Book (not) Bingo #28
A Family by Christmas by Viv Royce
Chocolatier Emma Miller has a new business selling bonbons to the residents of the quaint town of Wood Creek. When a young girl stops by her shop with an interesting request-chocolates that will help her widowed dad fall in love-Emma is intrigued. What she doesn't count on is her small customer’s ever so charming and handsome dad, Grant, stepping into her life. But Emma has to be cautious, because growing up in foster care taught her that people always leave .
When his wife died, something in Pilot Grant Galloway broke. He's only now beginning to pick up the pieces. Still, he’s touched by his daughter's gift and is curious about Emma and the shop full of delicious smells and tasty morsels. But his first glimpse of the chocolatier steals his breath. She's pretty and kind-but he’s already risked his heart once with shattering consequences. Besides, once the holidays are over, he’s planning to leave town with his daughter...
Thanks to some Christmas wishes, though, these two might discover that their carefully-laid plans are about to change.
I found this book while I was looking for Christmasy “deals” on Amazon. The reviews were good, and it was only 99 cents, so I figured it was worth a shot.
This is a Romance novel, so I knew from the genre and the cover how it was going to end. With romance, it’s the journey, not the destination, that separate the good book from the bad or so-so book.
Despite the large number of five star reviews, I would put this book in the so-so category. The writing was pretty good, from a grammar / punctuation standpoint … if you can ignore a few rather obvious “auto correct” issues such as replacing a word that clearly should have been “splurge” with “splash.”
The story was decent, if rushed, as you have to expect when reading a romance novel where two people meet and fall in love over a very short time period. There was a little too much extraneous scene description for my taste, although it did add to the seasonal feel of the book. My biggest complaint about the writing, though, is that there was a lot of repetition of the two main characters’ angsty thoughts about each other as they resisted (very briefly) falling in love. Some readers obviously (from the reviews) liked that, but personally I prefer a little more dialogue and/or action and a lot less angsty soul-searching and self-doubt.
All that said, it was a quick, easy read and very Christmasy. And, as I said, it was only about a dollar. It was worth that and a few hours of my time.