Today I have a Christmas treat for you! Gallery Books has given me an excerpt of Christina Lauren’s new Christmas book to share with you, plus they are sponsoring a giveaway of a copy of the book for A Bookish Little Christmas! I’m reading In a Holidaze right now, and it’s so much fun so far. Trust me, you’re going to want to win this!
One Christmas wish, two brothers, and a lifetime of hope are on the line for hapless Maelyn Jones in In a Holidaze, the quintessential holiday romantic novel by Christina Lauren, the New York Times bestselling author of The Unhoneymooners.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year…but not for Maelyn Jones. She’s living with her parents, hates her going-nowhere job, and has just made a romantic error of epic proportions.
But perhaps worst of all, this is the last Christmas Mae will be at her favorite place in the world—the snowy Utah cabin where she and her family have spent every holiday since she was born, along with two other beloved families. Mentally melting down as she drives away from the cabin for the final time, Mae throws out what she thinks is a simple plea to the universe: Please. Show me what will make me happy.
The next thing she knows, tires screech and metal collides, everything goes black. But when Mae gasps awake…she’s on an airplane bound for Utah, where she begins the same holiday all over again. With one hilarious disaster after another sending her back to the plane, Mae must figure out how to break free of the strange time loop—and finally get her true love under the mistletoe.
Jam-packed with yuletide cheer, an unforgettable cast of characters, and Christina Lauren’s trademark “downright hilarious” (Helen Hoang, author of The Bride Test) hijinks, this swoon-worthy romantic read will make you believe in the power of wishes and the magic of the holidays.
In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren
Chapter 1 (Excerpt)
December 26
Call me harlot. Call me impulsive. Call me hungover.
No one ever has before, but someone absolutely should this morning. Last night was a disaster.
As quietly as I can, I slip out of the bottom bunk and tip- toe across the freezing floor to the stairs. My heart is beating so hard I wonder if it’s audible outside of my body. The last thing I want is to wake Theo and have to look him in the eye before my brain is warmed up and my thoughts are cohesive.
The second step from the bottom always creaks like something out of a haunted house; it’s been victimized by nearly three decades of us “kids” run-stomping our way up for meals and down for games and bed in the basement. I stretch to carefully put my foot on the one just above it, exhaling when I land with no sound. Not everyone is so lucky; that loose board has busted Theo sneaking in late—or early, depending on how you look at it—more times than I can count.
Once I’m in the kitchen, I worry less about stealth and go for speed. It’s still dark; the house is quiet, but Uncle Ricky will be up soon. This cabin is full of early risers. My window of opportunity to figure out how to fix this is narrowing quickly.
With a barrage of memories from last night rolling like a mortifying flip book through my head, I jog up the wide stairway to the second floor, ignore the mistletoe hanging above the landing, round the banister in my candy cane socks, sneak quietly down the hallway, and open the door to the narrower set of stairs leading to the attic. At the top, I nudge open Benny’s door.
“Benny,” I whisper into the chilly blackness. “Benny, wake up. It’s an emergency.”
A gravelly groan comes from across the room, and I warn him, “I’m turning on the light.”
“No—”
“Yes.” I reach over, flicking the switch and illuminating the room. While we offspring have long been relegated to bunk beds in the basement, this attic is Benny’s bedroom every December, and I think it’s the best one in the house. It has pitched ceilings and a long stained-glass window at the far end that projects sunlight across the walls in brilliant stripes of blue, red, green, and orange. The narrow twin bed up here shares the space with the organized clutter of family heirlooms, boxes of decorations for various holidays, and a wardrobe full of Grandma and Grandpa Hollis’s old winter clothes, from back when buying a cabin in Park City wasn’t a laughable financial prospect for a high school principal from Salt Lake. Since none of the other families had girls when I was a kid, I would play dress-up all alone up here, or sometimes with Benny as my audience.
But now I don’t need an audience, I need a kind ear and a cold, hard shot of advice because I am on the verge of hysteria.
“Benny. Wake up.”
He pushes up onto an elbow and, with his other hand, wipes the sleep from his eyes. His Aussie accent comes out hoarse: “What time is it?”
I look at the phone I have gripped in my clammy palm. “Five thirty.”
