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

Here is DonnaMarie's review:

I don’t read category romances these days, but they hold a special place in my heart. Back in the day, Mom and I would head out to Crown Books to stock up on the newest Loveswepts, Silhouettes, and Harlequins. She’d be curled up in the corner of the loveseat with coffee and a cigarette, and I’d be on the sofa with a Diet Pepsi, while Dad and the bros did their man things. This was back in the days when Linda Howard, Sandra Brown, Erin St. Clair (aka Sandra Brown), Jayne Ann Krentz, Stephanie James (aka JAK), Elizabeth Lowell, Iris Johanssen, Tami Hoag, and Nora Roberts were breaking into the industry. Many of them are still on my keeper shelf or in the under the bed archive. This is my roundabout way of saying that I took this book review on with a great deal of both good and sad nostalgia.

Carter Bravo’s Christmas Bride, sadly, is not going renew my love of the category romance. It’s an average book. Not good enough to be memorable, but not bad enough to throw at a wall. It came close when the titular character ruminated that the heroine was “just about as good as it got for a man like him.” o_O. Or am I the only one who thinks that’s damning with faint praise? Maybe it’s because by this time I’d decided that someone had hit the man with a stupid stick. Anyway, it’s a friends to lovers story, a trope I generally enjoy, with the big misunderstanding, which I generally do not enjoy, due to the titular character’s not sharing information because he’s worried she might get the wrong idea. That always goes well.

The Bravo family had a rather…unconventional…upbringing. Daddy Bravo was married and reproducing on a regular basis with one woman while simultaneously having an affair and reproducing on a regular basis with Carter’s mom. Luckily, he was a wealthy man because two households and nine or ten kids can be pretty expensive. After the wife dies, his parents finally marry. I have no idea if it was a HEA since his father is now also deceased, and his mom is a merry traveling widow. There are many previous books related to this one that probably flesh out why everyone gets along and no one is in therapy.

Carter’s childhood was overshadowed by the ups and downs of his parents’ affair and all those fights where his mother would tell his father to never come back, toss his belongings on the lawn, and then take him back because she LURRRVES him. Lesson learned: love = drama. He wants a “sane” relationship where no one goes to the “stupid place” aka love. This is one of those sentiments I abhor. He loves his family, loves his dog, loves his job. None of that is considered stupid, just love with a woman. Unfortunately for Carter, even though he wants a relationship and kids, the women he dates keep falling in love with him, damn it, forcing him to dump them.

After doing a Cosmo type quiz with his BFF/business partner Paige titled “Is he really your best friend or are you secretly in love with him?,” he starts rethinking their relationship. Coincidently, his mother decides it’s time for him to settle down before it’s too late. His mother goes behind his back and buys a piece of property that he and Paige had wanted to expand their business. He can have it, but there’s a catch: she’ll give it to him as a wedding present. He’s getting too old (34) to find someone to settle down with successfully, so she’s giving him an incentive. I think a gift card to a good therapist might have been a better choice. For both of them. Just sayin.

Instead of telling his BFF/partner what his mother did, he starts reevaluating their relationship leading to the aforementioned “as good as he could get” line. He then spends the rest of the book talking Paige into a “trial engagement” and real sex while conveniently forgetting to mention the whole “my mom’s holding that property we wanted hostage” thing. It’s not like it has anything to do with why he’s pursing her. He keeps reminding himself to tell her; he just never does. Even when she comes to him after the realtor tells her the property has been sold. So, of course she finds out by overhearing a conversation. Relationship erupts. Tears. Depression. Until finally, finally he uses his words.

Paige is a pretty standard character. She quit college during her last semester to raise her younger sister after their parents died. She meets Carter while waiting tables. She shuts down his come on because her boyfriend had just broken her heart by dumping her when her life got too complicated for him. She cannot risk her heart again, plus she has little sister to support. She just needs a friend. Can he do that? Sure he can. Then he hires her to run his business and rewards her good performance by giving her shares so she becomes his business partner. He shows up in the morning to walk her dog and fix breakfast – even though they do not live near each other. He takes her little sister shopping. But they’re JUST FRIENDS.

So, an average read, and pretty much why I gave up category romances. Unless they have some WTF crazysauce, a lot of them just don’t engage me. I will say I think the major obstacle to my enjoyment of this book was the Carter character. I believe I mentioned a stupid stick. You cannot trust the man’s judgement. It’s not just the not telling Paige about the property, it’s also this: he’s refurbishing a 1968 Shelby Cobra GT500. The customer wants a spoiler, so he’s attaching a spoiler. To a classic Shelby Cobra. Aside from what that would do to the value, there’s this. See that swoop on the back? Let no man fuck with what Carroll Shelby hath wrought.