The Christmas Boyfriend by Taylor Hart

I’m not sure why I started out of order yesterday with The Christmas Groom, but I did, so here we are.  I actually read this book first which prompted the reading of yesterday’s review.  I really enjoyed The Christmas Boyfriend.  Obviously enough to read another of Taylor Hart’s books.

Lacey had her heart broken by her long time boyfriend when he dumped her.  Enough that she hasn’t dated and isn’t interested in starting, despite her parents pushing her to move on.  In an effort to get them to drop it, she creates a fictional boyfriend and talks about him to her family.  This gets her into a pickle when the family invites him to join her for Christmas break at their house.  Insert Dominick, Lacey’s best friend’s fiancee’s cousin.  He’s on break from the military, and doesn’t want to impose on his cousin’s newly engaged bliss, so he agrees to stand in for Lacey’s imaginary boy toy.  Of course, hilarity and romance ensues.

• The book isn’t overly original and rates high on the cheese factor.  I don’t know that this is a full on “didn’t love” though because it’s a fun story to be told and retold.  Fair warning, there’s not a huge re-imagining of the story, it’s not this, but it’s still a fun read.
• It’s fairly predictable.  Again, not sure I’d make this a strike against it. I feel like most go into “romances” knowing what’s going to happen.  More just an FYI that meets those expectations.

• The dialogue/interaction between Dominick and Lacey is pretty funny.  She’s super up tight and he’s military, so thinks of extra things and is ok feeling weird.  Some of the conversations they have made me laugh.  Which is pretty hard to do in these formulaic stories.
• Military man – *sigh* who doesn’t love a guy in uniform?  He’s strong, but not silent… he has emotions and shares them.  Now we know this is fiction. 🙂
• The story jumps out some time so that you get more than just the “happy ending kiss.”  I like getting to see what happened long term.  That doesn’t happen a lot, so yay!

All in all, this is a good read.  It may be a seasonal read of mine each Christmas just because it’s so cute and fun.  I’d definitely recommend this one.  I’d proceed onto The Christmas Groom knowing, in my humble opinion, it’s just not as charming.