Christmas Book Review: Starry Night

Starry Night: A Christmas Novel by Debbie Macomber
Publisher: Ballentine Books
Release Date: October 8, 2013
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Publisher’s Description:

Carrie Slayton, a big-city society-page columnist, longs to write more serious news stories. So her editor hands her a challenge: She can cover any topic she wants, but only if she first scores the paper an interview with Finn Dalton, the notoriously reclusive author.

Living in the remote Alaskan wilderness, Finn has written a megabestselling memoir about surviving in the wild. But he stubbornly declines to speak to anyone in the press, and no one even knows exactly where he lives.

Digging deep into Finn’s past, Carrie develops a theory on his whereabouts. It is the holidays, but her career is at stake, so she forsakes her family celebrations and flies out to snowy Alaska. When she finally finds Finn, she discovers a man both more charismatic and more stubborn than she even expected. And soon she is torn between pursuing the story of a lifetime and following her heart.

I chose this book because I wanted a light, fluffy Christmas romance to put me in the Christmas spirit. I can totally be down with some cheesiness around the holiday season. However, this book didn’t hit the spot for me. It was too sweet, too cheesy, just a little too much of everything I wanted. At the same time, I thought Christmas played too small a part in it. It was set in November and December so the atmosphere was cold and wintery but Christmas wasn’t actually mentioned that much.

The story felt rushed. It’s a short book, at just over 200 pages with a pretty big font and mass market paperback sized pages. I think if the author would have spent some more time developing the relationship between Finn and Carrie I would have like it better. They spent way to much time just talking and playing cards. Also, I should have looked into this author more before choosing a book by her – I didn’t realize her books are so chaste. I like some steam with my cheesy romance!

If you like to keep it clean, short and sweet then this may be the book for you. Otherwise, I wouldn’t recommend it.

(I received this book courtesy of Amazon Vine.)