I’ve set a pretty high standard for romantic comedy novels lately, especially with my introduction to Abby Jimenez. I’ve simply found that this genre of books has to have a very specific set of tropes or characteristics in order to really sparkle, especially when it comes to the male protagonist. Might that be a bit much to ask sometimes? Maybe. Nonetheless, when a friend of mine told me about the Lovelight series, which follows a romantic pair from Inglewood, Maryland each during one season in a year, it sounded like a cozy, comfy escape from the current hellscape of reality.
Stella Bloom has just bought an old Christmas tree farm named Lovelight Farms, the name being a reference to a lyric in “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” She has fond memories of visiting with her late mom as a child, and she is determined to keep the magic of the farm alive. But the farm is not in great shape, and someone has been sabotaging her efforts to revive the land and business. So when she applies to a contest held by a social media influencer that offers a $100,000 winning cash prize, she paints a picture of a magical, romantic business run by her and her boyfriend. Only one problem: Stella does not actually have a boyfriend. To boost her chances of winning, Stella asks her best friend Luca Peters to stand in as her boyfriend when the influencer visits the farm.
The Lovelight Farms series starts off in the winter season, but the book actually begins shortly after Halloween. In order to really capture that winter feeling, the book could have taken place throughout the month of December and worked its way toward January instead, really focusing on wintertime activities, feelings, and celebrations. If you’re going to present Maryland in winter, I would expect a lot more than a light dusting of snow and threadbare Christmas vibes.
Speaking of Christmas vibes, we could really lean into that fantasy of the ideal Christmas tree farm. That magic that Stella wants so much to capture does not quite ooze into the reader’s heart as it should. Her motivations were very clear, make no mistake, but I just think we could have really spent more time in the fantasy of the farm. After all, her memories of her late mother live within that farm and its holiday magic. Why not lean into that and create the most magical version of a Christmas tree farm one can imagine? One with many, many acres of beautiful trees, a hay ride with Santa, a petting zoo, hot chocolate and cookies with Mrs. Claus, a letterbox for the North Pole, elves running the show, etc? That would create a more stark contrast to the farm that she buys and what work needs to be done, especially if Stella kept reminding herself of it whenever she saw how far she had to go.
The romance is pretty mid. Stella and Luca are cute characters, but their chemistry did not quite sizzle, no matter how many sex scenes they had. I do think having their pre-established connection as friends made their fake dating a little easier to believe. But I’m not sure I really saw anything that drew them close together.
I like when romantic pairings have a shared history, but even better when their connection is really forged in a series of memorable events. Stella has a sad history of her and her mom moving around a lot and finally losing her, but Luca does not have the same kind of depth. He is sort of just there as a result, as a perfectly caring best friend/fake boyfriend, but not much more. Sweet as he is, he might be the least interesting character in the cast, with no discernible problems or flaws of his own.
Beckett and Layla, Stella’s friends and coworkers on the farm, have more personality than Luca, with Beckett being the lumbering hunk farmer with muscles and tattoos out the wazoo, and Layla being the sweet, sunny baker with a heart of gold. I have no idea who the pairings are in the other books, but I hope they are among them.
Some plot threads are left dangling, and that’s kind of disappointing. Stella reluctantly accepts an invite to her estranged father’s house with his family for an unofficial Thanksgiving, and it’s very clear that her father does not want to face her after he ran out on her and her mother. It would have been nice to see Stella’s father explain his behavior and actually face what he did to his family, but that goes forgotten about in the latter half. I love family drama finally culminating in a cathartic outburst, and I was disappointed to not get that until one little throwaway line in the epilogue.
I’m glad I knew this was a series going into this first book, because this is not a particularly strong start. It’s an entertaining read and the pieces were in place for a great Christmas romance, but I don’t think it leaned enough into the wintertime/Christmas vibe, and the romantic pair felt incomplete and underdeveloped.
The Library Key 