What are the holidays without classic jingles, carols, hymns, and pop songs? Christmas music makes even the most Grinch-like heart beat a little faster – probably. I mean, in I’LL BE GONE FOR CHRISTMAS, one of the protagonists, Clover, is the quintessential Grinch, and roving carolers make her rageful but…anyway, I love Christmas songs, and I listened to a ton while working on this book, so here are a few of my favorites:
Chosen Family by Carlie Hanson
One of the biggest themes in the novel is chosen family and finding your place, and this is one of the most beautiful modern Christmas songs I’ve heard. In the lyrics are the words, “It’s funny how the safest landings /Need you to jump,” which is true for both Clover and Bee, who swap homes and travel across the county, completely out of their comfort zones, to find themselves again.
Can You Stand the Rain by New Edition
One of my favorite Christmas films of all time is Best Man Holiday, during which the men of the movie perform a choreographed dance to “Can You Stand the Rain” by New Edition. It’s super cheesy and incredibly random, but I don’t care, and neither does Clover, who also adores this scene, and it ends up being a pivotal part of her flirtation with Bee’s twin sister, Beth.
Of course, that’s not actually a Christmas song, but it’s in a Christmas movie and now a Christmas book, so there we go.
I Believe by Whitney Houston
Also not technically a Christmas song, but it’s featured in another one of my favorite Christmas films, The Preacher’s Wife, and I chose it here precisely for the lyrics: “I believe in miracles, and that you’re a miracle…” Love is the name of the game in this book, and both of our protagonists start the book feeling an immense lack of belief in it, but the season’s surprises bring new faith.
Merry Christmas, Baby by Kelly Clarkson
I love how spiteful this song is. It’s a delightful mix of coy and vicious, and I think it’s a perfect theme to both cruel heartbreak and disappointing life experiences. In the song, Kelly sings, “What I got you for Christmas was losing me…” and I think that rings pretty closely for Bee, who for the first time in her life, stands up to her parents, her sister, and their crippling expectations, and puts herself first.
What Christmas Means to Me by Stevie Wonder
I grew up listening to the Motown Christmas compilations on full blast throughout the season, so it was hard to choose just one classic, but this one really sums up the book – which is that, at the end of the day, the holidays are a little bit about falling in love, again. When the year is over and nothing is in bloom, it should feel like the darkest part of the year – and it usually is, in our hemisphere – and yet culturally, emotionally, it’s often the brightest. We bring our own light, and rejoice in each other. For Bee and Clover, they think there’s not much left for them to look forward to, and yet, they discover, it’s only the beginning.
For fans of The Holiday comes a heartwarming Christmas house-swap rom-com debut in which finding yourself and finding love come hand in hand.
Bee Tyler needs a break. In the bustling San Francisco tech community, no one ever seems to stand still—especially her perfect sister and business partner, Beth. So when her best friend suggests a getaway on the wildly popular house-swap app, Vacate, Bee decides a countryside retreat might be exactly what she needs.
Clover Mills has had a year. Between losing her mother and making the complicated decision to leave her fiancé, sticking around the idyllic Christmas obsessed town of Salem, Ohio, just doesn’t feel right. So when she hears about Vacate, she jumps at the chance to spend the holidays in the unfamiliar city of San Francisco.
Soon enough, Bee is living in Clover’s cozy Salem cottage, and Clover is living in Bee’s sleek San Francisco apartment. As Clover can’t seem to stop running into Bee’s frustratingly gorgeous sister, Beth, and Bee finds herself spending more and more time with Clover’s ultra charming ex-fiancé, Knox, the two women realize that this Christmas they may find just what they were looking for and more…
Romance Holiday | Romance LGBTQ [Avon, On Sale: October 8, 2024, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780063244023 / eISBN: 9780063244030]
Georgia K. Boone is a writer, a poet, and the daughter of storytellers. Sometimes, she writes songs she may one day share. Once, in a Brooklyn community center, she read James Baldwin’s quote “You can’t tell the children there’s no hope,” and she carries those words from the city to the desert and beyond. She lives on the West Coast with her family.
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