RELEASE DAY REVIEW: A Homemade Hanukkah – Emerald Hearts – Eliana West

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Noah Stern's patients at Seattle Children’s Hospital don’t mind his OCD quirks. He loves his job as a physical therapist. Working with children is easy. Checking in on Gideon “the Beast” Wilder at his remote mountain cabin as a favor for the owner of the Seattle Emeralds proves to be anything but easy. Gideon seems determined to live up to his nickname. But beneath his surly demeanor, Noah glimpses a man who is longing for love.

Seattle Emeralds star player Gideon Wilder doesn’t want company, especially a physical therapist with a charming smile and eyes that sparkle when he laughs. Noah Stern’s arrival on his doorstep is an unwelcome interruption, complicated when an avalanche traps them together for Hanukkah. Gideon came to his cabin to nurse both the physical injury that ruined his soccer season and a heart broken by failed relationships. People he dares to love always leave him. Noah will surely do the same.

With each homemade Hanukkah gift, Noah tames the Beast. When the snow clears and Hanukkah comes to an end, Gideon’s fear takes hold before he realizes that Noah's presence in his life has been the greatest gift of all. Will Noah accept Gideon’s belated Hanukkah gift—Gideon’s heart?

Noah Stern is a physical therapist at Children’s Hospital where the children don’t care about his OCD and anxiety. Hannukah is fast approaching, and he has no intention of going home where he knows his OCD makes his family uncomfortable. He decides to rent a cabin in the mountains where he expects to have a quiet Hannukah but that all changes with a phone call from the coach of the professional soccer team, Seattle Emeralds.

Gideon Wilder aka the beast is a player with the Emeralds only he is supposed to be getting treatment for knee injury only he went to stay at his cabin in the mountains where he has been little or nothing to heal his knee. Noah is asked by his coach to go to his cabin with groceries and do some PT and is greeted by the beast.

Noah doesn’t run from Gideon but instead cleans his house, cooks him a meal and does some PT with him. Anxious to leave, Noah discovers that an avalanche has closed the roads, and he is stuck with Gideon. Reports indicate that it will be at least three days before the roads were cleared and Noah little by little begins to tame the beast.

With his knitting in hand, something that calms Noah, he sets out to make the time Gideon and he spend together as pleasant as possible. Gideon uses his unfriendly and mean persona to keep people away, always expecting the worst. His unpleasant manner was the reason he was constantly traded but now he may have found his match, a man who is not afraid of the beast.

Noah has one weapon against Gideon, Gideon’s sweet tooth and when Noah manages to bake cookies Gideon is willing to give in to whatever he asks. Then things get romantic between the two of them, but Gideon is waiting for the shoe to drop and Noah to leave as soon as the snow cleared.

Eight days of Hannukah and Noah manages to give a gift to Gideon every night, gifts he makes and even makes a menorah so they can light a candle every night. They find comfort in each other until the snow clears.

A beautiful story of two men each suffering with insecurities, one with OCD and one always being left find each other but will the past interfere with the possibility of a future.