Christmas at Clove Cottage by Diana Bold

Potential Good But Misses the Mark

For all that needed to happen in this book, it is actually quite short. It is written the dual perspectives of the hero and the heroine. She is a young woman who is working on her bucket list because she is dying from a rare form of muscle cancer. One of the things she wants to do before she dies is spend Christmas alone at a little remote cabin. Even though her family objects, that is what she’s going to do. Nixon, the hero, is really a jerk for most of the book, unfortunately. He wasn’t treated well by his last girlfriend, and he takes it out on Christmas and the world. I thought the story had too much telling rather than showing things happen. A story like this really had the potential to be one that could tug at the heartstrings, with a young woman who is dying and maybe perhaps finding the love of her life before she passes. But with so much telling, there was emotional distance. And I didn’t quite buy the insta-love, especially considering what the relationship was like before that. The story definitely needed better development of both the characters and the love story.