Make the Season Bright – Because one of the main characters is called Brighton, get it?
Charlotte Donovan is a successful musician, living the dream in New York. She is a violinist in a string quartet, about to set off on a huge European tour. First, though, Charlotte must survive December, the month when her life usually comes off the rails. December is when Charlotte becomes extra accident-prone. Worse, it’s the month in which her fiancée Brighon left her at the altar. To help her get through the festive season, her friend Sloane asks her to come to her family’s Colorado ranch for Christmas. They’ll have a week of skiing, movie bingeing and home cooked food ahead of them. Charlotte consents, but as soon as she gets to their destination – a quaint little town with more twinkle lights than seems feasible – she discovers that Sloane’s sister Adele has brought a guest too: none other than Brighton, her ex, whom Charlotte hasn’t seen since she was stood up at the altar.
Why am I reading a Christmas romance in February? The answer is: because my library had it, and because the weather has been dull and dreary and I figured a festive pick-me-up would be great, but BOY did I hate this book.
It’s a cute idea, sure, but unfortunately it’s handled in completely the wrong way. Charlotte and Brighton – no person who has ever been to Brigthon would think it’s a good idea to name their daughter after that city – are both really annoying. So annoying that I frequently hoped that one of their misadventures would result in them hitting their head and thus knocking some sense into their damn heads. Neither of them felt like real people. The dialogues seem stilted and forced. The sex scenes completely disrupt the flow of the book and didn’t do anything for me except make me cringe at the trite dialogue.
The novel’s ending is a massive cop-out; one of those the-problem-solves-itself kind of situations, when the dilemma the characters face is the one thing that could’ve brought some heart into the novel. And while I love witty banter in romance novels, the jokes here were total duds. In fact, the novel has so many unused opportunities; there’s one nonbinary character (everyone in this book is queer) named Elle and I can’t decide whether that’s a dumb oversight on the author’s part or whether it’s the punchline to a joke she never makes. There’s also a subplot about Charlotte’s cold, uncaring and largely absent mother that’s handled with the enthusiasm of a four year old tackling a plate of cabbage.
All in all, I thought it was a cute idea, but the execution is uneven and dull. I could forgive a bad book if it were at least interesting, but this isn’t.
Not even in February.