Review: No Ordinary Christmas

No Ordinary Christmas by Belle Calhoune
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2.5 stars 

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. 

Coming back home during the most festive time of the year had been a choice, one he hoped would bring him closure, not just with his relationship with Troy and his father's death, but with Lucy, the woman who still owned a large piece of his heart. 

It's been eight and a half years since Dante West left Mistletoe, Maine to pursue an acting career. He now stars in Hollywood action movies and earned the nickname “Inferno” but all his fame and fortune seems to have come at the cost of family and romantic relationships. After a very close call with a stunt gone wrong, Dante decides to head back home and try to repair those relationships. 

They had planned to leave Mistletoe together and he'd left without her. 

Lucy Marshall is one of the few people not excited that Dante West is returning home to film one of his movies. They were childhood bestfriends who became more and planned on leaving town together but when Dante skipped town without telling her and not trying to contact her for months, Lucy's heart was shattered. She's now a head librarian and doing well for herself but still nursing a broken heart. When she finds out that Dante's movie is a love story and it's their love story, she begins to see that maybe Dante wasn't as unaffected by their sudden breakup as she thought he was. 

In making this movie, he was going to be wearing his heart on his sleeve about the woman who'd stolen his heart back when he was a teenager. 

Starting off the Mistletoe, Maine series, No Ordinary Christmas is going to hit that sweet spot for fans of small town romances and readers who enjoy a festive holiday atmosphere. This does have some of the first in a series syndrome with a good amount of characters introduced who are practically begging for their own future HEAs. All the secondary characters do fill out their roles in creating the world (the small town) and I enjoyed them but they still stole some time away from the main couple's romance. However, one of my favorite things about this story was the sisters relationships between our heroine Lucy and her older sister Stella and younger sister Tess; their love and friendship is a definite highlight and I wanted scenes of them all together. 

This is a second chance romance with Dante coming back home to set things right with not only his family but Lucy. You'll be in Lucy's corner with how Dante just left town without a word to her and then soften a bit when we get more of Dante's story and how circumstances were for him back then. It was around 40% when Dante explains those circumstances to Lucy and she begins to forgive him and I thought that was great timing, book percentage wise, as they could now spend the back-half of the book coming together again. I was a little confused and disappointed when instead, the story still had Lucy stuck with focusing on how Dante left without a word, I thought that 40% scene had resolved that. It made the second half lose so much momentum for me and I felt like the story stalled with characters not doing much. 

Maybe, just maybe, this time around they would get things right. 

There was a late (86%) Big Misunderstanding that came off more forced to me and for a moment, it seemed like neither Lucy or Dante were going to do anything to resolve it but it was obviously there to give Dante the opportunity to give the big romantic gesture. I liked these two separately but their romance came off more bland to me as Lucy bemoaned most of the time and Dante wasn't out there working too hard to romance her; I really did end up getting more joy out of the sisters' relationship. If you want to pick this up for holiday vibes it definitely has that with Dante having to be Santa at one point, mistletoe, a Christmas tree farm, and more. There were a good number of secondary characters with heartache, so if you like the small town of Mistletoe, you'll easily have the opportunity to visit again.

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