I was a little nervous about these two heroines being able to overcome their history without this book being a bit heavy for a holiday read but I should have trusted Ashley Herring Blake! The holiday setting and multiple holiday related mishaps balance out the sometimes difficult backstory in this beautifully written holiday romance!

I loved Lola and Brighton’s story of childhood best friends to high school sweethearts to being engaged in their early twenties. They made mistakes but I felt like they were understandable based on their age and life experience. It can be so hard to learn to be a good partner and advocate for yourself.

If you want a queer holiday romance this is a must read! I also recommend it for any lovers of second chance or romances focused on music.

Always love a holiday, forced proximity and being surprised with your ex that none of your friends know about. This had so many emotional layers to work through. Charlotte had a lonely childhood and met Brighton in her teens when she moved into the neighborhood. They became besties, then girlfriends, moved in at college then got engaged. Everything seemed perfect but as the past stories were slowly revealed with the current timeline, iit wasn’t what it seemed to both of them. And without communicating your fears and insecurities or communicating and it falling on deaf ears, leaving tends to be the choice that is made.
The friends Christmas they both were invited to because they both happened to be friends with the sisters who lived there. I loved how they both were talented musicians and very different musical tastes as well. They both had so much heartache and setbacks and they are only in their mid to late 20’s that is such a hard age when you think you should have it all figured out. It is hard to get your heartbroken then put it out there again but that is life. Taking chances and hoping you made the right choice.
Enjoyed this holiday read, very hard won hea, they did not jump back into eachothers arms right away. They had some issues that they had to work through first then they could find there way back to eachother.

Thank you to @BerkleyRomance #Berkley #BerkleyPartner for the free book. These opinions are my own.

Make the Season Bright is the new sapphic romance from Ashley Herring Blake, and it's a stand alone. Charlotte and Bright were best friends who became lovers. And then Bright left Charlotte at the altar. They haven't seen each other in five years, and yet they find themselves celebrating Christmas together when both tag along with friends in Colorado.

We alternate perspectives with different chapters. I found that essential to be able to appreciate and understand both characters. I definitely started out leaning way more towards Charlotte. The romance was paced so well that I really believed in them.

The book hinted at a magical realism in which Charlotte felt cursed during the month of December. I would have enjoyed seeing that explored further.

I so appreciated the great focus on music (classical, pop, and more folksy). I felt like I could hear a soundtrack in my head as I read. There were lots of winter and December vibes, complete with Colorado snow storms. But I didn't feel quite as much of the Christmas vibes. I think this can be read and enjoyed anytime in winter (or anytime at all).

4.5 stars rounded up

I wanted to like this. I really did. I like Christmas and Ashley Herring Blake’s other books, but this one was a miss for me.
It started out ok, and I liked the story leading up to Christmas, but after that it went pretty quickly downhill for me. I just could not understand why Brighton and Charlotte would be together. I feel like too much focus was spent on the fact that they loved each other in the past, and there wasn’t enough of them actually growing back together. I’m not convinced they have ever had more than one serious conversation. It felt like 100% of the focus of their accidental reunion was physical attraction, and I struggled to figure out why they wanted to be together outside of that.
I think part of the issue is that, once they bump into each other around Christmas, we don’t actually see much of them together after that. The book jumps ahead in time, so we end up in February and they’re still thinking about each other, but we miss any build up or connection building between them. And then it jumps ahead again and they’re living happily ever after. Soooo much of the story also happens in their own heads, so we hear their thoughts and feelings, but they never seem to communicate those to each other. I just didn’t find myself hoping for them to end up together. I also didn’t really find Charlotte likeable at all.
The biggest highlight of this story, for me, was basically everyone other than Charlotte and Brighton. The group chat when they were all snowed in was great.
Not a book I’d recommend to people, but not necessarily one I’d try to discourage anyone from reading, because I’m sure other people might find it more enjoyable than I did.

Make the Season Bright by Ashley Herring Blake is the most wonderful sapphic second chance holiday romance that is sure to have you singing holiday carols & wanting a shot with the one that got away.

