A Crossbow Christmas by Ann Swann – Review by Christine Baranek

A Crossbow Christmas by Ann Swann
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A Crossbow Christmas
By: Ann Swann

This book takes place in a pandemic world. I love books that tackle the “new normal” that we are all facing right now. So that is major points already for me.
Carina was definitely affected by the pandemic. Haven’t we all. She was in the hospital for several months, working to recover. Now that she’s home all she wants to do is celebrate Christmas with her family. However, everyone’s lives got busier while she was in the hospital. Her husband is too busy working to show that he wants a family Christmas of times past. Her kids are grown, with families of their own. They have all moved away and are too busy to stop and have the Christmas their mother desires.
A friend offers her his cabin for Christmas. If she goes she will definitely have a white Christmas. In her journal, she writes about her desire to go to the cabin. However, she also writes about her worries about going to the cabin alone. Through her journaling, we see that she doesn’t think it is possible to go by herself. How can she? She’s been so busy taking care of everyone else she doesn’t know how to take care of herself. Really, she doesn’t know how she can have a vacation all by herself.
Carina is possibly one of the most relatable characters I have read in a long time. Every mother, wife, woman can relate to her struggles. We may not be able to relate to her struggle of wanting a big Christmas, but we can relate to her struggle to do something nice for ourselves. I don’t know any woman who would willingly take a trip by themselves without second guessing themselves. I think that Ann Swann did a great job encapsulating womens feelings in this story. She captured a women’s grief in the changing seasons of her family. I think everyone about to go through the empty nest process can also relate to those feelings.
I can say I felt the otherside of this as well. I am not a mother or a grandmother. But I am a daughter and I see the change that parents feel when I am torn about who to spend time with on the holidays.
This is such a great book! I definitely recommend it to anyone wanting relatable characters as well as a holiday theme!

View all my reviews