Lovelight Farms by B.K. Borison
Where the lovelight gleams…
A pasture of dead trees. A hostile takeover of the Santa barn by a family of raccoons. And shipments that have mysteriously gone missing. Lovelight Farms is not the magical winter wonderland of Stella Bloom’s dreams. In an effort to save the Christmas tree farm she’s loved since she was a kid, she enters a contest with instafamous influencer, Evelyn St. James. With the added publicity and the $100,000 cash prize, she might just be able to save the farm from its financial woes. There’s just one problem. To make the farm seem like a romantic destination for the holidays, she lied on the application and said she owns Lovelight Farms with her boyfriend. Only… there is no boyfriend. Enter best friend Luka Peters. He just came home for some hot chocolate, and somehow got a farm and a serious girlfriend in the process.
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And the cutest Christmas romance award goes to…..
Lovelight Farms as a fun and enjoyable escape during the cold month of December. It has all the Christmas vibes you could want (how can it be more Christmas than a Christmas tree farm?!) as well as a very heartfelt friends to lovers story. If you read this book and DON’T feel all mushy by the end, you have a heart of ice and need to go defrost yourself right now. This book was simple in its execution yet seamlessly had me falling for all of the characters. It was the perfect small town/hallmark story in feeling without any of the unrealistic cheesiness that tends to turn me off of stories like that usually. Not one character was unlikeable (ok maybe there was ONE) and everyone had a part to play to make this story amazing. It was a cute and cozy romance perfect for the season, my only holdback was I could have used just a smidgen more angst. We can’t be left too happy throughout a book can we?
Stella is our insecure and selfless main character. She’s on her own in terms of family but rich when it comes to good friends. Running the Christmas Tree farm has been a dream for her since she first experienced it with her mother as a child. But things aren’t going smoothly. It seems like one thing after another working against her to make her dream a nightmare and her saving grace is to fake it till she makes it in a social media contest by “dating” her best friend who she’s been in love with for the past decade. What could go wrong? Luka Peters, said best friend, also seems to have a special soft spot for Stella that everyone but her can see so, of course, he agrees to the “fake” arrangement. The entire town however, cannot keep a secret so they have to fake it in front of all their friends as well, making it seem a lot more real than just holding hands in public. What are they willing to risk to find happiness with each other?
Luka was the absolute dream man and helped convince me that friends to lovers is the only way to go from this point forward. He’s ben such a stable rock to Stella throughout the years and no one knows her better than him. His complete understanding and gentle treatment of Stella even in the toughest of situations made me swoon. Typically I don’t like friends to lovers unless it’s done superbly and this one was done so amazingly it made me forget why I don’t like friends to lovers in the first place. Fake dating on top of a strong foundation of ten years of friendship should not be the “risk it all” thing that a lot of romances seem to try and do. With Stella and Luka, you know that no matter how this goes, they will always be best friends and that point is driven home again and again through each small understanding between the two. There is no hesitations nor miscommunication. Our only real hold-up is Stella’s own insecurities which Luka is 100% aware of. It made for such a healthy portrayal of friends to lovers and fake dating that I think I might actually be a real fan of these tropes now!
I absolutely loved all of the characters in this book. The setup of the “usual” town characters like Matty at the pizza place and Dane the cop and Layla and Beckett, Stella’s partners in the business, made it feel like a real community and was so immersive to the reader. There was some great character set up for each character that gets their own story in this series and you can see the potential right from book one which I greatly enjoyed. My only holdback is on Evelyn, the instagram influencer. I liked her, and I can see a set up for her becoming more important later in the series but I feel like there was potential wasted in this book with her. The entire “fake dating” was based around her visit and we didn’t actually get much time with her or her time on the farm. I feel like there could have been either more tension with her characters arrival or less buildup to her visit in the first place.
Overall, I really enjoyed this and rated it 4 stars as it’s the perfect holiday cozy read. My only holdback was that I personally would have liked more tension in the plot outside of the romance itself but with little angst, it was still a great read and brought nothing but fuzzy feels.