Title: Love Happens Anyway
Author: RJ Scott
Publisher: Love Lane Books
Length: 110 Pages
Category: Holiday Romance, Contemporary
At a Glance: Love Happens Anyway is a blatant play on the heartstrings, and makes no apologies for it. I loved it. This one’s an absolute keeper for future holiday re-reading.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: Hiring a boyfriend for Christmas; what can go wrong?
Derek is facing yet another Christmas where his life feels out of control. He has a new career that doesn’t feel like his, and parents who would just love to see him settled down. All he needs is a temporary buffer for the parties he has to attend, and for his parents to leave him alone. Enter, Luke.
Luke is twenty-thousand dollars short for the renovations on Halligans; his family’s bar in New York’s Financial District. A favor for a buddy has him agreeing to play the part of boyfriend to a guy with more money than sense.
But when the spirit of Christmas works its magic on the two men, and they begin to fall for each other, Derek runs scared, and Luke needs space.
It doesn’t matter what obstacles you throw in the way of love, or how much you run in the other direction, because, when you’re least expecting it, whether you want it or not, love happens anyway.
Review: It’s official: I’m going to go ahead and declare RJ Scott’s Love Happens Anyway my favorite holiday romance of the 2017 Christmas season. In fact, it’s a close call, but this may also be my new favorite of the author’s holiday romances—all apologies to The Christmas Throwaway for even thinking this, let alone speaking the blasphemy aloud.
This short novel is the pinnacle of what a love story can be—sweet and sentimental, heartwarming and uplifting, with a touch of internal conflict for the couple to overcome without things tipping over into hysterics and melodrama. Add fake boyfriends to that—one of my favorite tropes—as well as an opposites attract element, and you have the heart and soul of romance in a smile inducing tale of two men who accidentally fall in love right in the midst of a business transaction.
Hired to play Derek’s pretend boyfriend for the holidays, Luke gets more than the hefty sum of money he bargained for to finish the restoration of his family-owned bar. He also gets a beautiful if not mixed bag of issues in Derek, who is a tad prickly and standoffish, and is operating solely by the terms of the contract he drew up for Luke: to play the role of Marcus, the firefighter boyfriend Derek has dreamt up, who will show up on exactly five dates, including one with the parents, before the big breakup that means they never have to see each other again. And, hopefully, will give Derek a short reprieve from his mom’s unwelcome, if well-intentioned, matchmaking efforts. Imagine Derek’s surprise when he discovers his gorgeous fantasy embodied in the real-life man who will end up making such a profound impact, in a short space of time, on Derek’s very being.
Did the story end up precisely where I predicted it would? Well, duh, of course it did. This is a holiday romance after all, and the title says everything—the idea that regardless of the obstacles two people may have to face, love is possible, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Because if we lose the promise of the love of a lifetime in our fiction, how can we ever hope it might happen in our reality?
The New York City setting also offers another impactful emotional experience in the fall of the Twin Towers. I don’t know a single person of a certain age who doesn’t remember where they were and what they were doing on September 11, 2001, when they heard the news about the terrorist attacks that took so many lives. Recalling the heroism of those who ran into the Towers while others ran out…there’s no sugarcoating the fact that it still chokes me up, even all these years later, and it was such an evocative addition to Luke’s history.
Family and friendship each play their roles in this book as well, and they do so effectively, adding depth and layers to both the narrative and the characters. Love Happens Anyway is a blatant play on the heartstrings, and makes no apologies for it. I loved it, believed in Derek and Luke’s happily-ever-after, and appreciated the emotional resonance woven throughout the story. This one’s an absolute keeper for future holiday re-reading.
You can buy Love Happens Anyway here:
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