3/5
thanks to kensington books and netgalley for the arc!

very cute hallmark esc christmas sapphic friends to not talking to lovers story! this book was good, but it just wasn't my favorite - i thought that the main character was a little annoying at times. i think that this book is great for someone else though, and i would recommend it to anyone interested!

Thank you to Netgalley and Kensington Books for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was *chef’s kiss*. I’m officially a fan of small town sapphic books, which have second chance romance, found family vibes, lumberjanes, Christmas themes…basically all the goodness. I’m obsessed! Courtney Kae you did such a fantastic job with this! I can’t wait for what comes next!

This is a glorious debut for Courtney Kae. This book has all the coziness of a Hallmark movie and all the steam a reader could want from a romance novel. I absolutely adored her characters and her voice (especially Morgan's!) and I can't wait to read more from her! I can't wait to make all my friends read this book around the holidays!

Cute cuteness with a Christmas holiday background. This read focuses on what is most important in life; work life or family life. It is even nicer when you can have a balance. Morgan Ross, event planner extraordinaire, kinda looking for love but career has her all tangled. Rachel Reed, tree farm owner, with a big heart longing for someone to love and she knows who she wants. The small town setting is wonderful as well as supportive friends and family. Even the non-supportive folks are not to awful. Enjoyable cheesy small town read.

this was a feel good story for me. i found myself wanting to read it cuddled up by the fire with some hot cocoa. i found myself also in love with Rachel Reed. i loved the hallmark movie feel and the inclusivity of the cast. 10/10 perfect for the holiday season.

A perfect addition to the holiday romance classics. I enjoyed this one, some parts that dragged a little although it didn't seem too long. Will definitely read the next in the series.

Such a cute second chance romance. I loved all the characters. It gave me the hallmark movie feels the way the community came together. It's a perfect book to get you in a holiday mood!

3.5 rounded to 4 stars. This is 100% a F-F open door Hallmark movie, and I enjoyed it as such. If you don't enjoy 20-somethings in Hallmark movies, this book may not be for you. It had it all - cute little town, disgraced event planner returns to her roots from the big city and has a second chance romance with her high school crush, while she plans a big event to save the town from a nasty developer. It was a fun way to start my holiday reading this year!

Enjoyed this immensely. The story line moved along at a great pace, the main characters were very believable, I really didn't want to put the book down.

If you want a warm, great read with a holiday flavor, I definitely recommend this book

This is the first in the Fern Falls series, and I am SO glad, because I can't wait for more from this charming little town and its inhabitants! It really did have a Hallmark-level swoon factor, but with far wittier banter, and definitely more steam.

Morgan Ross just blew up her Los Angeles event planning career in one night...by accident. So in a bid to escape, and looking for a chance to redeem herself, she agrees to go back 'home' to Fern Falls and help plan a fundraiser event. What she doesn't realize is it's all a big setup. She ends up being forced to spend time with her former best friend and sexy-as-hell tree farmer, Rachel Reed.

Both women have quite a lot of emotional baggage and hang-ups from their childhoods that have been preventing lasting relationships as adults. But for a second chance at love with each other, they just might be willing to put in the work to move forward.

I loved all of the characters—not just Rachel and Morgan but the supporting cast were so wonderful as well. The banter between everyone was lively and often hilarious, and now I really need a fairy name of my own (IYKYK).

What I Liked: This book is being marketed as a “Hallmark-esque” romance and it definitely lived up to that description, complete with a small town, quirky characters, and a plot involving a large corporation attempting to take over a small, family owned business. While the main story focuses on Morgan and Rachel and their relationship, the supporting cast is strong and diverse. I tend to stay away from second chance romances where the initial relationship took place pre-high school for a few reasons, but the primary one is that a lot of authors seem incapable of writing characters who moved on with their lives after the initial relationship. It’s incredibly unbelievable and takes me right out of the story. Kae was able to avoid this unfortunate trope by giving both Morgan and Rachel lives beyond each other in the years they were apart. Sure they thought of each other, there wouldn’t be a story without that, but the main conflict for them is the dissolution of their friendship and the void they each feel in their lives without the other. I enjoyed that once they meet up again Kae doesn’t spend too much time dwelling on their past and instead focuses on them repairing the relationship and Morgan’s relationship with the town itself. I also thought Kae spent a good amount of time introducing the characters of Morgan and Rachel so I rooted for them throughout the book; neither of them was a villain so it was easy to want them to work things out.

