Review: Snowballing lies w/ your romance
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 20, 2013
Some romances are Cinderella stories. Others are Beauty & the Beast. WHITE LIE CHRISTMAS is a Pinocchio tale of duplicity that results in hilarity and a heart-warming scenario where two people somehow manage to fall in love in spite of their best efforts to the contrary. My favorite part of the story was the witty, wicked humor present throughout.This contemporary novella is set in scenic Chicago, and features a zippy plot and snappy dialogue. I believe I detected variations in "voice" as the story progressed, but that's easily attributable to the fact that there are two authors instead of just one. So it's not necessarily a bad thing and it made the hero's POV distinctive from the heroine's, which can sometimes be an issue in romance. I found the secondary characters to be well developed and used in the right proportion so they advanced the romance.Leah Latrelle and Mick Kilpatrick are partners in a real estate agency. As the story begins, Leah's lies to her parents (about having a fiancée) are coming back to bite her on the butt when her family decides to unexpectedly drop in for a visit over the Christmas holiday. Mick volunteers to help her out by pretending to be her significant other.  Throw in a suspicious sister, two oblivious parents, a cute little boy and a cougar client, and you have a recipe for laughter and love.As a hero, Mick is instantly likeable—a devoted single father, sweet, considerate and handsome. There's so much about him to love. He is complex and easy to emphasize with and I was rooting for him right from the start. His long-term attraction to Leah is convincing, as are his reasons for having delayed becoming involved with her. His love scenes with Leah are sensual and wonderfully descriptive. I appreciated the fact that they weren't rushed and really hit the right emotional notes.The heroine is a little crazy.  I felt confused for the first half of the story about Leah's motivation and her behavior frustrated me. Don't get me wrong, I actually prefer a heroine capable of executing deception over one of those vanilla "I cannot tell a lie" types. But unlike the title, Leah's lies aren't white. They are big. BIG. And snowball with some extremely funny results. But funniness aside, it's my nonprofessional opinion that the heroine needs therapy.WHITE LIE CHRISTMAS is an excellent choice for a reader who loves to laugh, Christmas stories, and "fake fiancée" romances. Happy reading!An ARC was received.