Book Review: Make the Season Bright by Ashley Herring Blake

Format: ebook
Published: October 1st, 2024
Age: Adult
Genre: Romance – Contemporary

Rating: 2/5 Stars

I really wanted to like this one so much more than I did. Sapphic Christmas romances are few and far between (though it feels like it’s getting better year on year!) so I was really excited to read this, but unfortunately the main characters felt flat and insufferable.

Five years after Charlotte was left at the altar, she’s invited to spend Christmas with the rest of the Rosalind Quartet with Sloane’s family in Colorado. But when they arrive, it’s to discover Sloane’s sister has also come with a friend; Brighton, the woman who Charlotte was supposed to marry. Things get even more complicated when Sloane and Adele’s mother signs the whole group up for Two Turtle Doves – a series of dating events designed to pair off singles.

Largely, the issues I had with this book centred around the two MCs – neither come across as particularly likable, and it’s hard to believe they’re closer to 30 than teenagers with the way they act. Brighton’s reasons for leaving Charlotte at the altar feel flimsy, and there’s nothing ever actually resolved between the two of them. Charlotte keeps herself closed off and Sloane does call her out for her behaviour, but then it’s brushed over. There’s a memorable scene when the characters are settling in, and Charlotte literally acts like a child to get Sloane’s attention, until she yells out her name in the middle of the room, causing everyone to absolutely stop what they’re doing to attend to her. Instead of, you know, being an adult about anything.

A lot of this book rang hollow. Brighton was part of a band that have huge success once she leaves, and she’s very bitter over leaving, but honestly, that’s just part of being in a band – sometimes there are differences that can’t be resolved. Instead of actually doing anything, she resigns herself to working behind a bar. Which, okay, you do you, but definitely in the age of social media – even before! – when a band ‘hits big’ people tend to quite quickly dig out former members. Then there’s The Rosalind Quartet, who are famous enough to be embarking on their European tour, but apparently Adele never ever showed Brighton videos or pictures of the famous Quartet her sister is part of, and although both sisters have been friends with Brighton/Charlotte for long enough they consider each other ‘best’ friends, it’s never come up that Brighton/Charlotte once knew each other, or the connections between them. Again, social media exists, and there were so many reasons why it doesn’t make sense for the connections to have never come up.

The dialogue at times felt really off, too, especially when with endearments. Adele ends every sentence to Brighton with ‘baby girl’, and ‘good girl’ is used for like, every sex scene. It ended up feeing really cringy. As mentioned above, there’s nothing ever actually resolved, either, and the other characters are paired off seemingly for the sake of it, rather than it feeling like a natural part of the story. Charlotte becomes friendly with a guy in love with Sloane, but we never see them meaningfully interact with each other. Probably because Charlotte is incapable of actually looking outside her own bubble of self-interest.

Some scenes were cute, but overall I found the characters frustrating and the ending just felt like the main couple weren’t going to last long because they hadn’t actually worked through any of the problems they initially had. It’s not the worst Christmas romance I’ve read, but it’s far from being among the good, sapphic or not.