A VERY MERRY BROMANCE

Another member of the Bromance Book Club finds love in this fifth series outing.

Country star Colton Wheeler can’t get Gretchen Winthrop out of his head. A year ago, they had a steamy, satisfying one-night stand after a wedding, but when Colton asked to see her again, Gretchen bolted out the door. Gretchen comes from the wealthiest family in Tennessee but has turned her back on her family’s money and influence to start her own small practice providing legal expertise for immigrants. When her oldest brother asks her to reach out to Colton to be the brand ambassador to her family’s whiskey distillery, she agrees; in return, she asks for her rightful seat on the family’s charitable foundation board. When Gretchen approaches Colton, she’s surprised that he has some conditions of his own. He agrees to consider her offer if she’ll go out on three dates with him. When Colton discovers that Gretchen is a verifiable Scrooge, he's determined to use their dates to show her the joy of the Christmas season. With the help and advice of his buddies in the Bromance Book Club, Colton will show Gretchen his sunshiny personality is the perfect match for her grumpy one. Longtime readers of the series won’t be surprised when the plot takes a turn toward more serious and somber topics. In this case, Colton discovers that Gretchen is aloof and prickly as a coping mechanism from having grown up in an abusive home. Colton’s instant love and devotion for Gretchen is a fact of the book rather than something that develops over time, and the result is a relationship that doesn't feel fully developed. The novel is jammed full of scenes with characters from earlier installments and charming meetings of the Bromance Book Club, which will please fans of the series.

A solid but unremarkable effort in this long-running series about men who read romance.