REVIEW: Snowflakes Over Starr’s Fall by Kate Hewitt
As the stars twinkle and the snow drifts over the town… someone’s about to find the magic she didn’t even know she’d been missing…
Jenna has lived in Starr’s Fall for most of her life, and has run the general store for over ten years. Secretly she might dream of love and romance, but she’s happy as she is. Really.
That is, until Starr’s Fall’s newest resident—ex-New Yorker, millionaire investment banker—Jack Wexler breezes into Jenna’s store, seemingly furious they don’t stock smoked salmon. Jenna is as amused as she is annoyed. Who is this ridiculous guy, and doesn’t he realize he’s not in Manhattan anymore?
Jack meanwhile can’t believe he lost it in public. But ever since being forced to leave his high-flying career to focus on his health, he’s not been himself. What’s more, the last person he’d expected to be attracted to is the shrew of a storekeeper he’s just encountered… which he might have called Jenna, in a moment of temper…
Neither of Jenna or Jack’s ideal of romance includes these sorts of furious sparks flying. But when they’re both roped in to organizing the town’s Winter Wonderland parade, they’re forced to work together. And as Christmas approaches – will two opposites merely attract? Or, in magical Starr’s Fall, could they fall in love for keeps?
Review
Rarely does a Kate Hewitt book fail me but sadly this one does. I will take responsibility for not realizing that this is the third book in a series so when tons of characters got dumped into the story early on, complete with thumbnail backstories, it’s the author trying to catch new readers up to speed. Still it’s a lot of characters and I finally gave up trying to keep everyone straight.
At the beginning I actually liked that this is a nosy small town and that everything isn’t rosy and happy there. For instance, many people support Jenna in her initial spat with newcomer Jack. That being said, when the town went full on matchmaker, it got annoying.
This story has a grumpy x grumpy trope with both Jack and Jenna snarling at each other for a long time. Theirs truly isn’t flirty banter. Instead they are waspish and a bit nasty. Well, that’s different but okay, flawed messy characters. Their backstories are slowly doled out with Jenna getting most of the angst. Her uber rich ex-boyfriend stomped her heart flat after she turned herself inside out to change to be the woman he wanted. Yes, he’s an asshole but ten years later Jenna keeps obsessively revisiting her emotional pain while vowing she’s never going to let herself be hurt that way again nor will she ever change anything in her life. She’s a flat tire and a slide guitar away from a country and western song.
Jack misses his high pressure venture capital life making tons of money in NYC but after a heart attack and with a bleeding ulcer, finally gives into his doctor’s advice that continuing this way is a one way ticket to an early grave. He pouts about how no one he knows has kept in touch… just like he never contacted anyone from his old life after they left. He also realizes that he’s now irrelevant to his former coworkers.
Okay so there are some issues going on for both our main characters.
Jack gets pulled into the town business committee and, after he and Jenna seem to finally get over their snit-fits, he invites her to dinner and volunteers to help her with ideas to revamp her store but warns her it’s not his job to take over and that he expects her to pitch in with ideas and do the work. Flirting over wine and risotto follows after which, in the next weeks, both Jenna and Jack quickly appear to have forgotten their carved-in-stone vows to not take over the reno of the store (for him) and to change at all or begin to pine for love (for her).
Then there are several chapters of Jenna alternately sulking that Jack doesn’t seem to return her feelings or wondering why he’s not returning her feelings followed by her reminding herself about her resolution to never let a man hurt her again. Thrown together in the face of the town’s relentless matchmaking, Jenna lashes out and refuses to answer Jack’s point blank question about what’s wrong. Then she runs out.
It was then that I realized I’d had enough. I just couldn’t with these two any more. I was past the halfway mark, not liking the romance relationship, and dreading going on. This one is a DNF.
~Jayne
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