This is not some sort of fairy-tale retelling (I really seem to hate those) but instead is just a story about a gal that is rumored to be Cupid's long lost relative. The whole town knows this and the whole town just loves her and the idea behind it. Maybe because of her supposed lineage or even just the idea of love in general, she takes her job seriously.

So when Deacon Banks enters her door, looking for nothing more than a one night stand, she wants to connect with him but her ideal of love keeps her from getting close. We all know those types of people, not looking for Mrs. or Mr. Right but looking for Mr. or Mrs. Right Now, and Mary Frost is just not into that.

What makes this adorable is that there is an instant connection between these two. They are completely different and want different things, but they also want each other.

Mary Frost is an amazing character. This is just book one in the series and I felt like I knew her, the town, her friends. Everything was so tangible. The writing was exquisite and although romance is not my favorite genre I would re-read this and everything that Kieran Kramer writes in an instant! The plot has it's ups and downs as all romances do, and I was wondering if this was going to be a HEA or if poor Mary was going to be crushed.

I'll just say it is worth the read. There are two more books coming out in this series. I'm definitely getting them!

This was a really cute story! I enjoyed the characters, writing and plot. Looking forward to reading more by this author.

A nice romance with plenty of build-up! It didn't give off as much of a Christmas feel as I was expecting, and it took a little bit of time for me to get a feel for the two main characters, but I do love a plot with plenty of romance suspense. The wait was well-worth the effort. Plenty of great hilarious secondary characters as well!

This was the start of my love for the ladies at Two Love Lane and the men that join their group. Oh and the history that the house their business is located in adds so much more to the story. My favorite definitely has to be the secondary characters more than the main ones.

This is a lovely Christmas story set in Charleston. It is the first in the "Two Love Lane" series, which is about a matchmaking agency. Macy, Greer and Ella at the owners of the successful business. The setting and characters are so well described that I could picture myself there. This is the love story of Macey and Deacon, who have instant attraction but no plans to settle down!

Cute and charming. The secondary characters made this even better - they were fun to imagine and their banter was great. Really liked the side relationship of the aunt and the Colonel. Fun easy read.

Slow, boring read. It took me ages to get through this book as I stopped loads of times to read more interesting books in between.

Matchmaker, matchmaker, don't make me a match! No matter how much one fights it, love can not be denied. When Deacon returns home for Christmas to visit the aunt that raised him, he promises he will try to find love while home. Deacon, however, doesn't have any intention of keeping that promise. When he meets matchmaker Macy he becomes aware that maybe the rumors of her ancestor may hold some truth.

Lots of funny and very sweet moments. The book is wonderfully written and you feel as if you are among the Palmetto trees in charming South Carolina.

I enjoyed this story. I haven't read much about Charleston, so it was a fun introduction to the area. In many ways it was a typical romance, but the various elements of the story were interesting. I liked the way the ending wrapped all the storylines up.

A book that is a lot of fun to read. Suspend any reality and just enjoy a feel-good romance set at Christmas time. What could be better really for a lovely afternoon or evening of reading this time of year?

Originally posted on Forever Young Adult on 2017 November 24.

BOOK REPORT for Christmas At Two Love Lane by Kieran Kramer

Deck The Halls: Palm Tree Christmas
Naughty or Nice List: Nice and Naughty
Melt My Marshmallows: Mostly Intact
On A Scale from The Grinch to Buddy The Elf: Regular Hallmark Movie That Was Repurposed For The Christmas Countdown

Deck The Halls: Palm Tree Christmas

Living in the South myself, I appreciate a good twinkle-light-encrusted palm tree. And these were clearly done by professionals, since even the palm fronds are blinged out! This cover is adorable and it’s rare to see a Christmas romance not set somewhere snowy and cozy looking, so I applaud the uniqueness.

What’s Going On In Santa’s Workshop:

Macy Frost comes from a long line of Southern Cupids and she’s channeled her abilities into a matchmaking business with her best friends. She’s never met her anyone who can knock her off her game until Deacon Banks, a New York businessman in town to help his famous aunt settle in for the holidays. To make Aunt Fran happy (and as his Christmas gift to her), he’s agreed to go out with some eligible ladies of society, despite the fact that he doesn’t really believe in commitment.

Macy doesn’t want to risk the integrity of her work by taking on a hopeless case, but they strike a deal where she finds him classy, no-expectations dates and tries to find his soulmate and he…doesn’t actively interfere with her doing so. There’s just one little problem to their no-fuss plans—both are insanely attracted to one another.

