I love book trailers. How about you? They give me a glimpse into how a story is meant to be perceived. I saw this one after I’d read Love Finds You in Holiday, Florida and it captures the fun of the novel totally:
Sandie Bricker calls herself an author of Laugh-Out-Loud Inspirational Fiction and I think she has grounds for the claim. I’ve also read her novel Love Finds You in Snowball, Arkansas, and while I found that novel humorous, I definitely preferred Love Finds You in Holiday, Florida. Probably partly because the characters are 50-somethings.
When widowed Cassie Constantine’s daughter can’t come home for Christmas, Cassie makes a spur-of-the-moment decision to revisit the family vacation home in Holiday, Florida. She never much liked coming here anyway, so now that Zan is gone, she plans to prepare the house for sale.
Once in Florida, Cassie works on the house and on the final crossword puzzle that Zan left to her. He’d created one for every anniversary of theirs, and this one seems to describe her as lacking in spontaneity. Cassie sets out to reinvent herself, but she hasn’t counted on her quirky neighbors deciding to set her up with young retiree, Richard Dillon. She hasn’t counted on falling in love with Holiday…or with Richard.
Being as I’m on a boycott of prologues lately, I’ll skip that segment of Love Finds You in Holiday, Florida (in which Cassie and Zan visit Holiday for the last time together) and go straight to Chapter One:
“I know you, Mom, and I wanted to talk to you before you started the whole house decorating thing.”
Cassie tapped the handset and turned serious. “What whole house decorating thing? Debra, I find it laughable that you think I’m so predictable?”
“Oh, come on.” Debra chuckled from the other end of the phone line. “Tell me you haven’t already gone up into the attic and pulled out the boxes of ornaments and garlands, or that you haven’t been sitting at the kitchen table making your list for Christmas Eve dinner.”
Cassie set her coffee cup on the table with a thump and brushed aside the spiral notebook in front of her.
“I’m sorry, Mom. Zach is one of the wise men in the church play, and Jake is going to his seventh-grade dance with that little blond girl he’s had a crush on since third grade. I just can’t make them miss any of it. Why don’t you come here for Christmas instead? You could see the play, and we could go shopping at the new outlet mall.”
Cassie smiled. “I’ve been wondering about doing something different this year anyway. Like maybe going down to the house in Holiday.”
Debra cackled. “Are you serious?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Well, Daddy talked about going down there for Christmas every year since I can remember, and you wouldn’t hear of spending the holiday in 80-degree weather.”
“Well, he loved to wear those horrible shorts when he went down to Florida,” Cassie explained, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I couldn’t spend the Christmas holiday with your father walking around in those Bermuda shorts.”
If you decide to pick up a copy of Love Finds You in Holiday, Florida, I’m sure you’ll find it hilarious in parts, just as I did.
What holiday traditions can’t YOU bear to break?