Make the Season Bright is great for those looking for…
🎄 Sapphic Romance
🎄 Holiday Romance
🎄 Musicians
🎄 Second Chance Romance
🎄 Forced Proximity
🎄 Found Family

This has an interesting premise with the unexpected reunion from two exes that are both brought as friends to the same family’s welcoming holiday stay. I adored the idyllic & wonderfully inclusive & welcoming town as well as the intriguing festive activities throughout their stay. I also really enjoyed the found family aspect as they were all brought into the fold together.

Something that really stood out to me about this story was how realistic this second chance romance was. I’ll be honest this isn’t always my favorite trope but the forced proximity mixed with the mature communicative healing that slowly takes place made this such an authentic & believable heartwarming story with just enough spice.

I would love to read more from this author!

Massive thanks to NetGalley & Berkley for the gifted copy, which I voluntarily read & reviewed.

i’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: second chance romance is one of my favorites.

when charlotte was growing up, she was mostly isolated and didn’t have an involved family. and then brighton moved in next door. and the two of them become best friends and eventually fiancées. but on the day of their december wedding, brighton leaves charlotte at the altar without a word.

flash forward five years later, the two of them accidentally end up at their respective best friends’ (who happen to be sisters) childhood home. charlotte is ice cold towards brighton, but she just wants to talk to her. and then they get snowed in together!!

this book was full of queer found family, holiday shenanigans, angst, YEARNING, and so much heart. I love found family, and this book hit me in the heart with that and the second chances at love.

obviously there was miscommunication and tbh charlotte was a bit cruel at points. but even so, I really did enjoy their love story.

what to expect
⟢ sapphic romance
⟢ childhood friends to lovers
⟢ second chance
⟢ forced proximity

Omg this was such a cute queer romance! I loved all of the representation especially bi representation. Our girls were queer and felt like real people. It made my heart so happy. Also @ashleyhblake knows how to right some 5 star side characters! I loved Sloane and Adele but even more minor characters like Wes had me throwing heart eyes!

This was a super fun, emotional read. I did get choked up on several occasions and I do wish Bright had done a bit more groveling but that’s because I love a good grovel 😂😂😂

Perfect for fans of LGBTQIA+ romance, second chance romance, and friends to lovers!

I am a MASSIVE SHLEY herring Blake fan, and although I tend to prefer spooky books right now, you just can’t beat an Ashley Herring Blake book!

I recently read Make the Season Bright and it was cute. It is the story of 2 women who were previously engaged, one jilted the other on their wedding day, when they get reunited years later on a holiday trip. There was holiday cheer and a pretty entertaining dating event in the little town, witty banter among their two friend groups, a little fake dating, so much inclusivity and some sweet and romantic moments. Just a little fun way to dip my toe into the holiday reads.

Not my favourite Ashley Herring Blake novel. I just couldn't connect to these characters as much as in her other books. Plus I am usually not a fan of second chance romances. And this is book is a classic example. They broke up for extreme reasons, one left the other at the alter, and it seemed like their reconciliation was too quick and not enough discussion was had.

Thanks to @berkleyromance for including me on the blog tour for #maketheseasonbright. This is the first of a slew of holiday romances I’m reading this season!

I enjoyed this well written sapphic holiday romance about two formerly engaged musicians who broke up but never got over each other.

Charlotte and Brighton live in separate cities now but neither of them ever got over the other. When they accidentally meet again on a Christmas break, all the good and bad things about their relationship come back. It’s finally time to deal with their unresolved feelings and hopefully come out stronger on the other side.

I really liked the music aspect of this story, the characters’ respective choices of instruments and songs says a lot about each of them. 4 stars.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley, I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This is my first time reading Ashley Herring Blake, and it won't be my last. I'm hooked. Make the Season Bright isn't your typical Hallmark style holiday romcom. It is a second chance romance with an abundance of heart and heat. I love the way AHB weaves the character's shared history into their present circumstances, revealing details at the right place in the narrative to make you feel compassion for each of them in turn. Their love story is a tender one, and you will be aching for Charlotte and Brighton to reconcile by the end.

