Snow Kissed by RaeAnne Thayne told the story of Holly (aptly named for a Christmas novel) Moore and her five-year-old daughter Lydia. Holly has been divorced for the past three years yet is still in touch with her ex-husband’s family, who adore Lydia. It’s just that Troy, her ex, seems to have little interest in his own daughter. The story gets interesting when Kristine, Holly’s former sister-in-law, asks if Lydia could serve as the flower girl during her December wedding. That means Holly will be attending and so will Troy…with his much younger new girlfriend and their infant son.
Holly doesn’t want to stay at home during the wedding for two reasons. One, her daughter is in the wedding party and aside from being only five, Lydia is living with Down Syndrome so needs special care. Holly doesn’t trust her absentee ex Troy to look after her in addition to his newborn son. And two, Holly happens to be a florist and is doing the arrangements for the wedding, so she is in charge of setting up the venues. There is, however, one reason she is loathe to attend: Holly is single, and doesn’t want to show up on her own while Troy is flaunting his son and trophy wife.
Holly’s twin sister Hannah does a little matchmaking and pairs up Ryan Caldwell, the brother of Kim, one of Holly’s employees, to be Holly’s escort. Ryan is a helicopter pilot in the navy, injured and on leave visiting his family for the holidays. And that’s how the romance is kindled. Thayne first has the two looking at the favour as a mutual trade-off: Ryan will be the escort if Holly decorates Kim’s house before she gets back from rehab. Holly and Ryan are attracted to each other yet they have their own reasons for not wishing to pursue the relationship beyond the wedding. Holly believes men wouldn’t be interested in her because she is a divorcée with a special-needs child, and Ryan, when his injury heals, will return to service as an active navy pilot and will always be crisscrossing the country. They even live on opposite coasts. So how could they even think about dating one another?
As a romance, Thayne takes things slow and the pair don’t do anything more than kiss. Quite a tame change from all the sex I seem to have found with my latest batch of Christmas romances. There are multiple minor storylines that weave in and out of the main story. Holly’s employee Kim is a recovering drug addict and is in rehab at the start of the novel. Kim’s daughter Audrey is always on the scene as she has been hired to babysit Lydia while Holly works. Ryan’s stepmother Diane was seriously injured in a car crash where Kim was the driver, so her recovery is slow. And Doug, Ryan’s father, has been distant from his children for the past twenty years since the death of his first wife, Ryan and Kim’s mother. Will he ever restore his relationship with his children?
Thayne wrote what I felt was an awkward chapter where Audrey experiences menarche and goes shopping with her uncle Ryan for menstrual products. What girl of thirteen would have this conversation with Hannah, whom they run into in the store:
“We’re almost done. We only have to grab some, um, feminine hygiene products for me. I had my first period last month and Mom and I were going to pick up some stuff before the next one but didn’t have the chance before she had to go.”
then:
“Ryan followed them to the feminine hygiene aisle and was instantly overwhelmed at all the options.
“To his relief, Hannah took charge, discussing the pros and cons with Audrey of the various products.”
I didn’t see how this episode fit anywhere into the story, or how it may have related to Audrey’s maturity and her capacity to look after Lydia. Both Ryan and I are men who embrace the power of the period and don’t cower at the subject of menstruation. But this scene was cringeworthy, as I don’t believe that Audrey’s interaction with Ryan and Hannah was credible. Equally cringeworthy was the way Thayne made every woman who looked at Ryan come across as a lecherous pervert. Ryan was so drop-dead gorgeous that women of all ages had no compunctions about telling him so to the point that they were practically salivating. More power to women to be sexual and express their desires, but Thayne made them all, from twentysomethings to residents of a seniors residence all come across as creeps. All this lewd attention from women wouldn’t give a man like Ryan an ego boost. Upon hearing what they’d said, the average man would squint, grimace and run away.
Christmas romances need no spoiler alerts because we all know that Holly and Ryan will find a way to be together. Thayne wrote a plausible path for them to retain the love of their jobs and eventually be married and live in the same town. I did not feel that the epilogue was an expedient fantasy to give the novel a happy ending.