Exes get a second chance in this Sapphic Christmas romance. Charlotte and Brighton haven't talked since the day they were supposed to get married. Now, 5 years later, they've both spending the holidays with friends who happen to be sisters-- and instead of explaining their past, they pretend they don't know each other at all. This wasn't my favorite Ashley Herring Blake romance, but I'm glad she's branched out into the world of holiday romance. And I can see a lot of possibilities for more holiday romance stories with this friend group!

This was a sweet holiday romance, and I've been happy to see a wide selection of LGBTQ+ seasonal selections this year. I know the goal with these is cozy vibes, but I would have loved either some higher stakes or more humor. The in-between tone didn't suit my current reading needs.

This was a super sweet and fun holiday romance. Definitely reminiscent of the author's other series, in a good way. I will be happy to recommend this to customers looking for a fluffy yet genuine holiday romance with great lgbtq+ representation!

I liked this book, but I wanted to love it. I couldn't quite, but it's still a fun Christmas romp, with higher stakes that sometimes make it hard to understand how this couple could get back together. Their age during the initial 'at the altar breakup' does go a long way toward excusing the behavior of one of the MCs, but it was still a bit more fraught than I prefer with my Christmas froth.

Five years ago Charlotte was left at the altar by her fiance. When she agrees to spend the Christmas holiday with her strings ensemble, the last thing she expects is for Brighton to be there. Brighton and Charlotte pretend they don’t know each other, but things get more challenging when their friends’ mom signs the group up for a series of Christmas-themed dating events. As they spend more time together, it gets harder to ignore the memories they have together and the unresolved feelings begin to bubble up.
This second-chance romance was so much fun with the Christmas setting and all of the holiday adventures. The dual point of view made this one work - it was easier to understand their past and root for them to move forward knowing what they were each thinking. Forgiveness is a huge theme in this one, which made the second-chance and miscommunication work.
Thanks to Berkley Publishing and Netgalley for the advance copy.

This was a sweet but spicy holiday read. I found Charlotte and Brighton to be compelling and realistic main characters. Despite their obvious love for each other and their chemistry, they've hurt each other and the path to reconciliation isn't easy. I appreciated that Blake makes them work for their relationship, both separately and together.

I also adored the rest of the characters in the book Adele and Sloane and their quirky mountain hometown gave the book that small town feel that is especially satisfying in a holiday read. The two turtledoves event provided a fun and flirty backdrop to Charlotte and Brighton's second chance romance. I was particularly fond of the horseback riding scene.

The intimate scenes were hot but sadly felt like they had little foreplay, which makes sense with the frustration that had been simmering between the two. Overall this was a well-balanced, cute and emotional holiday read.

𝙂𝙚𝙣𝙧𝙚 🎭: romance
𝙎𝙥𝙞𝙘𝙚: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
𝙋𝙖𝙘𝙚 🏃🏼‍♀️: moderate
𝙍𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙞𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 🖤: second chance romance
⚠️: miscommunication

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐝:
🖤 second chances
🖤 spicy scenes
🖤 easy read

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐧'𝐭 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞:
✨one narrator with multiple characters
✨weak side characters
✨wasn't rooting for the FMCs to get back together

I generally adoreeeee AHBs books. This one wasn't my fave. The two FMCs were not very likable and didn't have enough personality to make me care about their journey. Give it a read if you're looking for a holiday sapphic romance with fun spice, but expect a little heavier plot than most Christmas romances.

Huge thank you to @berkleypub @berittalksbooks @thephdivabooks @dg_reads @libro.fm and @netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
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This Christmas book was full of heart, forgiveness, love and especially friendship. I loved the entire cast of characters and their friendships as they had each other’s backs in good times and in bad.

I normally really enjoy Ashley Herring Blake's works and while this was good there was something about this situation that I found myself not able to go along with. I enjoyed both Lola and Bright as characters and the pretending not to know each other was quite entertaining but I wish I has bought in a little more to there happily ever after? I'm definitely not writing off Ashley Herring Blake but this one just wasn't for me.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an arc for an honest review.

"Our Little Secret" meets "EXmas" and "The Happiest Season" in this second chance, small town, queer holiday romance.

