4.5 stars

Fake dating, friends to lovers, found family, and forced proximity combine in this cozy Christmas read.

Buried in bills for her beloved Christmas tree farm, Stella enters a contest held by a popular influencer, but there is just one problem: on the application, Stella wrote that she owns the farm with her boyfriend—her non-existent boyfriend. And now the influencer wants to come visit. Stella can overcome this, though. She’ll get a fake boyfriend—perhaps her longtime best friend, Luca, whom she has secretly loved for years. No problem, right? They can do this without changing their friendship.

This one gave me all the warm, fuzzy feelings and pulled on my heartstrings. Of course, there were moments when I wanted to yell, “STELLA! He’s in love with you!” But I feel like that is par for the course with friends to lovers romances.

I adored the small town, the dynamics between Stella, Beckett, and Layla, Sheriff Dane's protectiveness of Stella, and Luca’s mother and sisters and their antics. I loved how Luca saw Stella, the buildup of steam between them, and Luca’s sweetness. I would love to go see Lovelight Farms in all of its holiday glory.

Pippa Jayne is so well cast as the audiobook narrator for this one. Her pleasant and calming voice with just a smattering of a smile is perfect for Stella, and I liked her choices for the male voices, too.

Ramp up to the Christmas season with the new audiobook of this Booksta-darling. Get your holiday cozy feelings on with Lovelight Farms by B.K. Borison.

I received an advance copy of the audiobook from Dreamscape Media and NetGalley. All review opinions are my own.

I love this story! The audio was good, although I'm not sure how much I loved the narrator. I pictured Stella sounding a bit more upbeat and happy and I feel like this narrator was a bit monotoned. I think its the same narrator as for In the Weeds, and so I do feel it was a little bit different, but since this story is single POV I didn't mind it as much!

💭Thoughts:
This is the perfect holiday romance. I was sucked in by the cover before even starting the book! I loved this book so much! Stella and Luka are the sweetest. I was rooting hard for them. It’s been awhile since I’ve loved a set of characters this much.

I loved all the references to the holidays and the magic of Lovelight Farm. The author did a fantastic job of setting the perfect holiday atmosphere. I could really feel myself in Inglewild.

The supporting cast of characters adds so much to this story. I loved the setup for Beckett to be the MMC in the next book. I can’t wait to read the next two books in the series!

I really can’t recommend this book enough! The narration was fantastic and really brought the characters to life. Truly, the sweetest holiday romance!

Read if you enjoy:
❤️ Friends to Lovers
❤️ Hallmark Movies
❤️ Small Town Charm
❤️ Loveable Side Characters

I absolutely INHALED THIS and loved every second of it. LOVELIGHT FARMS is the sweetest wintery romance with lots of warmth and heart. I loved the characters. I loved the cozy meddling small town setting. I LOVED the budding relationship between Stella and Luka.

I’m really excited to see where this companion series goes, especially since this story introduced so many characters that will become leads in the next books.

If you enjoy any of the following tropes, I highly recommend LOVELIGHT FARMS: friends-to-lovers, slowburn with lots of yearning, fake dating, small town meddling, found family.



Content warnings: death of a parent (past), grief, theft, anxiety

Small Town, fake dating, and friends to lovers. I loved this book and the narrator was wonderful too. Such a charming love story
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

4.5* stars
I’ve seen a ton of people refer to this book as charming and that’s the perfect word to describe it! Stella and Luka have my whole heart!

This story follows Stella who just purchased a Christmas tree farm and is starting to have problems around the farm resulting in lost profit. She applies for a contest with a $100,000 cast prize and is selected as a finalist. One issue, she lied on her application and says she bought the farm with her boyfriend to make the farm seem more romantic.

I highly recommend if you are a fan of any of the following:
Friends to lovers
Fake dating
Small town


This is the perfect holiday season book without being overly christmas-y.

I listened to the audiobook and the narrator was such a treat! I will definitely be looking out for more books read by her in the future.

I enjoyed this book! It is a good holiday read and make me excited for Christmas. The tree farm sounds magical and a place I want to visit.

Lovelight Farms has suffered a string of bad luck and vandalism by local kids. In an effort to keep her beloved Christmas tree farm in business, Stella enters an influencer contest that comes with a cash prize. The only problem: she may have lied on her application that she runs the farm with her boyfriend, making it the perfect romantic destination. To keep up appearances, Stella enlists her best friend Luka to be her fake boyfriend, not realizing how deep her feelings for him really are.

