Review: Lovelight Farms by B.K. Borison

Lovelight Farms (Lovelight, #1) by B.K. Borison

Series: Lovelight #1
Published by Berkley Romance on November 10, 2021
Genres: Contemporary
Format: Paperback
Source: Publisher

I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.

Two best friends fake date to reach their holiday happily ever after in this first romantic comedy in the Lovelight series.
A pasture of dead trees. A hostile takeover of the Santa barn by a family of raccoons. And shipments that have mysteriously gone missing. Lovelight Farms is not the magical winter wonderland of Stella Bloom’s dreams.
In an effort to save the Christmas tree farm she’s loved since she was a kid, Stella enters a contest with Instagram-famous influencer Evelyn St. James. With the added publicity and the $100,000 cash prize, Stella might just be able to save the farm from its financial woes. There’s just one problem. To make the farm seem like a romantic destination for the holidays, she lied on her application and said she owns Lovelight Farms with her boyfriend. Only…there is no boyfriend.
Enter best friend Luka Peters. He just stopped by for some hot chocolate and somehow got a farm and a serious girlfriend in the process. But fake dating his best friend might be the best Christmas present he’s ever received.

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Adorable and sweet. I loved Luka and Stella and the whole damn town. I must have all these books.

The lights might be tinkling but things are not going magically at the Christmas tree farm known as Lovelight Farms. The farm has been experiencing problems with supplies, as well as the outstanding balances left unpaid by her predecessor, and what the heck is happening with the trees in the south pasture? Maybe is some is looking for a Charlie Brown tree, they might be in luck.

Stella is doing everything possible to keep her people from knowing how desperate things are becoming on the farm. That’s why she entered the contest by social media influencer, Evelyn St. James. Being featured and seen by Evelyn’s millions of follower will hopefully boost business but more importantly, there is a $100,000 prize for the winner that will keep the farm afloat.

But why, oh why, did she put on her application that she owned Lovelight Farms with her boyfriend? She doesn’t have a boyfriend. She might secretly wish for something more with her best friend, Luka, but she would never risk their friendship to find out. But now she is going to have to risk something because she now has to come up with this magically boyfriend and the only one she knows she can count on to help is, of course, Luka Peters.

Luka is more than happy to step in as Stella boyfriend although fooling the influencer might be pretty hard since the town they live in is so small it doesn’t even have a stoplight and everyone knows that Luke and Stella aren’t dating.

Stella and Luka get the farm shinning with Christmas magic for Evelyn’s visit and even the town has stepped up to put on their Christmas finery. The Farm is ready but is Stella, because the longer she and Luke blur the line between friends and something more, the harder it is to remember that it is all for show and that they will gave to go back to simply being friends at the end of the week.

THOUGHTS:
LOVED! IT! I loved this story. I loved the characters. I loved the secondary characters. I loved this tiny, tiny, little town.

This was everything a sweet romance should be. Luka and Stella have been friends for ten years and know everything about each other. Stella has been in love with Luka for about the last nine years but since her mother’s death, Luka is the most important person in her world and she just can’t risk losing his friendship if romance doesn’t work out between them. But we aren’t the only ones rooting for Luka and Stella, when they try to convince everyone in town that they are now an item, the whole town is all but cheering as they walk around downtown. The local phone tree lights up and money starts being passed around from all the winning bets of when Stella and Luka will get together. And when Luka’s mother finds out…OMG, the Italian inquisition shows up with lasagna.

I also liked that the story was about 80 percent Luka and Stella spending time together and trying to work through their feelings, and spending the holidays with family, with the arrival of Evelyn St James and the contest being more an aside to the Luka and Stella story.

As soon as I finished, I dropped everything, reached out with my grabby hands and took copies of Books 2 and 3 which feature Becket who takes care of the farm and Layla, who runs the bakery on the farm. I want to stay here in Lovelight Farms for as long as I can.

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Favorite Scene:

He hold out his arms. “C’mere.”

His cheeks are still flushed pink from his time outside today, twin spots of color against his golden skin. I stare at him, his open arms, the soft faded material of his thermal shirt. It clings tight around his biceps, and I get distracted there for a second, teeth sawing over my bottom lip.

“Why?” I ask, suspicious.

He huffs a laugh through his nose and steps closer, his hands over my shoulders. He tugs once and slips his grip to my wrists, adjusting my hands until they’re looped around his neck. he spins us to the refrigerator in two smooth steps, my knees knocking against his the whole way.

“What’s happening here?” I ask again, doing my best to follow his movements.

He ignores me, reaching about the fridge for the old radio I keep up there. There’s a burst of static when he turns it on, twisting the knob to find a clear station. It was my mom’s. Every place we lived, she put it up on top of the fridge. She liked to dance to Bruce Springstein during dinner. AC/DC during cleanup. We’d wash dishes, and she’d swing her hips and shake her hair. She used to say she could have been once of those girls climbing on top of the cars in the music videos. Teenage me had been horrified.

“I want to talk to you,” he says.

I stare pointedly at my hands curled around his neck, my chest pressed to his. “And this is talking?”

He finds what he’s looking for, the smooth sound of Louis Armstrong crooning through the old speakers about a silent night. It’s a little tinny and crackling with static, the old radio is not the best in audio quality. But I love it.

