What can I say: around December, I start craving Christmas romances, both in movie and book form. The sapphic Christmas movie selection may still be pretty weak, but at least we have plenty of seasonal sapphic romance books to choose from. I enjoyed the previous Ashley Herring Blake romances I read, so this seemed like an easy win.
Between this and Casey McQuiston’s The Pairing, I’ve been convinced that I am a fan of the second chance romance trope. Like The Pairing, these two main characters have been close since they were kids, but haven’t spoken to each other in years, since Brighton left Charlotte at the altar. Then they both end up at the same house for Christmas—it turns out their friends are sisters—it brings up a lot of intense emotions.
The second chance trope works for me because we start this story with so much tension and complicated feelings. They know how to push each other’s buttons. They miss each other. They’re angry at each other. That makes it easy to immediately be pulled into the story. I also appreciated that as the book went on, I could sympathize with Brighton’s decision to leave Charlotte at the altar years ago—it was a betrayal, but it wasn’t entirely one-sided. Romances always need an obstacle to overcome, and this one is big enough to keep them apart without ultimately feeling insurmountable.
Glancing through reviews, I found it a little funny that there are plenty of reviews saying Brighton is terrible and Charlotte deserves better—and that Charlotte is terrible and Brighton deserves better. Personally, I love flawed characters. They feel more realistic. Charlotte is closed off to the point of selfishness, but we understand why: she was raised by a mostly absent mother and then was left at the altar by the love of her life. Brighton cared so much about Charlotte in their relationship that she tried to suppress any of her own doubts and conflicting desires until it reached a crisis point. To me, that breakdown of communication between them—especially in their early twenties when they’d only ever been with each other—made total sense, and I was invested in seeing how they would bridge this enormous divide years later.
This really delivers on the Christmas vibes, too. Some books are marketed as holiday romances, but it isn’t actually that relevant to the plot. In Make the Season Bright, they’re staying with a family who is enthusiastic about Christmas, and they’re also roped into a series of Christmas-themed singles events.
I misread a review of this as “inexplicably sexy” (it actually said “explicitly sexy”), and honestly, I think that’s right. I associate Christmas romances with cozy and sweet, so I was a little surprised by the explicit sex scenes, including discussion of kinks, but I’m not complaining!
Another fun aspect was the queer friend group. In fact, despite the sisters complaining about growing up in this small town and being some of the only queer people, almost everyone we meet is queer, even side characters who only show up for a page.
I also appreciate that these friendships are given weight. Charlotte and Brighton have to repair their relationship, but so do Charlotte and Sloane. Charlotte hasn’t realized that by trying to be so independent, she’s been hurting the people who care about her by pushing them away. Sloane is right to be angry about this one-sided relationship, and I’m glad that Charlotte has to apologize for them to continue to be friends.
That brings me to the thing that didn’t work for me, though, and something I’m beginning to notice about Ashley Herring Blake romances: they always star white characters with best friends who are characters of colour. (I believe usually Black women, but I could be wrong about that.) Similarly, trans characters are mentioned, but never the main characters. I understand not wanting to write outside of your own experience, but it can seem tokenizing when trans characters and characters of colour never get the spotlight. What made this stand out to me this time was Adele calling Brighton “baby girl” constantly; I think about half of the lines she has include that phrase, and it felt weird to me, more like a catch phrase than a natural speaking choice.
While there were elements that I really enjoyed about this, it didn’t feel particularly memorable. Unfortunately, I’m still looking for that Christmas romance book that I love as much as The Holiday.
