{Review} Snowed Over by Angie Stanton

November 30, 2013 Michelle @ Book Briefs Reviews, Young Adult 1 ★★★½

Snowed Over by Angie Stanton
Kindle Edition, 126 pages
Published October 12th 2012 by Vanguard Management, Inc.
Age Group: YA
Source: ecopy from Publisher
Summary:

To college student, Katie Brandt, ‘Home for the Holidays’ sounds like hell. When her parents separated, their holiday traditions shattered like a dropped ornament. What could be worse than celebrating Christmas with her suddenly single mom and mom’s new boyfriend?
Alex Walker, an engaged 20-year-old, dreads going home for his own reasons. He has a daunting task ahead of him and wishes he could skip the holidays altogether. So when a friend of a friend needs a ride north, Alex finds that having beautiful Katie seated by his side proves to be just the distraction he needs.
A simple ride home for Christmas turns into a nightmare when light snow rages into a full-scale blizzard. Katie and Alex find themselves stranded, and a vacant cabin becomes a haven from the storm.
Under different circumstances, time alone with Alex would be the ultimate Christmas gift, but Katie knows Alex is engaged and she must hide her growing attraction.
However, Alex harbors a secret that just might change this holiday from the worst Christmas ever, to the best.

Snowed Over is my first holiday book of the season and it hit the spot. It was cute. It dealt with some tough themes as well. It highlighted the fact that the holidays can be a really festive and great time for some, while being a tough and even sad time for others. Snowed Over has it all. It has cute romantic moments, and I loved seeing Katie and Alex figure out their feeling for each other, but it also has bittersweet moments- like when Katie has to deal with her parents very sudden separation, and her mom hauling her and her sister up to a guys cabin that she insists is “just a friend”. That must have really stung.

I enjoyed Katie. She is determined and strong willed. She didn’t cowed and cry when she was facing a pretty traumatic situation, being stranded out in the middle of a blizzard. She was resourceful. Both her and Alex were. I liked that about them so much. They really dug deep and looked out for each other. A few times I was cringing about the damage they they were doing to this unsuspecting family’s cabin, but they did what was needed. (And I really liked that Alex’s dad did for them at the end.) Alex and Katie worked well together and most of the book focused on the two of them. Katie’s experience with her mom and “not-the-boyfriend” became secondary until the end. Speaking of which, I thought Katie’s mom was behaving very immaturely. I just did not like her at all. But she didn’t play a huge part in the story so I hardly had to deal with her.

Snowed Over is a novella, at just over 120 pages it is something warm and cozy to cuddle up with on a cold day. It’s a cute little Christmas story about two people that just met and had to survive together. A couple of times, I wavered with the situation just like Katie did (I’m not going to spoil what it is though) but ultimately I was good with everything the way it happened. Angie Stanton does a great job of turning a short story into something very detailed and captivating. I really enjoyed Snowed Over.

About Angie Stanton

Angie Stanton never planned on writing books; she wanted to be a Rockette. However, growing up in rural Wisconsin, with her brothers’ 4-H pigs as pets, dance didn’t work out. Instead she became an avid daydreamer. After years of perfecting stories in her head, she began to write them down, and the rest is history.

Angie is the author of six books including Royally Lost, Rock and a Hard Place, and Snapshot. She graduated with a Journalism degree from the University of Wisconsin, and is a proud double finalist of the National Readers Choice Awards for Love ’em or Leave ’em.

Michelle @ Book Briefs