The last thing Charlotte or Brighton expected from their last-minute Colorado Christmas adventure was to see each other. It's been 5 years since Brighton left Charlotte at the altar, and Charlotte decides the only way she can survive seeing Brighton again so unexpectedly is to pretend they've never met. She thinks maybe if she can just ignore her and act like indifferent acquaintances, she can survive Christmas with her friend's family. But Brighton and Charlotte have too much shared history to ignore, and their proximity forces them to confront feelings they've long tried to bury.

Book highlights:
- Queer normative setting with diverse characters
- Subversion of the fake dating trope
- A satisfying journey to healing & restoration for both characters

If you love a second chance romance and you're in the mood for a queer and cheery winter holiday setting, this book is for you.

This rating is sorta half-assed because life interrupted this read fairly substantially and I don't quite know if I would've felt less favourably towards it had I read it in one sitting or if I'm being nicer because I was just happy to be reading again after a week of reading nothing.

So, ta dah, a three.

There were some really lovely moments in the mix here. Some other bits I didn't quite get on with but Blake, savvy writer that she is, pays off those annoying bits of characterization with Very Good Reasons for why everything is hard earned. So, if you want to stock your seasonal TBR with something sapphic and second-chance-y with a mix of Scrooge and sweet, you could definitely do worse!

This was my first Ashley Herring Blake book and it did not disappoint!

This fantastic LGBTQ holiday themed romance follows Charlotte and Brighton, two childhood sweethearts who fell in love, and then crashed and burned out of love. After 5 years of not speaking both of them unexpectedly show up at a Colorado family friend's home for the holidays. What happens next is a series of unexpected events where Charlotte and Brighton must face each other and their shared past against their will.

This is a fantastic holiday second chance romance, its got Christmas-y settings, tension, spice, banter, a found family. Overall it was a solid read that I tore through in one night!

i think perhaps i may be done with ashley herring blake's books. so far, it seems like delilah green far and wide is the outlier within her bibliography for me and i have yet to read something from her that adequately encapsulates that same magic. unfortunately, make the season bright wasn't an exception to that rule.

this was fine, i guess. we have charlotte, who is a closed off mess ever since her fiancee brighton left her at the altar several years prior. i probably should have known this wouldn't be for me because i'm not a fan of second chance romances and i don't really think there's much that that would make me cheer for a reconnection after this set of circumstances. anyway, charlotte's not a fan of decembers, but gets strong-armed into spending christmas with her friend sloane's family where sloane's sister has brought home... you guessed it, brighton.

at this point in the story, i started to get pretty angry. part of the lore between charlotte and brighton is that brighton always referred to her as lola. pretty reasonable for charlotte not to want to be referred to by a pet name, especially since there's an unspoken agreement not to discuss the fact that they know each other. brighton continuously disrespects charlotte's express wish not to be referred to by the nickname and we're subjected to a lot of whining on her part about it.

i get it, these characters are complicated and when brighton made a choice to not go through with the wedding she had her own reasons for it, but the level of entitlement from so many of these characters made me so frustrated. see also: sloane, upon finding out charlotte's romantic history with brighton is straight up angry that charlotte never shared this with her, not even taking into account it was one of the worst moments of charlotte's life.

all in all this was a let down for me. i couldn't really get behind the romance, the book was missing all the fun secondary character inclusions that the bright falls series had going for it, and honestly? i didn't really think it was all that christmassy and the atmosphere fell pretty flat.

I don't know ya'll. I feel like a second-chance romance is a hard sell and I just wasn't rooting for these two to get back together. Your mileage may vary, but I think it was for the best that they broke up and have been living different lives. I requested this because I LOVED the Bright Falls series and I generally like a holiday romance. I did not read the description, so part of that is on me.

