The Best Little Christmas Shop by Maxine Morrey

A gentle enough tale for the Festive Season full of family, decorations and the obligatory touch of snow and romance.

Lexi has returned home after blowing her job and is helping out in the fanily's seasonal store which of course means lots of decorations.  Something about Lexi doesn't read quite right for me and I could not really get invested in the what had happened between her and Mario and why she had left her job with no notice resulting in her being summarily sacked.  She is irritating and keep being told how "good" she is only cemented my feelings about her.

She has the sort of family you only read about in books.  They all love each other and can say absolutely anything to each other at any time without it resulting in week (or month) long charged silences or feuds.  As the only girl of 5 children she has grown up a tomboy and because she has missed so many family functions due to her high flying job they all appear to think she is about 5 and needs their constant correction and permanent fussing over.

The will-they-won't-they relationship with Cal Martin and his angelic son George also didn't grip me.  Whether I am just faded because I have read so many Christmas themed romances of late I cannot be certain but all I know is this one didn't do it for me.  The characters were a little too shiny and polished to be real people and although the village and the store itself were unendingly charming they simply weren't enough to lift this book for me.

The writing itself is on the good side of competent and the plotting of the book leads to a nicely paced unfolding of the tale.  Sadly, it was a tale I didn't really care for but that likely says more about me than the work of Maxine Morrey.  I would definitely give her books another try as I didn't hate it, I just found it all a bit meh.

**Review originally published December 31st, 2017**