Christmas Tree Farm

2.5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

Kira North hated Christmas.

Kira's twin sister has married and left to live overseas, as someone that has always depended on her sister's more level-headed personality, Kira feels extremely adrift. After watching a bunch of homesteading videos, Kira gets it in her mind that what she needs to do is buy a farm and with a trust fund just sitting there, well, a Christmas Tree Farm is purchased. This is third in the Dream Harbour series but each book works as a standalone, the tying thread is the small-town and friend group that flutters in and out of whoever the main characters' book is at the time. I read a paperback copy of this and there was a map of the town, which was fun to see and imagine all the characters going to and fro shops and businesses. Kira gets paired up with Bennett, series readers will remember him as the brother to a past lead, he's in town for vacation and to get his dating life in order, no more fix-it women. So, we have a determined to make it her on her own for the first time in her life and a will explode if he doesn't help, couple.

When she lifted her eyes to his, he was still looking at her like he had plenty of ideas on how to keep her warm.

If you couldn't tell by the title, this works super well as a seasonal read, snowball fights, Christmas festivals, stroopwaffles!, you're probably going to want to lean into those feelings as the actual plot was a bit slow going. Kira and Bennett meet and have instant attraction right away but Kira's a grumpy gus who does not want to give into her attraction as she sees that as her going back to her old ways. Bennett has a bit of that as well, he was burned bad by an old girlfriend, he actually moved from the East to West coast for her only to be told, he was too boring for her and then to be used a periodic desperate grab when she got lonely. He's working to shore up his defense for women who only use him. He never builds up too tough of a wall against Kira but he does get his feelings hurt after they have some bedroom scenes (some spice heat to these scenes) and Kira still tells him she doesn't want him, for some later in the book angst. Kira, exhaustively, ping pongs hot for Ben and doesn't want to lean on anyone.

Lumberjack fantasies that Kira didn't even know she had rushed into her head.

This was pretty low angst but at over three hundred pages (to me, this easily should have been two-twenty-ish) there wasn't a lot to keep this going, the relationship issues were draaaaaaaaaaaaged out. There was also a little bit of mystery thread, the farm Kira bought is rumored to have treasure or a body!?, buried on the property, it's what first gets Bennett out there continuously, friends/townspeople pressure him to go search for the body so the new gal doesn't find it and get scared away. I don't know, this mystery thread gets brought up and then, just about, completely ignored for the majority of the book, only to be kind of brought in with some found letters and then secrets revealed in the epilogue.

He wanted to confess that all he wanted for Christmas was her.

The page count was way too long on this for me, making the story feel dragged out, Kira ping ponged too much, and the mystery thread wasn't invested in enough. It was fun to visit the town again, see past couples, and experience some festive vibes.