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A review by starry
Lovelight Farms by B.K. Borison
3.5
This book is mostly good. The romance is really sweet, and Luka and Stella broke away from the fake-dating standards in a way that was both beneficial to the story and really refreshing to read. In most of the fake-dating books I’ve read, especially best friends to lovers, the leads feel a need to be very distinct about what is part of the ruse and what isn’t. In the interest of protecting themselves and their dynamic, characters set up rules and lists, and work overtime to deny any real attraction. Luka and Stella did some of that at first, but around the 30-40% mark, the two of them decided to have a no-holds-barred week — to chase what felt right and do what came naturally, up to and including hooking up for the first (and second/third/fourth!) time. This felt so organic and true to their dynamic, and it made their story undeniably better.
I felt like everything else around them was lacking. Breaking from trope convention was good in the one instance, but when everything else started breaking from conventions too, the urgency of the narrative just kind of fell apart. Lovelight Farms has a pacing issue. There’s a masked stranger sabotaging Lovelight Farms at the same time that a mega-influencer is visiting as part of a contest — one with a $100,000 prize that could save Lovelight from bankruptcy. The saboteur plot contributes majorly to Stella’s financial stress, as he or she is stealing and destroying property at an alarming rate. If Stella doesn’t come up with something soon, she’ll lose the farm.
Enter: Evelyn St. James (a name practically lifted out of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo but I digress). This influencer is the whole reason Stella needs a fake boyfriend, but she doesn’t show up until about three quarters of the way into this book and her week-long trip goes by very, very quickly. By the time she’s arrived, Stella’s realizing that she might not even need the prize money anymore, completely negating the urgency of the novel up to this point. With all the challenges facing the farm resolved by the 75% mark, it leaves a lot of room on the back end of this novel that feels out of place.
The last 20% is misunderstanding-fueled relationship drama that is resolved with a single, tough conversation. I don’t mind the miscommunication trope, but it truly felt out of place here and I wish BK Borison had found another way to drag out the tension here (looking at you, masked saboteur and impending bankruptcy). Also, there was a HP reference in the second-to-last chapter, which always brings down my view.
The alternate-POV epilogue was definitely a bonus to this story, as single-POV, first-person romance novels are usually tough for me to dig into. Overall, I enjoyed this one (it was certainly a fun, easy read!) but the backdrop behind the romance felt unsteady in its necessity and unclear in its direction. This felt like a best friends to lovers story, with a bunch of other elements thrown in to varying degrees of success. I put holds on the other two books at my library though, and I'm excited to read them when they're available.
I felt like everything else around them was lacking. Breaking from trope convention was good in the one instance, but when everything else started breaking from conventions too, the urgency of the narrative just kind of fell apart. Lovelight Farms has a pacing issue. There’s a masked stranger sabotaging Lovelight Farms at the same time that a mega-influencer is visiting as part of a contest — one with a $100,000 prize that could save Lovelight from bankruptcy. The saboteur plot contributes majorly to Stella’s financial stress, as he or she is stealing and destroying property at an alarming rate. If Stella doesn’t come up with something soon, she’ll lose the farm.
Enter: Evelyn St. James (a name practically lifted out of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo but I digress). This influencer is the whole reason Stella needs a fake boyfriend, but she doesn’t show up until about three quarters of the way into this book and her week-long trip goes by very, very quickly. By the time she’s arrived, Stella’s realizing that she might not even need the prize money anymore, completely negating the urgency of the novel up to this point. With all the challenges facing the farm resolved by the 75% mark, it leaves a lot of room on the back end of this novel that feels out of place.
The last 20% is misunderstanding-fueled relationship drama that is resolved with a single, tough conversation. I don’t mind the miscommunication trope, but it truly felt out of place here and I wish BK Borison had found another way to drag out the tension here (looking at you, masked saboteur and impending bankruptcy). Also, there was a HP reference in the second-to-last chapter, which always brings down my view.
The alternate-POV epilogue was definitely a bonus to this story, as single-POV, first-person romance novels are usually tough for me to dig into. Overall, I enjoyed this one (it was certainly a fun, easy read!) but the backdrop behind the romance felt unsteady in its necessity and unclear in its direction. This felt like a best friends to lovers story, with a bunch of other elements thrown in to varying degrees of success. I put holds on the other two books at my library though, and I'm excited to read them when they're available.