RITA Reader Challenge Review

A Bramble House Christmas by CJ Carmichael

This RITA® Reader Challenge 2016 review was written by Omphale. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Short Contemporary Romance category.

The summary:

Finn Knightly a.k.a. Finn Conrad wants to know why his recently deceased father left his nurse fifty thousand dollars after knowing her a mere six weeks. So he travels to Bramble House B&B in Marietta, Montana to find answers.

But Willa Knightly is not the conniving woman he expects to find. Before he knows it, Willa-and her six-year-old son Scout-are stealing his heart. And that’s before he finds out Scout’s secret and the real reason this Christmas is so important.

Here is Omphale's review:

Y’all, this is going to be a review with several part: I’m putting the basic plot summary and analysis up top, and then there shall be semi-spoilery THOUGHTS.

Our main characters are Willa Fairchild and Finn Conrad. Willa is a single mom and private nurse who is travelling from Phoenix to Marietta this Christmas at the behest of a former patient of hers who died and left her a minor inheritance. Willa’s son Scout is six years old and recently been announced cancer-free from acute lymphoid leukemia (this is not a spoiler as this secret is revealed in the first chapter). Both Willa and Scout are trying to give Scout a normal-kid Christmas, and so agree not to mention the cancer to anyone while in Marietta. Willa is struggling to break free of overprotective mama bear mode and allow her son to thrive as a normal kid. Her ex-husband left when Scout was first diagnosed and is not a presence in the child’s life.

Finn is the son of that generous patient who has been sent by his sisters and mother to Marietta to investigate this apparent gold digger who seduced a sick man (who did not tell any of his family that he was sick) out of a significant chunk of change on his deathbed. Finn’s parents divorced late in life after a long and unhappy marriage. Finn is an illustrator of children’s books who lives in Boulder, who uses his nom de plume while ‘undercover’ so as to investigate Willa. Finn soon realizes that Willa is not what she seems, and they fall in love, all the while exploring the many charms of Marietta’s Christmas Stroll and being sucked into the warmth of the small Western town. The conflict stems from Finn’s unwillingness to come clean about who he really is and why he sought out Willa and Scout.

(see below for spoilery THOUGHTS)

 

 

A Bramble House Christmas is competently written short contemporary, set in a B&B in Marietta, MT, the site of several interlocking novella/short contemporary series (Montana Born Bachelors and Montana Born Brides are the series titles I’m familiar with). This is, according to Amazon, the sixth book in a series by CJ Carmichael, Carrigans of the Circle C, all set in Marietta. There are a fair number of callbacks to other books in this universe, which were not integrated particularly organically, so if that kind of series-itis gets to you (as it does me), then the first third of the book may be a little hard going. But if you’ve read most of the books in this universe, this may not bother you.

There is also a sort-of mystery running through the book about Finn’s past and how it links him to the town of Marietta. The characters are somewhat flat, and the pacing is a little off, but Scout does not go full plot moppet, and the series-itis does calm down significantly as the book goes on. If your trope-nip includes small towns full of beautiful fertile people who are all up in each other’s biz and a good dose of non-religious Christmas cheer, this may work for you, but I feel the C- is a worthy grade.

HERE BE THOUGHTS

I have a collection on my Kindle called “DNRR” – which stands for “Do Not ReRead.” If a book is in that collection it usually fell into either “Meh” or “Hated it with flames licking up the side of my face.” Within the first few pages of this book, I knew it was going to go into DNRR, and I knew it was going because “Meh.”

But an interesting thing happened along the way. Being forced to think and write critically about this book has forced me to articulate a certain trope of romance that I hate, and as such has moved this from “meh” to “Man, I really hate this trope.”

SPOILERS BUT REALLY YOU CAN SEE THEM COMING A MILE AWAY

Finn lies to Willa about who he is and why he’s there, well after the point that he realizes he doesn’t think she’s a gold-digger, that he realizes her son was sick and his dad was being generous, that he realizes he has sexy feelings, that he kisses her, that he spends weeks courting her, and tat he has sex with her. You get why he doesn’t tell her in the beginning (kind of, I mean, seriously the will’s in probate, how hard is it to reach out to this woman and say, “Hey, did you have some sort of special relationship with my dad that led to this unusual bequest? Can you tell us about his last days?”), but he decides this sweet protective single mom can’t possibly be a gold digger early on. Still, he holds back saying anything. Fine, awkward conversation. But here is literally the point at which he realizes he needs to tell her and why he doesn’t:

Finn took a deep breath, hoping the right words would come to him. But before he’d figured out his starting phrase, Willa asked him about his career as an illustrator, what had gotten him started.

Seriously?!!! You couldn’t say, “Hey, babe, I need to tell you something first?” BUT NOOOO, Finn just can’t put on his big boy pants over the course of the next TWO WEEKS (I think, it’s many days at the least) to find a moment to tell her HIS REAL NAME. Someone always interrupts them, or her kid needs attention, or she’s always asking QUESTIONS (them mouthy women, right?).

So of course the longer it goes on, the more Finn knows she’s going to be pissed, and the more he chickens out and the more she falls in love and plans to come visit him in Boulder and HAS SEX with him, all while he is withholding key information from her that he knows might affect her feelings for him, in particular HIS MOTHER EFFING NAME.

This is sex by fraud, and IMHO, it is dark gray as hell on that consent spectrum. And his reason is what, “I was ashamed and a coward?” That’s not a reason, not when your reason is, “I knew if you had full information you might not want to be with me anymore, and my feelings were more important to me than your full and informed consent to be part of this relationship.” THAT IS NOT HEROIC BEHAVIOR. THAT IS NOT A STAND-UP GUY. THAT IS A MAN WHO DOES NOT VALUE HIS HEROINE’S AGENCY.

OH, but it’s all okay because she didn’t tell him right away about her kid’s cancer? HOW ARE THESE THINGS REMOTELY EQUIVALENT?

See, flames up the side of my face.

“Protag refuses to reveal key info because it might make him look bad” is NOT a recipe for a happy ending. And it makes a boring book. DNRR.

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A Bramble House Christmas by CJ Carmichael

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  1. Mara says:

    Agreed on this trope! I always get really frustrated when one person is withholding a HUGE piece of information (like their real identity or their real motive) and the other person just hasn’t shared something really personal about their backstory yet (like being raped or the death of a child), and it’s treated as moral equivalents. Like… NO. It’s one thing if they are both lying or withholding in the same proportion, but it seems like in Romancelandia, this is rarely the case.

  2. Ren Benton says:

    “But if I told you the truth, I wouldn’t get what I want” is a trope I could live without in real life, too, and you’ve nailed the reasons.

  3. Carolyn says:

    I’m tempted to buy this book just for the cover. Boy, does it bring back good memories. 🙂

  4. Jenns says:

    @Carolyn: Me too! Looking at it makes me so happy!

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