In the spirit of the holidays, I decided to pick up a fluffy holiday romance that we just got in at our library. I don’t know if I’ve ever read anything by Debbie Macomber, but it was… fine. It always seems more apparent when listening to audiobooks than reading when an author repeats phrases often, or when language gets a bit awkward, but this author churns out a ton of books, so I suppose that can be forgiven. It was nice that this didn’t have anything explicit in it. It is a Hallmark or Lifetime movie of a book (and probably will be turned into one, honestly).
Lindy has returned home to her small town in Washington from the big city of Seattle for the holidays. She is overworked and underappreciated in her job as a graphic design artist and website builder (or something like that) but has the last two weeks of the year off. She’s also suffered a semi-recent heartbreak and betrayal. Once home, her mother shows her the letters to Santa that Lindy wrote as a child in order to cheer her up, and she discovers that all of her wishes came true. Her mother suggests that she writes a new letter to Santa with her current Christmas wishes because hey, you never know.
There are parts of the book that are a bit unrealistic (other than *the magic of Christmas*) but I suppose it’s just leaning into the romance part. In romance novels you can make drastic life decisions based on a romantic interest, but that isn’t recommended in real life. If this was a real situation, things would probably play out differently but still end up with the same end result. (Also, while there is a dog in the book, it doesn’t really play a big role in the book, and it’s also not a puppy, so if you’re looking for that, try something else!)