Early Book Review: A Last Chance Christmas by Vicki Lewis Thompson

A Last Chance Christmas is the latest in the Sons of Chance book by Vicki Lewis Thompson. It is currently scheduled for release in digital format on December 1 2014 and in paperback on November 18, 2014. Ben Radcliffe has not had the best family life, and plans on never having a family of his own to avoid repeating his father’s mistakes. But when he delivers a special present to the Last Chance Ranch Ben catches a glimpse of what family could be. 
Genealogist and academic Molly Gallagher is all about family. And even if Ben's secrets make him as skittish as a wild mustang, there's nothing Molly loves more than an enigma. Can the magic of Christmas, and the Last Chance Ranch, help this pair trust each other, and Ben to trust himself?

A Last Chance Christmas is the latest installment of a series with heart. Like threats of the books, this one can stand on its own, but is even better if you have read the other books in the series. Ben is a saddle maker, and it is his custom work that brings him to Last Chance Ranch. To make his delivery of a surprise saddle look less suspicious to the family’s matriarch, it is said that he is looking to buy a horse and is welcome to stay for a few days to decide, and because of the weather. Molly is working on the family’s genealogy and staying at the ranch to get to know that side of the family and to research. She is not planning on staying for Christmas, or on finding love. Both characters are well done, but I will admit that I found Ben to have more depth than Molly. He had some big issues in his past, and hopefully we will see the pair working through them in future books. Molly was just a little to happy, a little too perfect, to feel real to me. However, the story came together well and made me chuckle a few times. 

A Last Chance Christmas was a good, but not great, read from Thompson. I love her writing, but found the situations here occasionally forced and not as compelling as I normally find her work. I will keep reading the series, and have full faith that Thompson’s next book will grab me full force like I have come to expect from her.