“True love is like a metal tested in a fire. Fires of adversity surround us daily. Are we to love only when it is merely convenient? Like gold or silver, which very hot fire must heat to purge them of impurities, love must be thrust into the fire from time to time to make it purer, stronger and more resilient. And in the same way, love shines its brightest right out of the flames.” – James Michael Pratt
Title: A Home for Christmas (Making of a Man #6)
Author: Diane Adams
Publisher: Love Lane Books
Pages/Word Count: 22,300
Rating: 5 Stars
Blurb: Jared and Alex Douglas-Ross enjoy the freedom of their lives as couple without children, but still intend to have one or two…someday.
They register as foster parents as step in that direction, but any real plans for having a child remain a vague part of their future. A time that turns out to be closer than they imagine when fire, once again, changes the course of their lives.
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Review: A Home for Christmas is the sixth novella in Diane Adams’ successful Making of a Man series. While reading this series, we have followed Jared and Alex for approximately thirty years. What started as a teenage crush on Alex’s part has evolved into a long-term, much tested but deeply loving, relationship. We have seen their friends develop relationships, overcome hardships and build families of their own. Reading A Home For Christmas was, in a sense, like coming home. I have loved these characters from sentence one of book one. The next generation’s story is unfolding in a separate series of free shorts on Diane Adams’ website.
Jared and Alex Douglas-Ross are successful in business and in life. They have been together happily for decades. Their lives have been turned upside down by fire, both literal and figurative, before. They are enjoying their childless life, spending tons of time with Clark and Stevie’s family at either one of their neighboring homes. They are all set up to become foster parents, but have nothing planned for the immediate future. They both want to have children, but it is a vague plan for “someday”.
We all know what happens to plans in romance novellas. While on a mission to seek out yet another property for Jared to rehab and sell as low cost housing, he and Alex come upon a building on fire. They don’t realize it, but fire is going to turn their lives upside down again. As will the children in that burning building.
By now, I feel like I know Jared, Alex, Stevie, Clark and all their children. Over the course of this series, they have all played integral roles at various times. They are complex characters, not just props for the main characters. I like these people. Stevie and Clark had their own book in Clark’s Story. But their story has continued to be told expertly by Ms. Adams, alongside Jared and Alex’s story. Clark and Alex grew up together as best friends and they are growing old the same way.
It is a good thing to see an author following her characters through time. Allowing us to see them mature and age just like the rest of us. We are privy to their struggles and triumphs. They have grown from boys with crushes, to men with profoundly loving, long-lasting relationships. Some things never change. Like Jared and Alex’s chair and the tree in their yard. And Stevie’s need to nurture yet another child. These unchangeable things are comforts to regular readers. They are what make us come back again and again to catch up with this mixed bag of family members we have grown to love.
Joyously recommended.
You can buy A Home For Christmas (Making of a Man #6) here:
