Book Review: The Trouble with Mistletoe by Jennifer Snow

Jennifer Snow‘s holiday romance The Trouble with Mistletoe from Harlequin Heartwarming is a delightful tale about high school sweethearts who part abruptly but then serendipitously meet up twelve years later. In the first book of the Brookhollow series, it is revealed that Victoria Mason left Luke Dawson at the altar on what would have been their wedding day. Circumstances have made it that she has to confront Luke in person; and being a man, Luke acts as though her rebuff rolled off his shoulders. Inside, he forgave her but it didn’t mean he’d give her what she came for a few weeks before the charitable season of Christmas.

Luke has held a torch for Victoria since the second grade when he rescued her from a gaggle of bullies. Victoria wanted more than what the small town of Brookhollow had to offer. She made her mark in New York City as an acquisitions executive for Clarke and Johnston exhibiting the salesmanship of Richard Gere’s character Edward Lewis in Pretty Woman.

Her independent nature is likely to be relatable to modern women, and Luke’s old fashioned, gentleman-like demeanor is indubitably attractive to female audiences. His generosity has a genuine feel and his thoughtfulness is commendable giving the elderly a helping hand and acting as a mentor to the town’s youth and a sponsor to neighborhood organizations and at charity events.

Through a series of circumstance that link Victoria and Luke together starting with Victoria’s assignment to convince Luke to sell his sporting goods store Legends to her company’s client Play Hard Sports, the pair continually find themselves standing under the mistletoe at the same time, and Luke taking advantage of the opportunity. Interweaving a host of secondary characters like their mothers, their friends, and possible love interests to fodder each other’s pangs of jealousy, Snow gives Luke and Victoria dimension to their personalities piercing their outer shell and showing audiences the characters innermost thoughts.

Sensitive topics broached in conversations are spiked by humor and charm keeping the story moving and evolving. Sometimes, the reader questions if Victoria and Luke will hold onto each other or let go like they had done in the past. It’s not until the final scene when they help in the delivery of their friends, Rachel and Nathan’s twins that the reader knows there is no chance for either one to withdraw from the other.

It’s a love story that guides the reader through a forest of conflicting feelings that emerge to the surface. Galvanizing a succession of circumstances works to draw the couple together along their quest to find happiness, which makes for an amusing read as it opens the reader’s mind to see that some hurdles can be surmounted. A prolific writer of modern romantic comedies, Jennifer Snow’s story is the quintessential read to uplift one’s spirit.