I think one of the most important things in a small town romance, ESPECIALLY a holiday themed one, is the town the story takes places in and if the reader would want to live in that town. And with this story, I found myself wanting to live in Fern Falls, which is a great setup for the rest of the series. If the setting is effective, the reader will want to visit again, no matter who the characters are. Fern Falls is a place I wouldn’t mind visiting again.

What I Didn’t Like: I wish this book had been written from both Morgan and Rachel’s perspective. In a second chance romance, I would have appreciated hearing what Rachel was thinking, especially when we were given information about the past. And I almost hate to say this, but there was almost too much…sweetness? Every “bad” guy learned their lesson. I don’t want too much angst in my romances especially in a Christmas story but everything came together almost too nicely.

Who Should Read It: This was a very sweet, sapphic Christmas romance so anyone looking for a Hallmark movie in book form but with a pairing other than the typical man/woman will enjoy this.

Review Wrap Up: This was a sweet Christmas romance with enough of a story to keep me interested and an entertaining supporting cast of characters. Morgan and Rachel were enjoyable romance heroines and their chemistry was believable. While not perfect, I’m very impressed that this is Courtney Kae’s first book and I’m looking forward to reading her other stories set in Fern Falls.

Favorite Quote: “Thank the Sweet Lord Jesus for blessing me with bisexuality.”

This book was a cozy sweater on a cool day. Refreshing voicy, and an absolute treat.

Courtney makes Fern Falls come alive. The setting feels like a character. From the first chapter, I was hooked. Do yourself a favor and READ!

This an amazing slow-burn friends to lovers for this holiday season. A lot of holiday books and movies focus on meet cutes and strangers to lovers or enemies to lovers, but friends to lovers is incredibly underrated. I think that books like this deserve more hype. I can't wait to read the rest of the books in this series. Courtney Kae's writing makes you feel like you are in Fern Falls. I loved the laugh out loud moments that were sprinkled in throughout the romance. I honestly live for second chance romance so I loved this. I would recommend this if you want to get into the festive mood. It was so good.

I didn't like this book at all, it's was really disappointing, I like small-town holiday Romance but this was definitely not my cup of tea. The sex part was really weird and the romance not good, there was so many characters who were not even important to storyline, and ending was really mehhh

Thank you Netgalley and Kensington Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

An adorable LGBTQ Hallmark story. I adored this story because it was light-hearted yet emotional. Although it has many predictable elements of a holiday film, it's such a fun read that finally gives this niche stone queer representation!

In the Event of Love

3.5/5 Stars

I struggled to rate this book – it had so many good moments, so many good characters, but unfortunately, a lot of the book fell super flat for me.

I love Christmas, I love Sapphic love stories, I love small town romances. So where did this one go wrong? We follow the first-person account of Morgan Ross, event planner extraordinaire with a promotion to run a new store location in New York on the line when she gets into an unfavorable encounter with a client when at a bar.

With the unwanted bad exposure, her boss sends her on a holiday until it all passes over. But Morgan can’t not work, she ends up with an email from a childhood friend asking her to run fundraising event to save her small hometown. With this opportunity to keep working while being on a mini-vacation, she takes it – not knowing the person offering the job is someone she abandoned in her hightail run out of town many years beforehand.

Wanting to do good, get her promotion, and rub it in her competitors face, she crashes back into Fern Falls – literally. When she’s back in town, she comes face to face with the one person she was scared to see, Rachel Ross, ex best friend, ex fling, ex love of her life.

As she builds her relationship back up with her old friends, the attraction to Rachel is back and undeniable. But with the unsolved trauma between them from their final fight, Morgan leaving, and Rachel taking over her family’s tree farm after the divorce of her parents, it leaves them having very often awkward moments.