He stares at me with squinty, incredulous eyes. “Is somebody dead?”
“No.”
“Missing?”
“No.”
“Bleeding profusely?”
“Mentally bleeding, yes.” I step deeper into the room, wrap myself up in an old afghan, and sit in a wicker chair that faces the bed. “Help.”
At fifty-five years old, Benny still has the same fluffy sandy-brown hair he’s sported my entire life. It reaches just past his chin, wavy like it was permed for years and at some point decided to stay that way. I used to imagine he was a roadie for some aging eighties rock band, or an adventurer who led rich tourists to their doom out in the bush. The reality—he’s a Portland locksmith—is less exciting, but his jangle of turquoise bracelets and beaded necklaces at least lets me pretend.
Right now that hair is mostly a tangled halo of chaos around his head.
With each of the twelve other bodies in this house, I’ve got deep history, but Benny is special. He’s a college friend of my parents—all of the grown-ups in this house attended the University of Utah together, except Kyle, who married into the group—but Benny has always been more friend than parent figure. He’s from Melbourne, even-tempered and open-minded. Benny is the eternal bachelor, the wise adviser, and the one person in my life I know I can count on to give me perspective when my own thoughts are swerving out of control.
When I was a kid, I would save up my gossip until I saw him over the Fourth of July weekend or Christmas break, and then unload everything the moment I had him to myself. Benny has a way of listening and giving the simplest, most judgment-free advice without lecturing. I’m just hoping his level head can save me now.
“Okay.” He clears some of the gravel out of his throat with a cough and brushes a few wayward strands of hair out of his face. “Let’s have it.”
“Right. So.” Despite my panic and the ticking clock, I decide it’s best to ease him in gently to this conversation. “Theo, Miles, Andrew, and I were playing board games last night in the basement,” I start.
A low “Mm-hm” rumbles out of him. “A standard night.”
“Clue,” I stall, tugging my dark hair over my shoulder.
“Okay.” Benny, as ever, is blissfully patient.
“Miles fell asleep on the floor,” I say. My younger brother is seventeen and, like most teenagers, can sleep on a pointy rock. “Andrew went out to the Boathouse.”
This “Mm-hm” is a chuckle because Benny still finds it hilarious that Andrew Hollis—Theo’s older brother— finally put his foot down with his father and found a way out of the infantilizing bunk bed situation: he moved into the Boathouse for the duration of the Christmas holiday. The Boathouse is a small, drafty old building about twenty yards from the main cabin. What cracks me up is that the Boathouse isn’t anywhere near a body of water. It’s most frequently used as an extension of the backyard in the summer and most assuredly not set up for overnight guests to the Rocky Mountains in December.
And as much as I hated not seeing Andrew Hollis in the top bunk across the room, I honestly can’t blame him.
No one sleeping in the basement is actually a kid anymore. It’s been well established that Theo can (ahem) sleep anywhere, my brother, Miles, idolizes Theo and will go wherever Theo is, and I put up with it because my mother would murder me barehanded if I ever complained about the Hollis family’s abundant hospitality. But Andrew, nearly thirty years old, was apparently done placating the parents, and took a camping cot and sleeping bag and strolled his way out of the cabin our first night here.
“We’d all had a couple drinks by then,” I say, then amend, “Well, not Miles, obviously, but the rest of us.”
Benny’s brows lift.
“Two.” I grimace. “Eggnog.”
I wonder if Benny knows where this is going. I am a notoriously wussy drinker and Theo is a notoriously horny one. Though, to be fair, Theo is just notoriously horny.
“Theo and I went upstairs to grab some water.” I lick my lips and swallow, suddenly parched. “Um, and then we were like, ‘Let’s drunkenly go for a walk in the snow!’ but instead . . .” I hold my breath, strangling my words. “We made out in the mudroom.”
Benny goes still, and then turns his suddenly-wide-awake hazel eyes on me. “You’re talking about Andrew, right? You and Andrew?”
And there it is. With that gentle question, Benny has hit the nail on the head. “No,” I say finally. “Not Andrew. Theo.”
That’s me: harlot.
(photo by Lizzie Shane)
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In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren