When a reader picks up a romance novel they know that happy ending exists. They don’t have to worry about what will happen and they can just get totally immersed in how it happens. Sometimes when life deals you a few blows that kind of thing is important.
A Bookshop Christmas
by Rachel Burton
Genre: Christmas Romance
About: Megan moved back home to York and her family's bookshop after her husband passed away. Three and a half years later, she's created a safe, unchangeable life with the only romance coming from her beloved books. But life is changing around her. The bookshop isn't doing well and so, to help business, she's hosting Booker Prize nominee Xander Stone's book launch. The only problem is he's the most rude, arrogant, snobbish man she's ever met.
Thoughts
I went into this wanting a purely cozy, sweet Christmas romance. And it is that, so I feel bad rating it so low but I just found too many things frustrating about the story.
Megan is an incredibly repetitive thinker. Every thought or worry she has is given to the reader several thousand times. The constant guilt about her husband's death and moving on from him made perfect sense (three and a half years is really not such a long time in mourning as it's made out to be by her friends and family), but all the other thoughts were a drag to the pace. We did not need to revisit the moment Xander bumped his shopping trolley in her as often as we did - that would have been a cute moment in a movie version lasting all of one scene and not talked about over and over again. Or just anything that vaguely happens is talked endlessly about in her inner monologue as well as to her friends and family. We know how she thinks and feels about everything. The anger at her father, her mother's overprotectiveness, Colin getting neglected (that point makes what he does later so obvious it's practically shouted at to the reader), her friends not confiding in her... These topics are given to the reader not once, or twice, but are a constant thread Megan picks at relentlessly.
When you take out the sections focused on her inner thoughts and feelings, there's little left of the novel because so few things actually happen. We have the meet-cute, a few lacklustre dates, the book launch and a Christmas party. The dates really could have saved the story for me but they were too similar in tone to every other conversation. It's more reflecting how Megan feels, analysing why Xander came across so rude at first, and whether she's ready to move on. There's little banter, almost no tension, and the 'only one bed' scene was an absolute crime. Or rather, it was worse later on when they actually do have sex and it's given to the reader as: they kiss, and then wake up next to each other. Totally fine with the author not wanting to write smutty scenes, but when their first near-kiss and then actual kiss is over-analysed as much as those were, I'd expect some description on more physical intimacy. It didn't have to be steamy, but some transition scene was needed to explain her going from not sure about kissing him, to having sex with him.
The main banter of the novel is on Xander being a romance genre snob. I hated the twist of him having a romance pen name as it made no sense. Discovering he wrote sex scenes with his mum was gross, and it wasn't believable that he's unfamiliar with famous romance books. He'd only read Mansfield Park for school? No other Austen? All of the Die Hard Romance Bookclub's recommendations were new to him? If he writes the genre, he should know the genre. And Megan waving the flag for romance books didn't do much for the book. We're told to not dismiss romance in books while getting nothing from this one to make the genre shine. It's formulaic and boring.
Overall, I wanted a cozy, Christmas read but this was too slow, too repetitive and far too predictable. I love romance books but sparks need to fly and scenes need to be more than character reflections and things we already know about. The audiobook is eight and a half hours and could easily have been half that because nothing really happens.
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