Let's be clear, I would never forgive someone who left me at the altar. Yet, I found this story to be oddly endearing. Charlotte and Brighton shared great chemistry, whether they were fighting or f***ing. And for two equally frustrating characters who have no redeeming qualities, I found myself rooting for them to get their shit together. I generally hate the miscommunication trope, and I still do, tremendously, but I couldn't put "Make the Season Bright" down. Maybe I just love tragic backstories or maybe I just love watching the world crash and burn as hard as their relationship did.

Realistically this reconciliation never would have happened. I understand this is a fictional book, but even then, it happened way too fast for the amount of heartbreak the love interests caused one another. This is a completely unrealistic story but I am a simp for anything sapphic. Read it.

This was not a story that caught my attention this season, I tried starting it multiple times, but I could not feel connected enough to these characters to complete the story. I'm sorry, and I will probably try again next holiday season as I know that frame of mind can really change opinions on stories.

I am torn with this book. Did I love the delightful small town holiday full of cute activities and holiday cheer? YES! Did I enjoy the writing and descriptions? YES! The queer cast of interesting characters and the forced proximity set up? Loved it!

But I am annoyed. I'm sorry but if you are unhappy with your situation or unhappy where you live.... the time to confront that is not WHEN YOU ARE ABOUT TO WALK DOWN THE AISLE. It's not like Brighton had cold feet. It's that she didn't even TALK to Charlotte about it and just left her at the alter to just disappear (and no the foreplay talk about it did not count)?! This tells me that you never should have been getting married at all.

I also really hated how people treated Charlotte. I'm sorry but saying "I thought I would just bug the shit out of you for yours so you would open up and you never did so now I'm mad at you"? Ummm no one asked you to???????? People need to start accepting that other people are different socially than them and stop trying to "change" them.

Also the ending made me big mad.

Okay maybe I'm not as torn as I thought I was, but I genuinely do not think this couple should have ended up together.

Thanks to the publisher for an audiobook copy and a netgalley copy; my thoughts and review are my own.

Read This Book If…an angsty second chance romance is your jam!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
Make the Season Bright by Ashley Herring Blake

Genre queer holiday romance
Spice Level: 4/5🌶, 3-4 explicit scenes
Setting: NYC and Nashville and small town in Colorado
POV: dual, 3rd person, past tense
Tropes: second chance romance, runaway bride, childhood friends lovers, forced proximity, there’s a curse, “good girl”

My Thoughts:
This book had me on the edge of my seat and biting my nails because I simply couldn’t see how they could ever get back together! Thankfully, AHB pulled it off in this sweet and steamy WLW romance.

There were so many fun holiday-themed moments, but it never felt cheesy or over-the-top. I will always love a “snowed-in together in a cabin” moment!

There is a “curse” on one of the main characters that I felt was never really addressed. It was such a huge part of the first few chapters, but then it kind of fizzles out and I would have loved to see it wrapped up in the story.

Overall, this was a deeply emotional story about two flawed people trying to find their way back together and I adored it.

Memorable Quote: “She looked away, because right then, she felt like she was showing as much of herself as she could, and Lola wasn’t seeing what Brighton needed her to see. Either that or Lola didn’t want to see it.”

Thank you to the publisher for my advance copy!

I love ashley herring blake’s books and I was super excited for this one! i think the setting and the idea was so fun, i loveee a second chance romance. the music aspect also made it unique and fresh for me. i did struggle with the romance a bit because I found the issues from the past to be hard to move on from, so it was harder to root for them as i was reading. given the characters long history as friends and then long romance, the past break up was hard to deal with reading it in the present. but the wintery setting and the fun friend group really gave it a cozy, great for the season vibe!

Thank you to Netgalley, author Ashley Herring Blake, and Berkley for providing me with a free ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

