(courtesy Sourcebooks Casablanca)
Writing about people falling love, especially at Christmas, purported to be the most romantic time of the year (and honestly it sure feels like that, even in an Australian summer), is quite possibly one of the easiest things to do in the world.
Throw in some cute protagonists, longing looks, words of lust and longing and relational ups and downs and you can cobble a story together that neatly ticks all those Cupidian boxes we love so much.
But doing it brilliantly well? Ah, that is a whole other thing and one that Codi Hall has proved herself to be exuberantly and wondrously good at.
Her latest entry in her Mistletoe Romance series, Along Came Holly (the successor to Nick and Noel’s Christmas Playlist and There’s Something About Merry, proves that beyond a shadow of a snow-draped doubt with all the love and romance at the most wonderful time of the year delivered with just the right emotions, pacing and character entanglement.
It helps that the setting in the town of Mistletoe, Idaho feels like something straight out of festive central casting – it has a Christmas tree farm run by the Winters (whose three children feature as the eponymous protagonists in the books), a Christmas float parade at night, decorating contest for the windows of the shops in the town’s main retail strip and all the good cheer and loveliness of the season you could possibly want.
It had been years since he’d been out to see the place and it still looked the same, except for a fresh coat of paint. Declan had come with his folks to the farm when he was a kid to pick out their tree, and the place always seemed a little magical, especially after it snowed.
Of course, he no longer thought that way. He was an adult and there was no such thing as magic or miracles.
In this picture perfect festive setting step tough but bubbly Holly, youngest child of the universally-loved Winters clan – dad Chris and mum Victoria are the perfect parents; loving and caring yet in touch with their emotions and their kids in a warmly inclusive way – and owner of the town’s seasonal decoration store, and Declan, gruff proprietor of Mistletoe’s hardware store (right next to Holly’s place) who hates Christmas, doesn’t much like people and who is clearly carrying some considerable pain about something.
When he meets Christmas ADORING Holly, who won her neighbourhood’s decorating comp last year and goes all out to make the season really sparkle with festive music loudly pumping through her store, the sparks fly and after two years of wisecracking and sparring, it’s clear these two have a very strong connection.
But is it one of love or mutual antagonism and dislike?
Given that Along Came Holly is a vivaciously realised and cosy rom-com, there are no prizes for guessing which way their relationship will head and how it will track along the iconic opposites attract storyline so beloved by so many romance writers, but it’s how Hall makes use of this trope that really marks this marvelously warm and richly heartfelt as something special.
Hall effortlessly and seamlessly takes Holly and Declan from barbs and sniping on an almost obsessive level, and it is entertaining on every level, to realising that maybe there’s something more than perceived entrenched dislike to falling heavily but hesitantly for each other to the extent that they find a home for life with each other.
(courtesy Audible)
There is nary a clunk or a misstep in their charmingly prickly journey from enemies to frenemies to lovers and it’s testament to Hall’s writing that she’s able to maintain the tension between the two, in all its forms, without their story ever feeling forced or awkward.
Sure, they have issues aplenty with each having to confront considerable issues from their past, Declan most particularly, and there’s is no easy road – what kind of rom-com would it be if love just plopped uncomplicatedly into their laps? – but hall handles them masterfully and rather than some messy narratively contrived fullstop to their tentative move towards being in love, which never feels right or convincing when other writers do it, Hall moves them with Teflon-clad ease through every single step of their romance.
Of course, being a rom-com, all these issues are resolved, and usually in one conversation (if only real life was like this!), but even allowing for the fairytale aspects that every rom-com must have if it’s to feel truly escapist, Along Came Holly feels happily grounded too, the issues the two face the kind that might bedevil the most real world of couples-to-be.
The joy of Along Came Holly is that the issues are resolved, and love does gets its Christmas on in the most sublimely heartwarming of ways, and we can rest happy knowing that Declan won’t leave home and Holly will open her wisecracking heart and that all will be happily, gorgeously well.
If you wanted him to stay, why didn’t you say so?
Holly’s fingers brushed her swollen lips, the taste of Declan still lingering, and she didn’t have a good answer.
And that my friends is why we read books like Along Came Holly.
We want our happy-ever-afters, especially cloaked in tinsel and twinkling lights and trees soaring to the ceilings covered in decorations, and we love the idea that you can spar with someone like a verbal prizefighter and yet discover that there’s more brewing there than just another judiciously word-used argument.
We want to believe that such diametrically opposed opposites can attract and love can beat hate with one ribboned-arm tied behinds it back and Hall gives us that in a story that feels like all the festive feels our Christmas-loving hearts desire.
The key to the appeal of Along Came Holly, and indeed of all Hall’s luminously lovely books, is that she writes them so damn well; there are no awkwardly cringeworthy segues from attraction to falling out to rapprochement to love true love, no eye-rolling moments where you think “That’s ridiculous!” and no shoehorning of trauma into lives just to keep the story haphazardly burbling along.
Every single element of Along Came Holly is organically in place, richly and warmly executed, full of emotions and as much groundedness as a rom-com can accommodate, peopled by characters all wrapped up in a cosy, warmly inclusive community, with protagonists who are perfectly imperfect and festively on point, whether they want to be or not, and a sense that while life isn’t flawless, even in the beautifully Christmassy surrounds of Mistletoe, Idaho, love with the right person can get you pretty close to perfect which could just be the best gift of all.