I have enjoyed two other books by this author, so was definitely interested in this holiday romance. And while the story itself was not bad, there were a lot of issues I had with the writing or the way the story was told. It read a lot like maybe it was one of the author’s first novels maybe? It had so many info dumps, a ton of the whole telling instead of showing. For instance, the first chapter was a ton of telling. It actually reminded me a lot of the first novel I started writing and how my first chapter was like that until someone pointed it out to me. (Not that it was easy for me to go back and change it, that story of mine still isn’t finished.) And then every time a new character was introduced we got quite a bit of back story at that moment and it kind of took me out of the story each time. And a lot of repetition of the main character thinking the same things over and over about who she should like or shouldn’t like.

However I ended up when it got to those kind of points just skimming and skipping to where I could see dialogue or something actually happening, and by doing that I was able to enjoy the story enough to finish it. From the synopsis above it mentions that this was originally a novella, so maybe it was when the author filled it out to make a full length story that all the info dump sections got added, I don’t know.

In the end, I still enjoyed the story enough that I will continue to look to read more by this author in the future.

Review first published on Lisa Loves Literature.