BOOK REVIEW:
The Twelve Nights of Christmas
Okay! #3 of the five-book Christmas-themed reading
challenge: The Twelve Nights of Christmas.
And this book actually totally works for the 19th—because the story
opens on the 19th! Happy December nineteenth, otherwise known as the
simultaneously and paradoxically Worst Day (and Best Day) of Evie’s soon-to-be
enchanted love story…
Because Whoa! Is
it enchanted and fluffy and just nothing but a Christmas fairy tale? I mean I
feel like I haven’t read a Harlequin Presents in YEARS when in fact it’s only
been 2 months-ish. I forgot how extravagant and over-the-top and fairy
tale-like this specific category romance can be…
Still I love the series for the same reasons I sometimes can’t
stand it. I roll my eyes and laugh so hard with only the Presents line. And I might be totally masochistic, but it’s
my idea of a Perfect Literary Escape. Kinda like how I love my East Asian dramas,
Bollywood films, and telenovelas…same craziness abounds in those (more visual)
plotlines.
Back to our heroine Evie Anderson and hero Salvatorio “Rio”
Zaccarelli. Let’s start with Evie, not because the story actually kicks off
from her perspective—no we get some cryptic hint that Rio is hiding the news of
a massive “deal” coming through, but more on that later!
I love Evie. And I hate Evie, too.
Oh what do I love about Evie—how can I number the stars…and
such junk?
First up Evie’s a redhead. Hello? That’s cool in and of
itself. Of course Rio finds out very early on she’s a *ahem* natural redhead
when he finds her au naturel in his bed. Yeah. I mean that was definitely almost
me falling flat on my face from the poor suspense of disbelief.
I thought that maybe she was in her panties, but apparently
not. And at one point I think Rio’s
body guard is still in the room with them and Rio pulls off her sheet and,
though it isn’t mentioned, the bodyguard should have gotten the full monty from
Evie. Which if it’s true loses a brownie point—how can I believe she cares
about her barest (haha, lame pun not intended) dignity if she’s flashing her
behind to everyone.
Whenever I’m reading from Evie’s perspective, I find I want
to argue more. Here are two examples (the second of the pair will be a SPOILER.
I’ll remind you.):
1) On pgs. 136-137, Evie and Rio are at a ball doing what
guests at a ball do: dancing and Evie first notices “the heat of [Rio’s] body
against hers” and then on the next page over (137) it reads “Evie felt frozen
and she thought absently that there was no reason to b cold when the room was
so warm, but then she realised that the chill came from him. His skin was cold
to touch […]”.
Okay. What?!
Did anyone else think that Rio died on the ball floor while
dancing? Haha. No I’m just over-exaggerating there, but it was pretty weird.
And this dramatic body temperature change is due to Evie’s mentioning of
Christmas (again) and how much she loves “this time of year” (pg. 137). And, of
course, one half of the couple in an opposites attract has to totally despise
Christmas. (Though to be fair, the author actually gives Rio a darn good reason
to hate Christmas).
2) SPOILER ALERT:
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With that significant warning I can hopefully write/tell you
that…Rio is a father. He has a little girl named Elyssa and that’s all you need
to know about.
So in the epilogue Elyssa, Rio, Evie and their new baby
girl, Lara, are celebrating their first Christmas (a year later! Phew. They
work fast) as a family. And Rio has is now the sole caretaker of his daughter.
And the proud parents are delighted when Elyssa calls her stepmother, Evie, “Mummy”.
And everyone seems to be forgetting in the moment that Elyssa has a friggin’
mother. Albeit a really horrible-sounding woman, but a mother she was raised
with for the first four years of her life.
And Rio totally encourages it and takes it to the next level,
and I present Case #2: “It’s snowing!
Mummy, Daddy, we’re going to have snow for Christmas. Can we build a snowman?
Do you know how?”
Rio brushed the snow
from Evie’s cheek. “Yes, I know how. We need a carrot and some pebbles and a
few twigs. And we need your mother
because she’s brilliant at building snowmen.”
