husband. Except later that night, thinking about Guy and Emma, she realizes she really could help. Sure, she’s cash-poor at the moment, having lost most liquid assets in the divorce, but she’s kept her beautiful family ranch and some livestock. The value of the property would more than meet the financial requirements for Emma… so not quite believing what she’s doing, Sienna calls Guy and offers to marry him the next day.

What Sienna doesn’t count on is how lovable Emma is and how much of a sweetheart Guy turns out to be. When she realizes they’re living out of a seedy motel while he looks for local work, she insists they move in with her at the ranch. Et voila! Insta-family… and before long, insta-love as well.

Super cute scenes of family time at the ranch, Emma bonding with Sienna’s dog and mule, and Guy doing his workouts in the kitchen ensue. It’s all quite adorable, but Emma’s dire health looms large. When a medical crisis arrives right on Christmas Eve, well… even a curmudgeon like me had to fight to remain dry-eyed. (I lost that battle…)

The Christmas You Found Me is a sweet, romantic story — but extreme suspension of disbelief is required if you want to enjoy it. I was more than willing to go along with it all and let the love and holiday spirit float me along, but seriously, some story elements are a bit hard to swallow:

• If an unattractive man had approached Sienna with the exact same circumstances, would she have considered marrying him?
• It’s lucky for Sienna that the husband-for-hire turned out to be the sweetest, most respectful, most supportive man on the planet.
• Absolutely no stepmother/stepdaughter adjustment phase — the insta-love aspect applies 100% to Sienna and Emma’s relationship.
• As they enter the courthouse to get married, Sienna agrees to change her last name! Which she never did during her first (real) marriage! Because her family has a longstanding history in the region and the Naples name means something! But okay, she’ll change it for the guy she met less than 24 hours earlier.

Things work out much too perfectly… but that was okay with me, for the most part. Reading The Christmas You Found Me is like partaking in a Hallmark Christmas movie in book form. You can predict the plot beats all the way through, and you know more or less what some of the important elements will be — but it still feels like a nice holiday treat to sit back and enjoy.

I’d read Sarah Morgenthaler’s previous trilogy of books (the Moose Springs series, set in small-town Alaska). This author does a great job presenting heartwarming rural, rustic life, capturing the quirky traditions, hard-working locals, and a sense of a community that’s really there for one another. Reading her books makes me yearn for a cabin of my own, with cozy flannel, a warm fireplace, and fluffy socks.

Overall, I enjoyed The Christmas You Found Me. Realistic? Nope. A bit predictable? Yup. But also, romantic and sentimental and satisfying in a very cozy, wintery sort of way. I’d happily read more about these characters and their Idaho ranch.

Note: Goodreads lists The Christmas You Found Me as book #1 in the Heart of the Wilderness series. I’m curious to see where the series might go — more about Sienna’s friends and neighbors? Or unconnected wilderness-based Christmas romances? I guess we’ll have to wait and find out!