[ARC Review] No Ordinary Christmas by Belle Calhoune

Eight and a half years ago, Dante West booked it out of Mistletoe, Maine and left his family, friends, and girlfriend without a word of goodbye. Now all these years later, Dante has made it big in Hollywood and Mistletoe's most famous citizen has finally come home. Now the director of his first motion picture, Dante chose to shoot the movie in Mistletoe in hopes of reconnecting with Lucy, the girl he left and never forgot. But after years of heartbreak over Dante, Lucy never forgot him either. With a filming deadline looming, and only weeks until Dante heads back to Hollywood, will Dante and Lucy be able to mend their broken pasts and find a love to last a lifetime, or is it too late for the huge Hollywood star and the small-town librarian? 

No Ordinary Christmas was a sweet romance with just the perfect amount of conflict and drama. I really enjoyed this plot; it was a great combination of small-town romance and second-chance romance, and will surely delight fans of either trope (or both tropes). 

I loved both Lucy and Dante. They both had that sweet friends-to-lovers dynamic that was reflected in the way they interacted with each other, even when they were at odds. They were both flawed in their own ways; Dante for the ways he acted in the past, and Lucy for the ways her prior heartbreak caused her to not trust Dante a second time. No Ordinary Christmas exemplified the second-chance romance as these two souls worked to move beyond past mistakes to find a future together. 

I think my favorite part about this clean romance was the diversity. Too often it feels like every small-town holiday romance in books, movies, or on the television only feature white characters finding their Christmas miracle, so I was so happy to see some great diversity represented in the main characters and their families. Coming from a small town myself, I was happy to see more than one demographic represented in Mistletoe, Maine. 

No Ordinary Christmas was a sweet, clean romance featuring characters finding success in their own way, two friends-turned-lovers finding themselves again after almost nine years apart, fantastic examples of familiar love, and a small-town romance brought to you by the magic of Christmas. 

A huge thank you to Forever for providing a review copy of No Ordinary Christmas.

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Release date: 9/28/21
Format: eARC
eARC provided by: Forever Publishers via Netgalley