Review: A Christmas Harbor by Avery Cockburn

Title: A Christmas Harbor

Author: Avery Cockburn

Length: 102 Pages

Category: Holiday Romance

Rating: 4 Stars

At a Glance: A Christmas Harbor is a lovely story of two people connecting and finding joy in each other’s company, which Avery Cockburn set to music and then topped it off with a happy ending for the holidays.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: Maybe it was the bourbon. Maybe it was Christmas. Maybe it was them.

David has always spent Christmas alone. For most of his career as a Navy officer, being with another man could have cost him everything. Now that regs have changed and he’s fully out, all that stands in the way of love is his fear of getting it wrong.

Paul has never spent Christmas alone. Yet that’s exactly what he’s chosen to do this year, driving halfway across the country to forget the man who broke his heart. If a change in scenery can’t cure his Christmas blues, at least it might banish his writer’s block.

In a sad little piano bar on a soggy Christmas Eve, all David and Paul want is to drown their sorrows in fine bourbon and godawful mulled wine. But when they meet, the connection they forge could lead to a night of honest passion with serious possibilities.

Review: If you’ve heard Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” even once, you’ll recognize Avery Cockburn’s A Christmas Harbor as a fanfic of the song. Cockburn introduces Paul (the real estate novelist) on a cold, rainy winter’s night as he wanders into a piano bar where he notices a man, Dave (Davy, who’s still in the navy), sitting at the end of the bar and looking mildly distressed for what ends up being a benign, but ultimately amusing, reason. Readers get a glimpse of the various characters who populate Joel’s own storytelling, but it’s Paul and Dave and their conversation we become privy to as they make a connection, share a drink or two to fend off their loneliness. Because, as the lyrics go, it’s better than drinking alone.

Dave has served since the DADT days, but its repeal doesn’t mean he’s outgrown the habit of not telling. Dave is the epitome of what it means to be alone, if not by choice, certainly by circumstance. Paul caring enough to check in on him and make sure he was all right begins a night that neither man will forget and, in fact, might lead to their forever. There is no magic or divine intervention in A Christmas Harbor, though there is some luck and great timing involved in Dave and Paul meeting. It’s simply Paul’s charm that draws Dave in, and their mutual attraction that makes them want to explore something more.

A Christmas Harbor is a lovely story of two people connecting and finding joy in each other’s company, which Avery Cockburn set to music and then topped it off with a happy ending for the holidays.

You can buy A Christmas Harbor here:
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