Charlotte is a professional violinist living in New York and 5 years ago, she was left alone at the alter by her childhood best friend and first love. A member of her quartet convinces her to fly to her home for Christmas, and she unexpectedly encounters another guest of the family- her ex. Brighton has been living in Nashville and her dreams of a music career kind of fell apart, but she thinks she made the right choice not getting married at 22 when she hated New York and wanted her own life. Now they are thrown together during the holidays and have to face the past and the reason neither of them ever really moved on.

For me the success of a romance is whether I want the characters together at the end, and personally I just didn't buy that this was going to work long term. A fling maybe? Sure, but I just didn't feel like they belonged together and their choices were really immature. Yeah they might be pushing 30, but it still doesn't feel like they're ready for a serious relationship. You may have a different experience but while there were elements of this I liked, it ultimately didn't work for me in the way I had hoped. The audio narration is fine though. I received a copy of this book for review, all opinions are my own.

what a wonderfull read! This book made me feel so many emotions and I flet so connected to these characters. From the moment I started I could not put it down!

Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own.

📖 what’s one of your Sunday numbers? Mine are: 2 cups of coffee, a 7 am wake-up, 1 class I’ve been working on, 1 table I’ve been trying to clean up by folding numbers items from the laundry.

Ashley Herring Blake is known for writing emotional romances & Make the Season Bright continues in that tradition.

This is a friends to lovers to breakup- to friends/ lovers romance arc so there’s plenty of emotion to go around: anger & pain from one lead in particular, general nostalgia & sadness for the loss of a friendship, & of course, the joy of a rekindling friendship/romance.

Lola was left at the altar by her fiancé & bestie Bright. Years later, the two are forced to reconnect at a holiday gathering. Along with the general pain/hurt/sadness their reconnection generates is the fact that Lola doesn’t want to tell her new friends about their past.

The romance in this one very much has overtones of the it was always you/it will always be you variety. Sure, there are other attractive people in the world & they could possibly find someone to be happy with, but no one will else will ever measure up to their BFF/lover. So once Lola gets past the hurt/anger, things start moving pretty quickly.

While I liked the romance & the band of secondary characters, I was bothered by Lola’s friendship with a second character. For some reason, it bugs me when characters are bad friends for most of a book, & this treatment of her new BFF just kept popping up.

Overall, this is a sweet second chance romance that gives warm & cozy vibes. Delilah Green is still my fave by this author but this is a good one to try if you’re craving some holiday verve!

4 ⭐️. Out 10/01.

This cheery, queery, seasonal, second-chance romance will help to make your season bright. Full of so much heart, music and spectacular characters that are written in such a magnificent way with such special details and a holiday playlist that pulls you into memories. A bi4bi holiday trip to snowy Colorado with their best friends at Christmas time brings two ex lovers together after 5 years, unknowingly being besties with sisters. A meddling, but meaning well mother signs their entire group of friends (including her 2 daughters) up for a week of queer matchmaking and holiday festivities. Charlotte and Brighton can pretend to be strangers, but their unresolved history and blatant attraction is undeniable. Steamy, steamy attraction!! Is forgiveness possible, or in some cases really what needs to happen? Can two childhood lovers learn to love again when snowed in together in a cabin during a storm? Strung together by this group of musicians, is phenomenally written cast of found family, humor, and the stress we all feel at some point during the month of December. I adored every single page of this book. I felt Charlotte's closed off shield and Brighton's refusal to pick up her guitar. This will be a holiday favorite for me, paired with twinkling Christmas lights and fancy holiday margaritas!

*Thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review and to PRH Audio for the gifted ALC*

I liked it, especially for a Christmas novel. Luckily here we weren't too too focused on the holiday and were more focused on rekindling the love between Charlotte and Brighton. A second-chance altar ditch? Hahaha YES. There were parts of that that didn't quite feel resolved, almost like an instalove of getting back together. I did enjoy all of the descriptions of music, maybe not the lyrics. I was almost more interested in Wes and Sloane's story, though it doesn't look like we'll get a sequel. Also the sex scenes were HOT, way hotter than Bright Falls.

But ultimately if you're looking for a Christmas book, this will make your reading bright!