Luka tugs me close and spins me into the center of the kitchen, one hand at my hip, the other between my shoulder blades. “Why didn’t you tell me you were having trouble?”

“Um.” It’s hard for me to think when he’s holding me like this. Slowly swaying around my kitchen with his nose at my temple. “What are we slow-dancing?”

Luke rests his chin on top of my head. “This is how my parents argued,” he confesses quietly, a grin in his voice. “Or I guess, this is how they had big conversations. My dad said he like to keep my mom close, but I really think he wanted a way to politely restrain her.”

I huff a laugh and relax into his hold, letting him spin me slowly. It’s nice to hear him talk about his dad, to have a good memory. I try to picture a younger Luka, rolling his eyes at his parents dancing in the kitchen. It makes me smile. His grip tightens when he feels me soften in his hold, palm slipping down from between my shoulders to the center of my back. “So, why didn’t you tell me?”

There’s a thin thread of hurt in the quiet question, a lingering sadness around the edges that has me tucking closer, resting my forehead against his collarbone. He smells like pine here, another remnant of his time in the fields. The reason I didn’t tell Luka is the same reason I didn’t tell anyone. “Because I thought I was handling it,” I tell him, a lick of frustration slipping through. “I am handling it.”

My plan was good one. Get through this with Evelyn. Charm her senseless. Win the contest and settle our debts with the suppliers. From there, we should be solid enough to make it through to Spring. At this point, even if we don’t win the prize money, I think we’ll be okay. The added influx of customers from the feature on Evelyn’s channels should be enough to pull us out. I’ll just–have to eat ramen for a bit longer.

“You still could have told me,” he says, tipping his chin back until he’s looking down at me. He looks younger like this, tired from a day in the fields, a yawn creaking at his jaw.

“I didn’t want—” I think about those early days when I realized how deep in it we were, the numbers on my computer screen not making sense no matter how many times I sorted and rearranged the columns. I had wanted to call Luka so badly, ask him to take a look, reassure me. But I also wanted to do this myself. This farm, this business, it’s the first thing that’s ever been mine and mine alone. “I didn’t want you to rescue me.”

His eyebrows jump in surprise. “Helping friends is off-limits now?”

“It’s not like that. It’s just–do you remember that year I decided I wanted to learn how to ride a skateboard? And you said you’d help?”

He smiles at the memory. “Yeah, you bought that red helmet with the flames on the side. Knee pads to match. You were so cute.”

I roll my eyes. I wasn’t trying to be cute. I was trying to be safe and a little badass. I did like that helmet though. “Well, as you remember, those knee pads paid off. I was horrible.”

The tug of a grin spreads until he’s laughing, no doubt recalling my tumble into the fountain in the middle of town. “You were tragically horrible,” he agrees.

“Right, and what did you do? How did you help my achieve my dream of coasting down the street on a skateboard?”

His laughter settles into a warm rumble of a chuckle. “I gave you a piggyback.” He smiles. “I hopped on the skateboard with you on my back, and we flew down Main Street.”

It’s a good memory. I can still remember the way I clutched tight at his shoulders, every bump in the sidewalk as we rocketed past the bookstore, the greenhouse, the little park with daffodils at the entrance. I nod. “Yeah, you helped me do the thing I wanted to do by literally putting me on your back.” I smile and run my fingers through his hair, helpless not to touch him. Not while he looks so happy and so sad at the same time. “You have done that countless times in our friendship, and I’m so grateful. But this time I wanted–I wanted to be my own hero. I wanted to do it myself.”

He pushes his head into my hand, closing his eyes. “Leaning on other people doesn’t make your achievements any less yours.” He opens his eyes, dark like melted chocolate. “Do you remember when I convinced myself I wanted to run a half marathon? What did you do?”

I hated that idea. I woke up every morning before the sun and grumbled all the way through putting on my tennis shoes and pulling on my sports bra, Luka grunting on the other end of the line. We had entire conversations through sounds alone those mornings.

“You woke up every morning with me for my run and did an equal distance here at the same time. So I’d feel less alone.”

“About that,” I mumble. “I may have just ran to Ms B’s and got a plate of cinnamon rolls.”

He blinks at me. “What? But your GPS–“

“I paid one the high school kids to run my route. He’d meet me out front of the bakery, and we’d do the exchange. He was trying to make the cross country team, so it worked out.”

Luka laughs, eyes crinkling at the corners. He nuzzles once at my temple and spins us back across the kitchen, over to the fridge. “Regardless,” he hums. “You woke up with me. You sent me healthy snacks. You believed in me and encouraged me. You even made a sign for the race.”

A bright pink sign with gold glitter that said YOU THINK YOU’RE TIRED? I’VE BEEN HOLDING THIS SIGN SINCE 9:00.

On the other side: I’M SO PROUD OF YOU, LUKA.

“What I’m trying to say is that you can trust me. You can trust me to help you carry the load. You don’t have to do all of this alone.” He catches an errant curl, rubbing it gently between thumb and forefinger. He twists it lightly and tugs once. “I know you can take care of yourself. You’ve been doing that as long as I’ve known you. But let me hold your hand while you do it, okay?”

I nod, a hot pressure behind my eyes. The music switches to Nat King Cole, and I practically melt in Luka’s arms, another turn around my kitchen.

“All right,” I say.

He brushes a kiss against my temple and whispers back. “All right.”

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