Book Review: The Christmas Tree Farm by Laurie Gilmore

The Christmas Tree Farm by Laurie Gilmore
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I bought this book on a whim when I saw Darling Desi pick it up, so I decided to buy it, and I'm so glad that I did. This has the grumpy x sunshine trope but reversed: a character that loves dogs but hates Christmas, and a man who always helps people but never helps himself to anything who's a golden bloody retriever, aka Air Bud but without a job. That was something I wasn't expecting when I opened this book, but it made me keep on reading--and it turns out it's something I did need because Bennett Ellis? My boy? Has the most filthy little mouth I never thought I'd needed,

The book is basically like a Hallmark movie, with a side of a mystery in town. At first, I didn't like Kira North. She was a Grinch that looked like she hated everything and wanted to start her homesteading dreams that she always sees on social media. Ever since her sister, Chloe, leaves her to go to Switzerland with her fiancee, she decides to spontaneously, not even going to look at it and see if that's what she wants and buy a Christmas Tree Farm. At first, I thought she wasn't going to make it, with no heat and no gas or any business plan. But one day while trying to get service, she runs into Mr. Bennett Ellis, the brother of the Pumpkin Spice Cafe's owner, I believe, Jeanie Ellis. Bennett has three dogs he was walking, and when they met, it seemed like sparks were flying, but because she's trying to keep her Grinchy heart intact, she didn't want to deal with him or be with him. So they decide to become a fling, and during a snowstorm, well...let's just say that things got heated between them.

I was scared for a moment when they had their third act break up, because it felt like they had baggage--mostly Bennett did, with him moving to San Francisco to follow a girl that he thought he loved, but instead, she was using him because of how nice and helpful he was. I found that very crappy in my opinion, because I felt sorry for poor Bennett. The woman he went to California for, Nicole, really hates dogs and only uses him when she's lonely or wants to see him during the holidays. Well, Bennett got tired of it, and he finally ended it with Nicole, and went back to Dream Harbor, where he surprised Kira with a greenhouse and the dogs, and also the LETTERS. OMG, the letters. They were SO GOOD that it almost made me cry.

The inspiration for the letters? The letters Edwin, the old owner of The Christmas Tree Farm, left for his dear wife. Those letters were smutty AF, and Kira did one time get worried that things like letters are going to left in the dust because of our generation and the fact that we use phones and DMs a lot. But when Kira wrote him a letter after their third-act breakup...it was beautiful. Made me cry. But the ending when they found a box filled with really expensive jewelry, they decided to use it for the business they were creating, which is a really good thing, because I was worried they weren't going to use it or find it after reading all those letters.

I really did enjoy this book and it might be one of my favorite Christmas novels ever.

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