Naughty or Nice List: Nice and Naughty



Deacon concocts a side plan with his dates so he can spend more time with Macy, and he’s always straightforward about his desires. For all the “he’s such a bad-boy” talk, Deacon is actually a decent guy. His parents died when he was an infant, so his talk-show, loud-mouth aunt raised him as her own and he’s super sweet to her. Speaking of Aunt Fran, I kept picture her as Liza Minelli and I encourage you to do the same. Deacon amusingly describes her thus:

“Gareth, the fattest Corgi, put his snout in Aunt Fran’s lap, and she petted him fondly, like the Wicked Witch might pet her favorite flying monkey. One really shouldn’t mess with Aunt Fran. She was a strange mix of adorable senior citizen and, well, evil incarnate.”

Deacon is on the nice list, even though he’s a typical over-worked businessman who (gasp!) doesn’t know what to do with all this free time.



Macy, for all her Southern sweetness, charm, and loneliness, probably belongs on the Naughty list because she kept lying to herself! Girl was driving me crazy the way she wouldn’t listen to her heart and kept insisting Deacon was going to fall in love with one of the casual dates she set up for him. She was taking him at his word that he wasn’t into commitment, which, normally, is a good thing, but she also wouldn’t come out and just ask him point-blank questions, because I guess this is a romance novel that has to get to a certain page minimum. Though I never enjoyed her more than in this moment:

“Never eat a gyro in front of a guy you want to impress, Macy realized too late[.]”

(Or one that you plan on kissing soon after, because that tzatziki sauce is delicious but potent.)

Melt My Marshmallows: Mostly Intact

This is a fade-to-black romance novel, which surprised me a little because Deacon was quite warm for Macy’s form, if yaknowwhatImean. The style of the writing should’ve clued me in, because most of the sexy/flirty bits were a little bit…awkward, like the author wasn’t completely sure about how to portray such instances. At one point Deacon goes to Macy’s sister’s house to help bake cookies because her sister is ill, and it made me laugh because he’s imagining flirty cooking moments like feeding each other dough and having flour fights, but then this happens:

“Deacon got his cookie dough. Macy plopped some right into his mouth the night of the cookie baking at her sister’s house. But she also fed her sister’s dog some cookie dough, so Deacon didn’t feel particularly special. Her sister’s husband was in the kitchen too during the whole floury, buttery shebang, so nothing romantic happened.”

Cue the whomp whomp noise.

So sometimes it made the character’s internal monologue a little juvenile, but other times it just made the book amusing, like when Deacon and his aunt’s live-in man-servant, George, are having a few too many drinks on the piazza and Macy comes out dressed in a ballgown, and he can’t take his eyes off her cleavage:

“Deacon still wanted to drop the peppermint down Macy’s gown and then run downstairs to the sidewalk and fish it out himself. With his mouth. What else was he supposed to think about when her luscious breasts were on such classy display?”

I could totally see my husband fighting the urge to throw something down my shirt (and usually failing as he has done this in the past and then celebrated when the straw wrapper made it in), because all men are secretly seven-year-old boys at heart. Overall the two had good conversational chemistry, and for those who don’t want to read about throbbing loins and going in “to the hilt” (shudder), this is light on detail but with characters who aren’t prudes.

We Got (Christmas) Spirit, Yes We Do!:



During the first third of the story I was getting a bit worried because there was hardly any mention of Christmas beyond set-up for Deacon’s fake-dates. Where were my Christmas tree decoratings and visits to the Mall Santa?? As time went on, the characters broke out the eggnog and went to Toys for Tots Christmas parties, but it still felt like the book used Christmas more as set dressing for its shenanigans rather than using it specifically to propel the plot forward.

If this category was “We Got Charleston Spirit, Yes We Do!”, then this book would win all the travel awards because it celebrated the shizz out of this little seaside town. (Anyone down for a road trip?) My favorite Southern shout-out, however, wasn’t Charleston specific—Macy mentions she “fancies herself a Waffle House cook in another life” and Deacon’s never heard of it:

“What’s a Waffle House?” he asked. “A Southerner’s favorite place to eat breakfast at two in the morning.” She smiled. “You have to be a bit drunk when you go.”

Mistletropes:



It wouldn’t be Christmas without the classics. Macy and Deacon participated in the aforementioned cookie baking, plus there was tree decorating; traditional dinners (beef tenderloin and oyster pie, for the foodies); a parade of boats decked out in twinkle lights; peppermint cocoa drinking; