Mississippi Smoke # 9
Kash & Cressida
Abbi Glines really knows how to grab me by the throat and the heart at the same time. She’s one of the few authors who can make me drop every other book I’m reading, sit down, and disappear into her world until I’ve inhaled the last page. And this story reminded me exactly why.
Kash and Cressida were the kind of high school sweethearts who burned too hot, too fast, and then detonated in spectacular fashion. One betrayal, one night, and suddenly he’s exiled to Alabama and she’s shipped off to Arizona, both of them shattered in ways they didn’t have the language for at seventeen.
Fast‑forward four years, and Cressida is back in Madison, Mississippi, not as the ambitious girl she once was, but as a waitress in a greasy spoon, scraping together enough money to survive. She’s running from a home that stopped being safe a long time ago, and you feel that ache in your bones. Then a glamorous woman walks into the diner and offers her a lifeline—room, board, a salary, and a chance to breathe again. Of course she takes it. Who wouldn’t?
And then Kash sees her. One moment on the street, one look, and everything they buried comes roaring back. Nothing is said, but everything is felt. And that’s the thing about first loves that never healed — they don’t stay dead. They wait.
But Madison is still controlled by the Southern Mafia, and when an anonymous text hits her new phone telling her to stay away from Kash, Cressida realizes she’s not just living quietly… she’s being monitored. Tracked. Controlled. Again.
What follows is a tangle of midnight visits, half-truths, and the kind of emotional tension that makes you want to shake both of them. Kash breaks into her room, demanding answers. She gives him pieces, but not the whole truth — not yet. And when they finally fall into each other again, it’s raw, painful, and so full of history that you can feel the weight of every unsaid word. He calls it closure. She’s left alone on the patio, heart cracked open all over again.
Cressida’s journey is especially compelling. She’s strong in that quiet, resilient way that makes you root for her from page one. Kash is the morally gray, emotionally intense hero Glines writes so well — the kind who loves with his whole soul and doesn’t always know what to do with that much feeling.
And the chemistry? Off the charts. The kind that makes you pause, breathe, and then dive right back in.
By the end, you’re left with that signature Abbi Glines cocktail: angst, passion, loyalty, and a love that feels both hard‑won and deeply deserved. Abbi Glines is one of those authors who hijacks my entire life the moment I open one of her books. Her morally gray heroes are deliciously unhinged in the best way. Her heroines are strong, vulnerable, and fighting for their own survival. The angst and passion hit at the same intensity, and the emotional bonds she builds between her couples feel like lifelines.
Purchase links
https://geni.us/HellofaChristmas
About the author
Abbi Glines is a #1 New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Rosemary Beach, Sea Breeze, Vincent Boys, Field Party, and Existence series. She never cooks unless baking during the Christmas holiday counts. She believes in ghosts and has a habit of asking people if their house is haunted before she goes in it. She finally moved to New England into a home that is 200 + years old with it's own ghosts. She drinks afternoon tea because she wants to be British but alas she being born in Alabama, her life in New England is as close as she will get. When asked how many books she has written she has to stop and count on her fingers. When she’s not locked away writing, she is reading, and/or watching Netflix like the introvert that she is.
You can connect with Abbi online in several different ways:
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Twitter: @abbiglines
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/abbiglinesauthor
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