I've been saving this for 2 months to read specifically in the Christmas season, and now I'm thinking I didn't necessarily have to do that! While yes, this is a book set during the Christmas season and has wintery antics, this book is definitely a lot more serious than I was expecting. There are layers of grief and shared history between Charlotte and Brighton that take up the majority of the book and their relationship, making this read kind of sad at times. This isn't a bad thing, just definitely not what I was expecting, so I would make sure you have a heads up that this book is not all Hallmark-levels of Christmas cheer throughout. I adore Blake's writing and books, not only her Bright Falls series but her middle grade novels especially, and I do think there was still great writing here! The sex scenes were also insanely good, and I did buy the chemistry between Charlotte and Brighton. However, I had a really hard time personally with their circumstances. I felt that both were kind of unlikeable based off of their actions in the past, and the book was filled with too much of a lack of communication for me personally. <spoiler> I had a really hard time rooting for them when Brighton literally left Charlotte at the altar. If I were Charlotte, I don't think I'd ever want to talk to her again either lol and I felt that their making up was too quick when they literally had soooo many levels of shared trauma from their past. I also didn't like that Charlotte never said she would choose Brighton over NYC and make that sacrifice, even when that is what happened at the end. It felt like she never fully admitted that she played a role in their breaking up as well.</spoiler> I would have also liked to see more of all the side characters; there needed to be less, even though they were all interesting, because having 5-6 additional characters in a romance book means that they end up not really serving a huge purpose and end up being left out. Overall, I think this was more of a personal miss rather than a total miss by Blake, and I am looking forward to reading her future work. Just overall a bit disappointed in the character issues in this book.

dnf @ 12%



I am wondering if Ashley Herring Blake is no longer an author for me. I absolutely adored her middle grade novels and was head over heels for Delilah Green Doesn't Care, but since then, every new book I pick up from her just frustrates me more than the last.

The issues I had with the last two books from this author seemed to still be present in this novel. This time, within the first few chapters, I also just Did Naught like one of the main characters and I didn't really care about the other one. Also, in lieu of ~showing~ the characters or plot background, we're just told, which is frustrating because it means there's nothing leading me to want to discover more as I read. & I swear to God, idk if other people's queer friend groups are the way the author depicts them in her most recent few novels, but it feels weird & stereotypical & against my experiences.

At any rate, did not think this was worth continuing. I have an ARC of Dream On, Ramona Riley so I will give that one a try, but I am suspecting that this is an author who has grown away from the aspects that I really loved in her earlier work. Alas.

I really, really enjoyed this second chance romance from Ashely Herring Blake. Charlotte and Brighton's love story was both heartwarming and emotional. I think that they are the perfect example of right person, wrong time. Seeing them mend their relationship was so beautiful. I do think that were some half-baked elements to this story that detracted from the romance, such as the partial fake-dating plot between Lola and Wes.

I loved the queer found family of it all and really loved the queer Christmas community events!!

Make the Season Bright by Ashley Herring Blake features ex-fiancées who end up stuck in the same house for Christmas holiday fun. I chose the book because it has professional musician characters; the two women protagonists play violin (Charlotte/Lola) and guitar (Brighton). Charlotte is in a string quartet whose members are also all queer, and dare I guess they will have their own books later?

Aside from the various queer relationships, this was a pretty standard "city people go to small town for Christmas holiday and do All The Christmas Things and fall in love," or in this case back into love after a youthful relationship with each other went badly south. There's one massive coincidence in that Charlotte, who lives in NYC, and Brighton, who lives in Nashville, each knows one of the two sisters who invite them to Colorado for the holiday, but I went with it because that is not what this story was really about, lol.

Once in Colorado, they learn their hostess has signed them all up (two daughters, the main couple, and the other three string players) for a holiday dating event called "Two Turtledoves," which involves such fun things as horseback riding, a cooking lesson, and decorating cookies. This is a terrific idea and it should be a real thing if it isn't already, it doesn't even have to be a dating thing, just a series of events you could sign up for like getting a concert subscription.

Anyway, spoiler alert, Lola and Bright get back together! And resolve their insecurities that kept them apart! What a great ending! Yes, I am a sucker for the occasional Holiday Romance. I enjoyed this book and will happily read more by this author.

I don't think it's a secret that I'm a big Ashley Herring Blake fan. I love cheesy sapphic romances with HEAs and one set at Christmas? Amazing. Make it friends to lovers to enemies(ish) back to lovers? I am sat. I'm currently trying to pull myself out of a massive reading slump and reading this book in December certainly helped. The main characters were complicated and well-fleshed out (some of the side characters, not so much). The steamy scenes were properly steamy and the adorable scenes made me go "awwww". Very much like an R-rated, extra-queer Hallmark movie.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Merry Christmas gay girls this one is for us! Ashley herring blake is one of my favorite authors and she never fails me. This second chance was full of angst and the perfect christmas read. Loved it!