Silent Night

by Lily Seabrooke

Brooke Carston is a country-pop star who’s heading home for the holidays for her first extended visit in almost a decade. Brooke wants to reconnect with her family and spend some time recharging, so romance is the last thing on her mind. And yet, when Brooke sees her childhood best friend, Nicole Livingston, it’s like no time has passed.

Nicole also left Mountain Crossing after high school, but she came back after a couple of years and is loving her life as owner and proprietor of the small town’s coffee shop. The only fly in the ointment is that Nicole knows no woman will stay in Mountain Crossing for her, so it’s especially annoying when the old crush she’d carried for Brooke starts creeping back. If only the rest of the town would stop trying to push them together at every opportunity…

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I adore friends-to-lovers romances where everyone knows they’re in love but them. And this time, I was especially enamoured because Silent Night has that plus a whole lot of holiday cheer! There’s ornament painting, mistletoe, and hot cider, and I was here for every last bit of it. I couldn’t stop smiling at how everyone in town conspired to push Brooke and Nicole together, including their mothers, because these women are so obviously meant to be together.

My only complaint is that sometimes I had a hard time keeping track of who was saying what. Silent Night is told in the first person, switching between Nicole and Brooke’s perspectives. I didn’t mind that their voices aren’t particularly distinct, because everyone says they’re “two peas in a pod.” However, sometimes a few pages would go by with only “I” and “she” around the dialogue, and no names being used to differentiate who was saying what. Each time, I had to flip back far enough to reorient myself, which was a little annoying.

Aside from that one issue, I thoroughly enjoyed Silent Night. Despite it being a novella, I felt completely satisfied by the end because the romance felt fully developed and the character arcs were complete. It was the perfect lighthearted Christmas story to kick off my holiday reading and it’s heading directly to my holiday keeper shelf.

– Tara

Overwhelmed by her life as a country-pop singer, Brooke Carston is back to see her small-town family for Christmas in Mountain Crossing, and nothing more—until she runs into her childhood best friend, Nicole Livingston.

Nicole’s happy in Mountain Crossing, but deep down, she knows all the girls who come into her life end up leaving. She knows better than to give in, even when her old best friend shows up in town again—and they have the same spark as ever.

Of course, it doesn’t help that Brooke is bisexual, single, and the entirety of Mountain Crossing is intent on the two of them getting together.

Silent Night is a 35,000-word sweet small-town childhood-friends-to-lovers Christmas romance novella, following a musician with auditory processing disorder who just wants some peace and quiet, and her childhood best friend who’s a happy small-town baker and painter. Features meddling family who tries to push the two together, constantly running into one another, and cute Christmas fluff for days. Content warnings for open-door sex scenes, queer girls trying their best not to get together, loving family who are really obvious in their attempts to get them together, and Daniel always talking about food.

Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, Novella, Romance