The Mistletoe Secret

The post might be a bit late, as I read this book in time for the Christmas holiday, but haven’t quite had the time to write about it.

To get in the holiday spirit, and to break up my reading of non-fiction books, I decided to read: “The Mistletoe Secret” by Richard Paul Evans. It is the third installment of the Mistletoe Collection. I got in the mood by getting comfy under a fuzzy blanket and making hot cocoa and settling in for a good night of reading.

“The Mistletoe Secret,” centers on Alex, who is a recent divorcée begins reading a blog about loneliness, and signed by LBH. By doing some detective work, he finds out that the writer is based in a small town in Utah and travels to meet her. Most of the time I was thinking that Alex was a really creepy guy, stalking this blogger. Usually, while reading romance novels it is easy for me to remember that it is a fictional story and actions that may be less than appropriate are deemed logical in my mind. However, it was much more difficult to do so while reading this book. I think that is because of how realistic this story could be, and also because of how relevant this story can be in relation to predatory sexual harassment and abuse stories coming to light in the news. I had a really hard time justifying Alex’s actions and behavior. In line with how I was concerned with the lead character’s behavior, was his friends’ reactions to his behavior. When I saw this, I felt more like the author created Alex to be border line creepy on purpose.

There were aspects of the story that I didn’t find as objectionable. I never read any of Evans’s books before this one, and before I started reading I was concerned about how a romance novel written by a man might come across. I assumed that it would focus on the lead female character as so many of these books do. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the book centers on the male lead character and the turmoil he faces through divorce and finding love and possibly more importantly, trust, again.

Alex’s friendship with his two closest friends, and co-workers was also of interest to me. Often in media male friendships are centered on sports and talking about lust instead of love. Instead, the friendships in, “The Mistletoe Secret,” depict emotional connections that bring light to the dark feelings that can be brought on by depression. I really enjoyed the character development throughout the novel. The different backstories of each character were clear in shaping the way the characters were as their present selves.

All in all, I enjoyed this book as a light hearted leisure read, and would read more by Richard Paul Evans. This book definitely served its purpose to get me out of reading so many non-fiction books in a short period of time.

As always,

Happy Reading 🙂