Review: Baby It’s Cold Outside
* This post may contain affiliate links or sponsored content. *
If you’re looking for an engrossing, encouraging novel to curl up with this Christmas season, you’ll want to check out Baby, It’s Cold Outside, by one of my top new favorite Christian authors, Susan May Warren.
You may remember that I recently reviewed another of her books, My Foolish Heart. Baby, It’s Cold Outside will take you back in time to 1949. About the book:
Hope finds the hopeless when a storm hits.
It’s Christmas weekend 1949, and despite the threat of a storm, the townspeople of Frost are determined to continue their holiday traditions, if only as a means to forget the war that they had all just suffered through. But the suffering hasn’t ended for Dottie Morgan who lost her only son in the war. She’s preparing to wallow in her isolation for the weekend, when Violet, nearly a spinster at age 29, dares to make a request that will force Dottie to publicly revive the memory of her dead son.
When a storm traps the two women at home with a strange young man who has an unbelievable confession and a neighbor with more to do with Violet’s past than she would like, no one can predict how this Christmas will give them all a second chance.
I got into this book right away. From the first chapter, it grabbed and held my attention – as in, I lost sleep over this book because I stayed up way too late reading. There was only one thing that confused me a bit and I spent a little too much time being distracted by it – the back cover said Dottie was trapped in her home with four strangers.
For a long time, there were only four people in the house, so I kept wondering if the “four strangers” was including Dottie, which didn’t make sense, and, if not, where was the fourth person. So, just so you can relax and enjoy the book, it means four other people. Give it time.
Once again, one of the things that I love about Susan May Warren’s books is that they involve real people with real struggles and weaknesses. There aren’t any “holier-than-thou” folks in this book that you can’t relate to. Instead, there are people harboring hurts and unforgiveness, haunted by their own lies and regrets, unwilling to let their true identities show for fear of being rejected.
The “storm house” in which these five memorable characters find themselves stranded makes the perfect representation of God’s grace and protection in the midst of our storms. You might want to have the tissues handy, though. It made me cry like a baby – but it takes a good book to elicit that kind of emotion from me, so that’s a plus.
I’m a huge fan of a well-researched book. I love when I can learn something about a time period (post-WWII, in this case) and feel like I’ve got an understanding of what it might have been like to live in that era. Sometimes it’s the little things that keep me into the story – like the fact that the fridge was consistently called the “icebox” because that’s what it was called in the late 1940’s.
In addition to enjoying the storyline, I really felt like I got a glimpse into the post-WWII era. Then, there was the fact that the book referred to places like Mankato and Silver Lake, which I remembered from my Little House on the Prairie days, giving the story a warm sense of familiarity.
Baby, It’s Cold Outside is available on Amazon and will make great holiday reading when you’ve got a little extra time during Christmas break…if you can wait that long to read it!
I received a free copy of this product for the purpose of reviewing it. This post contains affiliate links. The thoughts and opinions expressed are my own. Your experience may vary. Please read my full disclosure policy for more details.
Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.
Kris,
I clicked on your link and bought the book from Amazon based on your recommendation. I usually read lots of Christmas-themed books from early November through Christmas as another way to celebrate the holidays. Thanks – I'm always looking for good Christmas novels.
Samantha
I hope you enjoy it!
I've been looking for a new christian author. Thanks!!