Saturday, September 23, 2017

EARLY REVIEW: Christmas at Two Love Lane with Kieran Kramer


Title: Christmas at Two Love Lane
Author: Kieran Kramer
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: St. Martin's Press (October 3, 2017)
Source: NetGalley
Rating: ☕☕1/2

Synopsis: The best gift of all is the one you share with someone else. . .

From the moment he strode through the iron gate and into the offices of Two Love Lane on a crisp December day, it was obvious that Deacon Banks was something different. He wasn’t a Charleston native, not with that adorable Yankee accent. And unlike the usual client at the elegant matchmaking agency, he had no interest in finding a woman to marry—just a few no-strings dates while he was in town.

Macy Frost takes her professional services very seriously—how could she not, when she’s rumored to be a direct descendant of Cupid? Tech entrepreneur Deacon says he’s just trying to make his social-climbing aunt happy by being seen out and about with a few prominent beauties, but Macy insists she can make her client fall in love…for real. And Deacon can’t help but think she might be right. As charming as the palmetto trees and magnificent harbor may be, it’s the beautiful, breath-of-fresh-air Macy who’s become Deacon’s favorite part of the scenery. But can the hopelessly romantic Southern belle stop trying to fix him up and just let Cupid do his work on her own heart?

My Thoughts: I went into this book with so much excitement. It's a Holiday book! It's by Kieran Kramer! Unfortunately, it just wasn't for me.

The Good, The Bad, and Everything Else: The setting of Charleston is charming but the pace and the setting of the story makes this feel like a small town story. With Charleston being well over 100k people this felt a bit off for me even though I did like it. I love small town romances. I also liked some of the secondary cast of characters. Fran, Deacon's Aunt, was an interesting woman who stole the scenes she was in, and she was in quite a lot of them and George, her HouseBoy/Manservant, was a hoot . Unfortunately, I never really warmed up to Macy, or even her partners, Greer, Ella, and Miss Thing, or really many of the characters. There was very little background on them and very little divulged during the course of the book. What I got from Macy was she was perfect. She giggled. She was a professional (although the last thing wasn't demonstrated but repeated by Macy herself.) Her only imperfection is that she can't seem to let herself fall in love. She's a matchmaker who doesn't believe she can find her true love.

Anyway, I had a hard time getting into this book. It could have been the pacing, which seemed really slow. Or it could be everything was just so sweet. There wasn't any actual conflict. I don't consider Macy's wishy washy woe is me I can't fall in love ways conflict. I missed this aspect and felt the book suffered a bit without it. In addition, there were a couple sex scenes but they all began on page and finished off page. Very little details were included and I actually prefer a little more sizzle in my books.

In a Nutshell: Even though I really adore Kieran Kramer's historical romances I wasn't blown away by this Contemporary Romance and barely even liked it. Even though this book wasn't for me those who like just plain sweet CRs with a low heat levels might enjoy this.