Spoiler alert, their attraction to each other takes over and they’re high school kids all over again sneaking around and being too shy to discuss anything in fear of destroying their small alliance in taking down Morgan’s dad’s ex-girlfriend in the takeover of the town.

The whole premiss of this book is to plan a fundraising event to save the local businesses so they’re not bought out by corporate greed and destroy the town to become another ski resort that the locals can’t afford to live beside. But honestly, there’s maybe all of five pages that actually contain event planning, every plotline in the book related to the overall plot is pushed to the side to have multiple awkward encounters between Morgan and Rachel, none of which ever actually include any communication.

So much of this book could have been avoided if the characters had any actual sense when it comes to talking to each other. Morgan and Rachel’s high school argument? Could have been avoided if Rachel didn’t avoid giving any information to Morgan about what she was going through. Morgan leaving and abandoning all of her friends? Could have been avoided if she had reached out to them for help. Morgan working towards a New York Promotion? If she had told them, it would have completely avoided the third act breakup.

This book had so much potential – it definitely had the vibes to fit into a Sapphic Hallmark mold with a happy ending, the perfect winter aesthetic, hot drinks and winter camping leading to a steamy time in the tent – despite being surrounded by a thin fabric separating them from all of their friends and siblings. But it just fell super short because of the miscommunication that was just so frustrating to deal with. It felt like none of the characters were actually adults and it was just an extension of high school kids and their drama.

Overall, the story ended on a happily ever after. Everything was fixed, the villain was just misunderstood and everyone ended up where they needed to be - along with a leadup into the next book in the series.

The beginning was great, the ending was okay, the middle was just meh and very frustrating and predictable. But overall, I’ll still give it a 3.5/5 because of it being a fas

This was a cute gay Christmas romcom! I loved the atmosphere of the small town with a close-knit group of people, and I'm looking forward to more in this series. This really just felt like a Hallmark movie and had lots of holiday elements that made it feel cozy and seasonal.
The romance was predictable but still cute- I wanted them to end up together. I liked the love interest more than the main character, but neither was annoying. My only minor complaint is that it felt like they got together unrealistically fast. But again, that is part of the charm of this holiday romance genre.
I would recommend this for someone looking for an adult romance book with Hallmark vibes!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

In the Event of Love is essentially an 18+ sapphic Hallmark Christmas movie as a book, and it has everything your cheesy festive film heart could desire; quirky small-town characters, a magical Christmas tree farm, and a tragic family backstory (obviously).

Our city-dwelling protagonist Morgan returns to the small town she grew up in, where she’s in charge of running a fundraiser to save the community from a soulless corporation that wants to destroy the town’s individuality. In the meantime, she reconnects with her high-school sweetheart. Will their second-chance romance work out this time, and will she save the town? If only we could guess. 👀

Honestly, I didn’t love Morgan as a character (Rachel deserved her full honesty from the start IMO) and found it pretty infuriating seeing how wrongly she perceived her past. However, I grew to like her more as the story went on and she reevaluated her priorities, and I really enjoyed seeing the pair’s relationship come back together. Also, just like the many (many) hot beverages the characters consume throughout the story, the steam definitely heated ALL THE WAY up. ☕️🔥

Tons of good LGBTQ+ rep, maybe some slightly clumsy attempts at racial diversity (not the WORST thing but one of my writing qualms is when skin colour is only mentioned in descriptions of POC and never/rarely for the white characters) but overall it’s clear that the intention for it to be a pretty inclusive, diverse read has paid off.

It’s warm, cheesy and spicy (sorry, am I talking about a plate of nachos?) and perfect for what it was. Now I want to find my own Fern Falls and spend my winter drinking coffee, sitting by a fire and falling in love with a Christmas tree farm owner. Is that too much to ask? 🎄

Thank you NetGalley for the complimentary eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was super duper cute!

But woof was it hard to root for Morgan at times, knowing her future plans. Rachel deserved better, and I’m glad that she realized that too.

Also the nod at the end of Morgan’s dad maybe having interest in another character 👀

I can’t wait to find out how the rest of Fern Falls falls in love 🥰

Dear Hallmark or Netflix,
Please produce this as a movie.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington for the ARC.