This was a very mid-tier read for me, which I think is partly due to friends-to-lovers just not being my thing. I enjoyed the narrator and liked the story well enough, but I can't see myself coming back to it. Stella's internal monologue that *of course* Luka doesn't actually like her, even after the sleep together and he very clearly says he is romantically interested in her was kind of infuriating to read. Solid 3 stars.

I received an audio copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book has everything. Found family, slowburn romance, a decent moment for Halloween & Thanksgiving making this a "holiday" read instead of a Christmas read. I thought the descriptions were beautiful and the narrator did an excellent job!

🌶🌶.5 for spice!!

After seeing so many rave reviews of the Lovelight Farms series, I finally decided to start it when I saw this on NetGalley as an audiobook!

I loved every character in this book. The small town vibes were perfect. The best friends fake dating, the best!

I can't wait to read the rest of this series, especially for the next one & Beckett's story!

Thanks to NetGalley & Dreamscape Media for an advanced listening copy in exchange for an honest review.

Stella was so excited to purchase lovelight farms. She has always dreamed of opening a gorgeous Christmas tree farm. Unfortunately for her, there was some debt left behind from the previous owner that he just happened to forget to mention she would be taking on. With an entire section of trees dying, and some seemingly random bad luck, Stella enters a contest with an influencer where she could win 100K. Only problem? She said she and her boyfriend own the farm together to sell the story. Too bad the boyfriend doesn’t exist. Insert her BFF Luka. the two are going to pretend to date until after the visit with the influencer.

Ahh good old fashioned friends to lovers. Throw in a Christmas tree farm and just perfection! I was a bit nervous to read this one in early September because…it’s still summer and I don’t want to even think about Christmas! @meganbythebook told me that is just the scenery, it’s not super Christmas-y so I gave it a chance. Dang I loved these characters! The obvious love they had for each other while they both thought they were “fake dating” was just supreme. I loved the action of trying to figure out what was happening to cause the issues at the farm, and the beautiful people that kicked in to help turn it around. Every single character was just heartwarming to the core. I can’t wait to start “In The Weeds.”

If you like hallmark movies, than this one’s for you! It has all the wonderful ingredients for a Christmas romance: a bakery, small town, a reporter (influencer), a tree farm, and a business in trouble! Add in a fake relationship between two best friends, and you know it’s going to be a cute read!

- small town
- fake dating
- best friend to lovers

I loved this book. Both Luca and Stella were such amazing characters and had such a powerful connection you couldn’t help but root for them from the very beginning. I love the faking dating aspect and their history. They’ve been best friends for 10 years even living hours away from each other when Luca’s mom moved to Inglewild. I love the side characters and getting introduced to Lyla and Beckett who are getting their own books.

The Christmas tree farm and how Stella wants to win the contest. She is such a selfless person and even in financial trouble she never lets anyone else suffer. She wants to bring magic and belonging to her small town in anyway she can. I swear I spent the whole book just begging for her and Luca to finally admit their feelings but the wait was more than worth it. Both characters are so strong and have such clear love and connection to each other.

I couldn’t recommend this enough. It’s so cute, swoony, there’s tension, there’s a crazy small town, relatable side characters and even a small mystery that can’t stop you from turning every page and instantly missing these characters when it’s done.

5/5 ⭐️
2/5 🌶

There was a lot that I enjoyed about this story.

Pros:
It's set around the holidays. It's a friends-to-lovers tale that involves fake dating and best friends taking a chance on each other. The town it's set in is wonderful, and I truly enjoyed the characters.

My favorite thing about the book was the fact that Stella and Luka really knew one another. Their friendship was more than just lust and hormones. It was a deep and abiding caring for each other. And taking it one step further, leaving the friend zone they'd been in, just seemed the right thing for them to do.

Cons:
I'm a Hallmark kind of gal. The graphic depictions of sex were over-the-top for me and completely unnecessary to the storyline.

And it seems like every story I read these days has to have a gay couple in it somewhere, which feels gratuitous after a while. According to a Gallup Poll earlier this year, 7.1% of the population identifies as gay. To mirror the real world, a story would need to have close to 30 characters in it for there to be a gay couple. And in a small town, rural community? The percentage would be even lower...

Regardless, if you like a HEA romance set during the holidays, where best friends become lovers and each other's forevers, you might enjoy this story.

Thank you to B.K. Borison, Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for an advance review copy.

I have a physical copy of In The Weeds but I wanted to read Lovelight Farms first so when I saw the audiobook pop up on NetGalley, I jumped on it.

