On Tour with Prism Book Tours
Welcome to the book tour for Lights, Cameras, Holidays by Rachelle Paige Campbell! Today I'm sharing with you my thoughts on this contemporary holiday romance. Be sure to check out the rest of the tour, including an upcoming exclusive excerpt over at Candrel's Crafts, Cooks, and Characters. Best of luck in the giveaway!
Lights, Cameras, Holidays
(Finding New Hope #3)
By Rachelle Paige Campbell
Contemporary Fiction, Holiday Romance
Paperback & ebook, 234 Pages
December 14, 2021 by The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
Actress Kara Kensington flies to New Hope, Wisconsin, where she'll spend the winter holidays filming a movie. Her entire career depends on the success of the feel-good story based on her best friend's life. To salvage her strained friendship with Dani, Kara asks the cute guy from the flight to act as her new boyfriend. But the longer she spends with him, the less she's acting.
For Chef Scott Neil, his holidays aren't only about family togetherness. He wants Aunt Shirley and Uncle Ted to retire. When he's asked to fake a relationship with Kara, he agrees. As he gets drawn into Kara's production, he questions what is real and what's just for show. Only a fool would fall in love with America's sweetheart.
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**My thoughts**
The characters in this book were so familiar to me, as if I already knew them in real life or in a previous encounter. But I checked and haven't read the first two books in the series. But they really did feel real to me. And that also means that this book does work well as a standalone, even though it is the third one in the series. (And I need to go back and read the first two!)
Both Scott and Kara have come to town with an agenda. Scott wants his aging aunt and uncle to consider retiring and slowing down and coming out to California to be with him. Kara is trying to mend her relationship with her childhood best friend and former coworker. Throughout the course of the book, they grow a lot as they realize that there is more to life than their selfish reasons for being in town.
One of the things that they do is try to convince the town that they are having a relationship. And the two of them do develop feelings for each other over the course of the several weeks that they are in town and ultimately working together. You know that they are a good match, even though Scott is a personal chef and Kara is a famous movie star. They are able to be real with each other with no pretentions.
The only thing is, I never felt the fake romance part. They were so busy working that it didn't seem they were spending much time together outside of the set. They had some moments here and there, and there was the snowstorm. But just not as many encounters out in public as I would expect if they were trying to sell a fake romance. And I didn't feel that they got to know each other as well as friends as I would have expected.
But at the same time, I was completely engrossed in this book on a cold and windy day in December. I wanted to know how Scott was going to convince his family to let him help them and how Kara was going to turn things around with her friends. I wanted to know how the production was going and what other obstacles would be put in their way. And I wanted to know how the two characters were going to get to know each other and fall for each other for the inevitable HEA.
So while this book didn't quite follow the fake romance outline and details that I am used to, I still found it completely enjoyable and was invested in the characters and their stories. Like I said, I want to read the other two books in the series and hope there are more stories to come from this quaint small town.
I received a requested review copy from the author and Prism Book Tours. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
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Ends December 22, 2021
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