Check out my review of In the Event of Love, a new, holiday rom-com by debut author, Courtney Kae, to see if this is a Christmas romance worth reading.
*Disclosure: This post may include affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
In the Event of Love
by Courtney Kae
Category: Contemporary Romance, Holiday Romance
Tags: Small Town, Second Chance, Friends to Lovers, Lesbian, Christmas
Series: Fern Falls
Published August 2022
Amazon | Goodreads
Rating: ★★★
With her career as a Los Angeles event planner imploding after a tabloid blowup, Morgan Ross isn’t headed home for the holidays so much as in strategic retreat.
Only her hometown of Fern Falls is built of one heartbreak on top of another, including her one-time best friend turned crush, Rachel Reed.
When Morgan discovers that the Reeds’ struggling tree farm is the only thing standing between Fern Falls and corporate greed destroying the whole town’s livelihood, she decides she can put heartbreak aside to save the farm by planning her best fundraiser yet.
Could she and Rachel will possibly have a heartwarming holiday happy ending?
After reading this book blurb, In the Event of Love, I was excited to read this new Christmas romance book of 2022.
While it has all the makings of a great holiday romcom, it didn’t quite meet all my expectations.
The beginning chapters were strong. I got invested with Morgan who had a major oops moment with a client forcing her back to the small town that she fled from seven years ago.
But after those initial chapters the book began to show its spots that it is a debut novel. Transitions were abrupt and the characters just came off as childish and plot points drove me a bit crazy.
Overall, I think this has all of the elements of a great Hallmark-esq holiday movie with some added spiciness.
You get the girl returning home from a long absence, a quirky small town with lots of interesting side characters, a “villain” out to change the small town and some broken relationships that need mending.
My biggest problem was that I didn’t buy into the reasons why Morgan fled and didn’t (or rarely in her Dad’s case) talk to her friends or family in SEVEN years. There had to have been a big falling out in my mind but it all came down to one conversation that was pretty lackluster.
And then the actual conversation in the present to address said issues was over in like 2 minutes and hardly addressed the points. I found that really frustrating.
Plus, after her “talk” with Rachel, they went into full on “let’s get it on” mode which felt forced, a bit icky and didn’t really have any basis in them having any time coming to learn about who they were now as adults seven years later.
The idea of the fundraiser was great as was the focus of the small town. Again- total Hallmark vibes.
But then you get to the crisis moment of the story and reactions were over the top. It was like everyone overreacted and I just wanted to roll my eyes.
I felt like I waffled between “oh this is cute” (queue the grand gesture scene) to “oh this is so cringe-worthy” (that epilogue was just so wrong) throughout the book.
The makings for a cute small town holiday romance are here but I just couldn’t get over the writing at times and the conversations which seemed more adolescent than I was expecting.
Props however to Kae for increasing diversity and giving bisexuality a focus in a holiday rom-com.
I’m glad that I checked it out and the setup for the next novel sounds great, but overall, it was just OK for me.
*I received an advanced reader copy. All opinions are my own.
Related Book Lists:
- 22 New Christmas Romance Books Coming in 2022
- Best Christmas Romance Books To Get in the Spirit this Season
- Best Lesbian Romance Books Worth Reading
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