This was a cute beginning to the series, Stella & Luka are best friends and have been for years. So when Stella enters a social media contest to have her Christmas Tree farm featured on a huge social platform she immediately signs up. She states that her and her boyfriend bought and run the farm together. The problem is she doesn’t have a boyfriend but that’s where Luka comes to the rescue.

Read if you enjoy:
☕️ Fake Dating
☕️ Friends to Lovers
☕️ Holiday Romance
☕️ “It’s always been you”

I really enjoyed this story, It felt like the perfect hallmark Christmas romance. The characters were very likable and I could feel the deep friendship that Stella & Luka had. I only wanted to shake some sense into Stella a few times because “Girl he’s not pretending anymore!!!!!” The imagery in the writing was absolutely beautiful and it made me want to visit the tree farm ASAP!

I can not wait to continue on with In The Weeds and read the love story for some of the other characters in this series!

Thank you to #netgalley and #dreamscapemedia for the audio copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Are you looking for a sweet, short, Christmas romance? This is a great book to pick up. This book is about a small town Christmas tree farm owner who has been financially struggling to make ends meet. She enters a travel influencer's contest to get publicity and hopefully earn prize money. Only problem is she said she has a boyfriend ... which she very much does not. Cue the unattainable cute male best friend who she has had a crush on for years but has always been too afraid to pursue.

This is a friends to lovers story and honestly it was pretty cute. The small town's involvement in this story felt sweet and gave me the Gilmore Girls kind of feel. Everyone is invested and everyone feels involved. And frankly I liked that. As someone who leans more toward enemies to lovers than friends to lovers I am normally rooting for obstacles but the town made me feel a bit mushy for the couple.

I liked that the story had a little more than just friends fake dating too, The fact that their families were involved in completely different ways and that some family members were a little less desirable to be around made this fun book a little more emotional.

Overall, I recommend this book to someone looking for a book to read around the holidays to escape the chaos of holiday craziness.

**Spoiler alert** To me the crazy events that keep happening on the farm that are causing distress and a lot of the financial issues felt like it was going to end in a more eventful way. I know we found out who did it but it felt like a lackluster ending to that bit of the story. All over an alpaca farm and a gentleman's promise? Confession instead of being caught? A character put there to add nothing to the story except take the fall in my opinion. I almost wanted it to be someone we trust and see frequently in the story. I almost thought it was her dad ... anyone else? Don't get me wrong I know it is not the most important part of the story or a huge part in it but if it was going be included in the story why did it have to be so anticlimactic. You know what I mean?

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book!

Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for access to the audiobook of Lovelight Farms by B.K. Borison in exchange for an honest review.

CW: death of a parent, cancer, terminal illness, grief, alcohol misuse, stalking, injury, unhealthy relationships, see full list on StoryGraph

Stella is the owner of the cutest little Christmas tree farm. Or at least that's what she wants it to be. The place requires a lot of work and upkeep and she's in over her head on bills. In order to gain some notoriety and win some money to save the farm, Stella enters a contest held by an Instagram influencer. There's just one problem. Stella lied on her application and said she runs the farm with her boyfriend; she doesn't have a boyfriend. Enter Luka, Stella's long-time best friend. Stella convinces Luka to fake date for the sake of the contest. But as fake dating relationships are want to do, feelings turn real, real fast. Stella and Luka stubbornly battle against falling in love and deny the feelings that they've had for each other for close to a decade. How will it all play out? Will they win the contest and save the farm? You'll have to read it to find out!

Okay. I think contemporary romances are pretty inherently cozy, but this one was THE COZIEST! Fake dating PLUS friends to lovers??? What more could you ask for?! The spice was top notch, the pining (haha, pun) was *chef's kiss*, and the setting really tied everything together. I want to live inside this book and never leave. It is happiness and warmth in a book.

I really enjoyed this friends-to-lovers, fake dating romance. The sweetness and swoon factor was definitely there, and it made me appreciate the sequel (In the Weeds) more, as I had a deeper appreciation for the characters.

What a cute, magical little holiday story. I cannot wait to read the rest in this series. It is filled with Christmas vibes, and a lot of spicy scenes!! Definitely include this in this year's Holiday book lineup. Stella and Luca are amazing friends, and in order to win a contest to get more money to continue working on Lovelight Farms, they enter a contest...the catch being they have to pretend to be dating. Fake dating trope at it's finest!

I read this book when it was released as an ebook last year. I absolutely re-read it when I saw the audiobook here as an option. I love Stella and Luka and the whole Lovelight family!