A Cross-Country Christmas by Courtney Walsh

About the Book

Lauren Richmond isn’t a fan of Christmas. Which is why she rarely makes the trip home to the Midwest for the holidays. After all, she has plenty to keep her busy—namely, her duties as a set decorator on a TV sitcom. But this December, Lauren’s brother and his wife are expecting a baby, so her brother arranges a ride home for her with his good friend, Will. Unfortunately for Lauren, she’s been trying to forget college baseball coach and childhood crush Will Sinclair for more than ten years. Now, thanks to her fear of flying, she’s stuck in a car with him from California to Illinois. She’s circumspect and organized. He’s flirty and spontaneous. She’s convinced that people don’t change. He’s trying to prove to her (and himself) that he has. On this cross-country road trip, they’ll both discover that history doesn’t exactly repeat itself. . . but like any good Christmas carol, it does have a second verse.

My Thoughts

I really liked this story, with the clean, closed door romance and second chance piece. It was well-written and kept my interest. It would also make an excellent holiday film, with heavy themes of family and forgiveness.

However, I’m sad to see multiple negative appearance references to “looking like a librarian” when the author was describing the main character Lauren as not as attractive as someone else. And the “who looks like a librarian now” comment after Lauren got dressed up with makeup and did her hair. Off-putting, for sure. As a librarian, and someone who cares about my appearance, I find it disheartening that authors (of all people) are still using negative language to describe librarian appearance. That stereotype ship has sailed away…actually it sailed away back in the 90’s. And it should not come back again. So, it made me sad to see such a thing show up multiple times in this book that I was really enjoying. I mean…librarians like myself help authors get their books into the hands of readers. Why do authors further such a hurtful stereotype of a profession that is already underpaid and underappreciated? I’m normally not one to get easily offended by things, but I read a lot of romance, and there are a LOT of negative librarian appearance references in romance still. Not cool.

That all being said, this was a cute holiday romance, and I still enjoyed the story. Just remember when you read it that librarians are cool people and they look just as good as any other profession.