Lynnie 
contemporary romance, holiday
This is my first book by Lindsey Kelk and, based
on all the four and five star reviews I’m seeing, she has quite a
following. I thought the description of Christmas Fling sounded
intriguing - in a case of mistaken identity, Callum’s parents find Laura
in his flat and believe that she is the girlfriend he has failed to
introduce to them. Shenanigans ensue, leading to an invitation to
Scotland for the holidays. Sounds fun, right?
In reality though, it was…odd. From the start, I realized that this book is more romantic farce than romantic comedy and in truth, farce is not really my favorite genre. So much of the humor was ridiculously over-the-top that it turned the characters into caricatures. For me, that meant that none of them, with the exception of our main male character Callum, were really likable for most of the book. His family is ridiculous, Laura’s friends are obnoxious (though they improve quite a bit when they actually get to Scotland, weirdly), and Laura herself goes out of her way to purposefully be a horror when she’s in her “Caroline” persona, so I could not really blame her - she’s quite lovely when acting as herself. It’s just hard for me to love a book when I don’t actually like the people I'm reading about.
Still, there were parts that I enjoyed, particularly the friendship between Laura, Desi and Joel (once Desi and Joel stopped annoying me so much), and I liked the way Callum and Laura interacted with one another when it was just the two of them and they weren’t trying to pretend for his family. The last third of the book brings it all home nicely and saved the book for me. If you like over-the-top shenanigans, and farce comedy, I think you’ll enjoy the dynamics in Christmas Fling much more than I did.
Thanks to Harper 360 and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy. Christmas Fling will publish on October 14, 2025.
In reality though, it was…odd. From the start, I realized that this book is more romantic farce than romantic comedy and in truth, farce is not really my favorite genre. So much of the humor was ridiculously over-the-top that it turned the characters into caricatures. For me, that meant that none of them, with the exception of our main male character Callum, were really likable for most of the book. His family is ridiculous, Laura’s friends are obnoxious (though they improve quite a bit when they actually get to Scotland, weirdly), and Laura herself goes out of her way to purposefully be a horror when she’s in her “Caroline” persona, so I could not really blame her - she’s quite lovely when acting as herself. It’s just hard for me to love a book when I don’t actually like the people I'm reading about.
Still, there were parts that I enjoyed, particularly the friendship between Laura, Desi and Joel (once Desi and Joel stopped annoying me so much), and I liked the way Callum and Laura interacted with one another when it was just the two of them and they weren’t trying to pretend for his family. The last third of the book brings it all home nicely and saved the book for me. If you like over-the-top shenanigans, and farce comedy, I think you’ll enjoy the dynamics in Christmas Fling much more than I did.
Thanks to Harper 360 and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy. Christmas Fling will publish on October 14, 2025.
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