Catching Christmas by Terri Blackstock

As a first-year law associate, Sydney Batson knows she will be updating her resume by New Year’s if she loses her current case. So, when her grandmother gets inexplicably ill while Sydney is in court, she arranges for a cab to take her grandmother to the clinic.

The last thing cab driver Finn Parrish wants is to be saddled with a wheelchair-bound old lady with dementia. But because Miss Callie reminds him of his own mother, whom he failed miserably in her last days, he can’t say no when she keeps calling him for rides. Once a successful gourmet chef, Finn’s biggest concern now is paying his rent, but half the time Callie doesn’t remember to pay him. And as she starts to feel better, she leads him on wild-goose chases to find a Christmas date for her granddaughter.

When Finn meets Sydney, he’s quite certain she’s never needed help finding a date. Does Miss Callie have an ulterior motive, or is this just a mission driven by delusions? He’s willing to do whatever he can to help fulfill Callie’s Christmas wish. He just never expected to be a vital part of it.

My review

What a refreshing story! There are only three main characters–Finn, Callie, and Callie’s granddaughter Sydney–told in first person present tense by Finn and Sydney. It opens with Finn having a curmudgeonly dialog with a rider who usually chooses Uber. Sydney is a young lawyer whose job is on the line, with an impossible client. And her dear grandmother’s health has become quickly more fragile. Finn ends up taking Callie to the doctor, and facing some ghosts from his own past. Callie wants a perfect Christmas and doesn’t want her granddaughter to be alone, so visits eligible bachelors to invite for Christmas! It’s a well-woven story dealing with regrets, how we choose to invest the hours given to us, and even redemption.

The intriguing Author Note tells about her study of the science of happiness, that 40 percent is determined by our own thoughts and actions. And that experiences make humans happier than things do.

Her Acknowledgements reveal the doctor’s office episode that blossomed into this delightful novella. Catching Christmas also includes pithy Discussion Questions.

About Terri Blackstock

Terri Blackstock is a New York Times best-seller, with over seven million copies sold worldwide. She has had over twenty-five years of success as a novelist. Terri spent the first twelve years of her life traveling in an Air Force family. She lived in nine states and attended the first four years of school in The Netherlands. Because she was a perpetual “new kid,” her imagination became her closest friend. That, she believes, was the biggest factor in her becoming a novelist. She sold her first novel at the age of twenty-five, and has had a successful career ever since. See more about her on her Amazon Authors Page.