Unexpected Gifts -- Book 1 of Castle Mountain Lodge

Unexpected Endings -- Short story from Castle Mountain Lodge series (#2.5)

-- Elena Aitken

This was a short and sweet Christmas-y fluff piece that has a cute, even if predictable plot device:

Due to some tragic and heart-breaking events in her recent life, Andi Williams runs off to Castle Mountain Lodge to escape the holiday cheer all around her. But upon arrival, the lodge had some mix-ups and her room reservation is no longer available. To the rescue is an old friend, Colin Hartford, who offers up one of the rooms in the villa suite he's staying in with hopes that he'll be able to get to know Andi a little bit better and maybe even change her bitter outlook on Christmas.


Setting aside the fact that I personally, would probably NOT agree to stay in a villa suite with a stranger, once again, once the story got going it was rather cute. Sure, it tries to make Colin out to be a long time friend, but technically, he's a friend of Andi's ex and they've met all of one time. So he's still technically a stranger. Given my own personal paranoid self, I probably would have just taken up the hotel's offer of sleeping on a couch in the staff residency.

But that's me and that's probably why I'm still single after all these years.

And then there's that one last stretch for romantic angst at the end of the book that probably could have been avoided if everyone would have just stopped being sneaky or secretive or too bothered to talk to each other...

Nonetheless, setting ALL of that aside, I found the book serviceable as a holiday romance. And then I found out that there's a "Steamy" version of this book (and subsequent books in this particular series) and wondered if I might have enjoyed that one more given the lack of sexy times in this version (not that I'm a nympho or anything...).

As for Unexpected Endings, it just felt like an unnecessary short story addition.

I read it because it was included in the Kindle book version at the end of Unexpected Gifts, detailing some extra stuff about Andi and Colin. It could have probably just been added as an epilogue? Or something?

Summary:

A Castle Mountain Lodge Romance Short Story~

Return to the beautiful, rustic and romantic Castle Mountain Lodge and catch up with Andi and Colin who prove that sometimes Unexpected Gifts have equally Unexpected Endings.

A companion short story to the Castle Mountain Lodge Romance Series. Please note, this is a short story, not a full length novel.

~A sweet, contemporary romance~

Review:

I don't think I like the idea of revisiting couples from previous books. This short story took some of the happiness out of the HEA/HFN that ended with first book.

Andi felt off to me for 3/4ths of the book. She was childish, throwing a tantrum. She was also so pathetically needy and whiny. Colin was awesome, as usual. The story came together really nicely at the end, but I could not shake off Andi's behavior was through most of the story.

I still want to read the entire series, more so now since an excerpt for another book in the series was included in the download. Unfortunately, this book needs to be read prior to the one that is excerpted here to make the series make sense. 2.5 stars for Colin.