Bold Stroke Books, $4.99, ISBN 978-1-63679-341-2
Contemporary Romance, 2020

Mira Donohue owns The Mirage, which was recently named the best bar in Boston by some magazine. Hey, it’s something to proud of, alright?

Well, her events coordinator is going on maternity leave, so our heroine has to handle the Christmas events on her own. This is a pickle because Mira hates Christmas. You see, she’s born on Christmas, and this is somehow traumatic enough for her to experience the dreads around the holiday season.

Meanwhile, Courtney Rivers loves Christmas because what’s a little romance without opposites attract, after all. She’s an administrative assistant that has done what many believe to be impossible: succeeding in booking The Mirage for the company Christmas party, and now she’s determined to make it a success so that she can be considered for a promotion to the event planning and marketing division.

These two would meet, just in time for, ta-da, A Christmas Miracle.

This is a good example of a well-written ho-hum romance story. Compared to some of the stuff that I read recently, this one is perfectly fine. The conversations flow organically for the most part, the pacing is fine, and there is a nice festive vibe to the whole thing that the author tries to temper for the sake of more cynical readers by making some self-referential remarks to Hallmark movies.

However, there isn’t much here to make the romance stand out much. The main characters have very little issue standing between them and a good shag, and the author doesn’t even try to pretend otherwise. Despite Courtney’s determination to get the job she wants in the company, it’s not something that she treats with pressing urgency. Hence, there isn’t a good deal of drama or suspense here, just a pleasant tale of two people meeting and hooking up around Christmas.

Is this an issue? Well, I don’t think so, as it is, after all, a Christmas story. It’s supposed to be an easy read and a distraction from the inevitable PITA-ness of family gatherings around that time of the year.

At the same time, the lack of emotional anchor in the romance also means that the romance, and hence the story, feels tad too much of an easy come, easy go. I think that maybe Courtney and Mira will last into March and maybe beyond that, or maybe they won’t. Either way, I can’t pretend that I really care that much one way or the other.

This is a pleasant read, but it’s also more of a Christmas whatever. A well-written whatever, yes, but still a whatever.