Forever Christmas by Robert Tate Miller is a new novel by this well known author. Forever Christmas revisits the 3 days prior to Christmas that Andrew Farmer is being privileged to get to relive. Andrew has loved his wife Beth for as long as he can remember but he has since becoming an important person in his firm begun to take her for granted. He has started taking his importance more seriously and his wife's love for granted. On this Christmas Eve Beth and he had an argument and Beth had run out thinking that he had spent the weekend on a trip with his beautiful associate not just working as he had stated so many times before but instead in each other's arms. Andrew had not but he had known that he could have if he had wanted for he knew that the beautiful Kimberly was willing and ready. But was it enough that he had not done anything with Kimberly? Beth believed not only that he had but worse that he didn't love her anymore and had run out into the street to rescue the neighbor's dog and been hit by a car and died believing that Andrew and her love was over. Andrew as he held the dying Beth knew that he had taken for granted the most important person in his life and that she had not deserved his treatment of her. Upon returning home after Beth's death Andrew meets the angel, Lionel, who gives him one more chance to relive the 3 days before Christmas. As Lionel explains Beth still must die but Andrew is given a chance to make things right between himself and Beth before her death. As Lionel's final admonition, Andrew went and tried very hard not to, "screw things up". When he entered his apartment there he was on December 22 with his wife planning Christmas again. This time he would make things right and do the things that Beth liked to do. He would make her last 3 days perfect and maybe if he was good enough maybe Lionel would let her live. But those 3 days even though he tried his best were not perfect, Andrew though tried his best. He tried to live as Beth would have wanted him to. He would for her last Christmas would take her back to their home town where they both grew up. Beth loved it back there but they almost never went back because Andrew held such bad memories of his life there. But this Christmas was not about Andrew like usual this last Christmas was going to be about Beth and all the things that she wanted and never got.
I loved this book and I think that all readers that grew up loving Its a Wonderful Life will love this book as well. It has many of the same features: a chance to relive a portion of your life and make things right, a loving wife and an upwardly mobile husband who loves her but takes her for granted in his quest to make money. Forever Christmas reminds all of us of the important things in our life and making money rarely is as important as it seems. This book reminds us of how important forgiveness of the wrongs done to us by others is good for not only them but good for us also. Forgiving and forgetting allows us to become the good people that we were made to be. It keeps us from becoming the people that we won't forgive. This book would be good reading for all ages and both men and women.
This book was provided by Booklook for this review.
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