Monday Book Review: The Cop Who Stole Christmas, by Christie Craig

The Cop Who Stole Christmas, by Christie Craig
(Tall, Hot & Texan, Book 2)
Published December 2015 by Bookends, LLC

About the Book:

Savanna Edwards is feeling downright Scrooge-like. Who can blame her? A truly unjolly Santa—suit, beard and all—just repossessed her car because of her ex’s shady business dealings. She’d like to murder the no-good lying cheat, but somebody already did that for her—and left him right in the middle of her kitchen, wrapped up with a bow.



Detective Mark Donaldson has a rule against getting involved with his neighbors. He can look—and he’s studied every sweet curve of Savanna from across the street—but he can’t touch. So when she lands on his doorstep in need of help, he finds himself torn between being naughty or nice, and fights every urge to unwrap her like a shiny new Christmas present. 



Trouble is, even Mark can’t resist a little holiday magic . . . and there’s definitely something magical happening between him and the girl next door.

MY TAKE:

As holiday stories go, this one was such a real part of this three book series that I had to go buy the book right before it and right after it and get more of these characters and this author's fun, flirty and totally sassy voice. Yea, I bought the rest of this romantic suspense series as soon as I finished reading this one.

Really.

As for the book itself, it's romantic suspense, third person POV from both the hero and heroine points of view. The two have been neighbors for about four months, but haven't really interacted at all, when a guy dressed as Santa Claus arrives early one morning to repossess Savanna's car. Although she's been divorced for a year, she never had the title changed, which allowed her scumbag ex to use it as collateral for a loan. She tries to get her neighbor the cop to help her, but there's nothing he can do. He's a homicide detective, and tells her to come back for help when she's got a dead body to deal with.

Foreshadowing?

The next best thing to actually getting her car back is whining to her friends over lunchtime margaritas, and voicing her wish for her ex to die with a ribbon tied around his pecker.

More foreshadowing? Oh yeah.

I love the character voices, and the real opinions and self-doubt they express over each situation, all with self-deprecating sarcasm, even in their own heads but more with their friends. It all combines for a fun, fast-paced read, with suspense and sexual tension wrapped together to make a satisfying read.

If you're looking for more than a sweet holiday romance, I totally recommend this story and this author, who was new to me before I picked up this story but she has 40+ books out there in a few different series. Merry Christmas to me for finding her!

Grab this book on AMAZON - which is free today as I post this.