Christmas is Cancelled by Aurelia B Rowl
Contemporary Romance
December 21, 2012
Breathless Press
Reviewed by Mandi
Tilly is having a very bad Christmas eve. She caught her boyfriend cheating and the train to take her to her brother’s house was cancelled. She is now stuck at the station, with nowhere to go for Christmas. But then she hears a familiar voice. Dean, her brother’s friend and a former crush just happens to be at the train station as well. She hasn’t seen him for almost 10 years for a few reasons. Tilly threw herself at Dean years ago, embarrassed herself and left town. But Dean couldn’t respond to her attraction because he had promised her brother he would stay away from her. But now ten years later, they have met again. Dean invites Tilly to stay with him at his house, and with no other options, Tilly agrees.
The beginning of this book is pretty cute. Tilly goes from complete frustration at being stuck at a train station on Christmas eve to freaking out about seeing Dean again. Her lustful feelings resurface as they spend time together. Unfortunately the cute beginning doesn’t hold up. Tilly and Dean haven’t seen each other for ten years, yet they never spend time catching each other up. They act as though they know what has happened in their lives the past ten years. That is just a small complaint that I can live with. What really bothered me in this book is what takes place towards the end.
We start to learn Dean has sad and dark memories about Christmas, and Tilly tries not to push him to talk about it, but Dean starts to become more and more upset. Then all of a sudden, Phil (Tilly’s brother) shows up and reminds Dean he is not suppose to date his sister, which is just silly since it has been ten years and everyone is very much an adult. To make matters worse, Phil accuses Dean of something horrible, causing Tilly to run off. It was just totally out of the blue and just didn’t fit with the tone of the story. The book could have been cute and charming, but instead takes this really odd, dark turn. And the end was very rushed and Tilly decides to be with Dean forever and ever before she even knows what his dark secret is. The second half just really seemed to lose focus and I was not a fan of how events played out.
Rating: C-
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