REVIEW: Christmas at Two Love Lane by Kieran Kramer

Christmas at Two Love Lane by Kieran Kramer finds professional matchmaker Macy Frost in a predicament: her goal is to match people with their forever loves, only Deacon Banks just wants to be set up with a series of dates to appease his aunt while he’s in town. Macy eventually breaks down and agrees, only Deacon decides the person he wants the most is Macy. He enlists his series of dates to try to help him accomplish his goal.

I won’t lie, I had a very hard time with this book. It was almost a “did not finish” for me. I put it down several times, read another book, picked it back up again, put it back down, and eventually decided to just make myself finish it. I hate not finishing a book, which made me continue on. A major issue with this one is the pacing. It’s slow moving, so slow at one point it felt like I should be halfway through the book and was actually only fifteen percent through. I found myself just skimming through it hoping I would find something, anything, to grab my attention and draw me in, but it never happened.

Then there are the characters. My issue isn’t so much with Deacon–he was pretty straightforward about what he wanted from the get-go–but with Macy. I couldn’t stand her. First of all, she rumored to be a direct descendant of Cupid, yet she doesn’t feel worthy of love. I didn’t understand that. Then there are her actions themselves. She says she can’t be with Deacon because they have a business agreement, yet she keeps kissing him. When one of his dates breaks their date, Macy goes to the woman’s house, along with Deacon, to make sure she’s ok. Not only did she then let herself and Deacon into the house when no one answers the door, but she then proceeds to have sex with Deacon on the woman’s bedroom floor. She was so worried that she couldn’t get in contact with this woman and couldn’t find her, but she had time for that. At that point, what little respect I had for her went out the window. She definitely did not act in a professional manner.

Macy also gets mad at Deacon when he doesn’t admit how he feels about her, but yet she herself never told him or gave him indication how she felt about him. Because of that, I felt she had no right to lash out the way she does.

There’s mention of one of Macy’s business partners looking for a treasure. Honestly, I didn’t find it necessary to the story. It only dragged it out longer.

Another issue I had was how the author describes the setting. She says it’s a small town. So here I’m thinking small town, everyone knows everyone type of town, only to find out it’s set in Charleston, South Carolina. I have never been to Charleston, but I know it has almost a hundred thousand more people than the town I currently live in. I would not classify my town as a small town by any means, and not everyone knows everyone like it seems they do in this book. To me, describing the setting as being a small town was a bit misleading.

The book is called Christmas at Two Love Lane, but the only thing related to Christmas was that the story took place in December. So if you’re looking for a book with Christmas activities and festivities, I would look elsewhere.

I’m sure there are people out there who will love this book. Unfortunately, I am not one of them.

Book Info:

Publication: October 3, 2017 | St. Martin’s Press | Two Love Lane #1

From the moment he strode through the iron gate and into the offices of Two Love Lane on a crisp December day, it was obvious that Deacon Banks was something different. He wasn’t a Charleston native, not with that adorable Yankee accent. And unlike the usual client at the elegant matchmaking agency, he had no interest in finding a woman to marry–just a few no-strings dates while he was in town.

Macy Frost takes her professional services very seriously–how could she not, when she’s rumored to be a direct descendant of Cupid? Tech entrepreneur Deacon says he’s just trying to make his social-climbing aunt happy by being seen out and about with a few prominent beauties, but Macy insists she can make her client fall in love…for real. And Deacon can’t help but think she might be right. As charming as the palmetto trees and magnificent harbor may be, it’s the beautiful, breath-of-fresh-air Macy who’s become Deacon’s favorite part of the scenery. But can the hopelessly romantic Southern belle stop trying to fix him up and just let Cupid do his work on her own heart?