Unexpected Gifts
The Castle Mountain Lodge series, Book 1
Elena Aitken
Ink Blot Communications
Fiction, Romance
Themes: Country Tales
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Description
A year and a lifetime ago, Andi thought she'd be celebrating this Christmas with Blaine and their new child... but a stillborn baby and a bitter break-up
destroyed her heart. Worse, her event planning business, Party Hearty, won't let her simply ignore the season of love, joy, and family - three things she's
sure she'll never have again. Her friend and business partner, Eva, tells her she needs to get back out there, even for one good fling, but Andi doesn't do
flings. Not even when a last-minute trip to a mountain resort results in unexpectedly sharing a villa with an irresistible single man...
After five years in the Carribean expanding his home security business, Colin's looking forward to a Canadian Christmas again, with snow on the ground and
the scent of pine trees and bonfires. When Castle Mountain Lodge is overbooked, however, he offers one of his villa's bedrooms to a woman in distress - a
woman he met once a year or so ago, on the arm of his former best friend Blaine. Though Colin tells himself he doesn't do relationships, not after his own
happily-ever-after cheated on him, something about Andi's tempting him to change his mind. But he can't hook up with Blaine's ex, can he?
This title includes the companion short story Unexpected Endings.
Review
I was in the mood for a light story, so this seasonally-appropriate romance caught my eye. It reads quickly, putting the usual genre tropes through their
paces in a love story set against the backdrop of a picture-postcard Canadian mountain Christmas. For two characters convinced they can't or won't find True
Love, they fall for one another remarkably fast. There's also a subtext about children being the true test, possibly even true purpose, of any love. I understand
that losing a baby is highly traumatic, but something about the way children kept popping up over and over again in the story made it less a backdrop and more a
bludgeon, until it seems that the fact that she's childless is a greater trauma than the death itself. (Andi even converts the lodge's holiday ball into an
all-ages affair... which I'm sure made all the families happy, but I expect it alienated any singles or couples who were looking forward to a nice holiday dance
without squealing rugrats on sugar highs running underfoot. But, then, the whole story is rather PG as romances go, with little beyond kisses and brief partial
nudity.) Andi and Colin both tend to jump to worst-case-scenario conclusions every other scene (with the intervening scenes lauding how hard they're falling for
each other), which began to feel less like gunshy people learning to trust and more like an author yanking strings. For that matter, the major crisis at the end
feels very forced; no spoilers, but did Aitkin have to go that far out of the way to dredge up a major obstacle for the would-be lovers to overcome? As for the
short story, it simply rehashes and magnifies Andi's insecurities.
On the one hand, it read fast, and had a rather sweet, if light, Christmas flair. On the other, I found it hard to believe the situations and emotions, especially towards
the end. Overall, it's a quick holiday treat if that's all you expect from it.