A Baxter Family Christmas

Hardcover, ebook, paperback, audio cd, audio book

October 25, 2016

by Karen Kingsbury

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Howard Books; First Edition edition 
• ISBN-13: 978-1451687569

Whether you’re meeting the Baxter family for the first time, or finding them all over again…A Baxter Family Christmas will leave fingerprints on your heart forever.

Two years have passed since the terrible car accident that took the life of John Baxter’s daughter, Erin, her husband and three of their four daughters. Prompted by grief, and missing his daughter, John has invited a stranger for Christmas Eve dinner—Kendra Bryant, the transplant recipient who now has Erin’s heart.

In light of their father’s idea, Ashley and her brother Luke don’t think it’s right. They want to protect their ten-year-old niece, Amy—the only surviving member of the accident. But John is determined and believes meeting this woman is something his deceased daughter would want.

At the same time, Maddie West, the eighteen-year-old daughter of Brooke Baxter West, is praying for meaning this Christmas. Could she find it in a newfound friendship with a boy she never expected to see again? Maddie believes in miracles, especially at Christmastime, but this is a stretch even she can’t imagine. 

Meanwhile, Kendra Bryant has been struggling these past few years to find purpose in the tragedy that gave her a second chance. She believes the invitation to see the Baxters and witness their unwavering faith in God can instill peace and happiness back into her life.

Heartwarming and touching, filled with love and redemption, A Baxter Family Christmas brings together two families in the aftermath of loss and in the midst of an unfolding love story, all with the help of one very special child.

My thoughts: I'm going to be honest here and tell you that this is the first book in the Baxter Family Saga series I've ever read, I have read one or two Karen Kingsbury books, decided she's a stellar writer but I don't like to cry through my books so that pretty much was when I backed away. Then I saw the cover for A BAXTER FAMILY CHRISTMAS and it looked so inviting and welcoming and I had to read it. So, I did.

At first I kind of felt like  an unwelcome guest. I didn't know these people. I didn't care about them, and there I was sitting at their dining room table involved in a terribly intimate conversation about a heart transplant and how they'd like to meet the reciprocate. Wonderful. But that meant someone died. Who? Why? How? 

I did keep reading and I grew to care about the characters in this book (I probably won't go back and read the other books, but I enjoyed the time I spent with the Baxter family in this family saga. I especially liked the fledgling romance forming between two teens and how the Christmas Eve family gathering ended. Sweet. 

I got a copy of this book off Netgalley. All opinions are my own.