Uh huh. Yeah, really?
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But thanks to Ms. Morgan for making Evie really funny! And making
that whole mother bullplop easier to tolerate…
I mean she’s the only heroine who says what she’s thinking.
It’s just literally out there on the page in dialogue format with the quotes
around it indicating she’s just spilling her thoughts. She doesn’t beat around the
bush. She’ll just belt out her rendition of her favourite Christmassy song, Twelve
Nights up on the table tops of charity events. It’s all water down the open back
of her silvery dress.
Sure, she talks like she belongs in a mid- to late twentieth
century world (think 1950s to 70s), but then there’s the confidence. Surprisingly
there are not a lot of heroines out there who will just tell a guy they like
him.
“You were in a hurry
last night,” he said silkily (for a second time actually! What the hell does
this mean anyways? ‘Silkily’? How do you say something ‘silkily’? *_*) “Or was the champagne to blame for your
sudden transformation from virgin to vamp?”
She sucked in a breath,
mortified at his blatant reminder of her own desperation. “No,” she said
softly. “It was you.”
See! Just lies it out there, Evie does—so thankfully Rio
knows how to pick up the ball and there isn’t a lot of relationship
pussy-footing that seems utterly pointless as in the couple actually has a
reason not to be together.
And as much as I genuinely love that Evie’s a breath of
fresh air compared to the lot of Presents heroines I’ve come to meet and get to
know, she’s also not very real. She’s super giving and just the perfect friggin’
fit for Rio, it was like they were shaped out of the same cookie cutter. I mean
it works that way with most romances, but I think the opposites attract was a
trope that threw me off a bit from this story.
That being said, I still liked Evie more than broody Mr.
Alpha. Rio was annoyingly funny. Like I hated when he made me laugh because I
wanted to hate him and I had reason too. He’s an arrogant SOB, but I tip my hat
off to Ms. Morgan. She totally redeemed his character by revealing his dark
secret.
It’s a great dark secret, though a bit mislead with the “dark”
part. It’s not as dark as it could be… Like I was thinking body bag-dark—Oops spoiler!
If I stole you idea of ‘dark”—but it was more psychological dark place that
actually required more help, unfortunately, than the book should have
mentioned.
Nope. Whatever mental instability Rio has been bottling up
for years is all cured and metaphorical past wounds are healed by the Force of
Evie’s Love. Seriously, he just talks to her and tells her what the secret is
(or are? Hmmm. Have I interested you into reading this yet?) and that’s it.
Everyone—namely Evie and Rio—just wipe their hands clean of the sordid past and
move on to HEA-affirming epilogue…
But they made me laugh like I said and a lot. I’m glad I
regulated reading this book from my bed, because it would have been awkward on
the commute if I just burst out laughing—“Don’t mind me, fellow passengers,
just reading this really funny part”. Heh.
So if you’re going to sink your teeth into this one…maybe even
extend your reading to twelve nights (though there aren’t even 12 chapters),
read it because for the blend of light humour and sexy tension, and the
extravagant escapism it offers.
Also since I’ve been dropping quotes all over this review,
let me close off with my Favourite one (I hope you love it, too!):
From pg. 100 (a bit of background then—Rio drags Evie out of
a Christmas movie premiere with Hollywood stars and red carpet A-listers and
she’s none to happy about missing the movie’s end): “Thanks to you, I won’t ever find out how [the movie] ended.”
“How do you think it
ended?” His handsome face was a mask of frustration and tension. “Happily, of
course. It’s a Christmas movie. They only ever end happily.” (I digress, Rio! Horror-themed
Christmas movies like Black Christmas).
“I know it ended happily
but I wanted to know how it ended happily. There’s more than one
route to a happy ending, you know. It’s how
they do the happy ending that makes it worth watching.”
I bolded all the beautiful part because it deserves to be
highlighted. Every romance story should follow that reasoning.
In the end, I give it four calling birds…
My verdict:
✮✮✮✮
(4 stars)
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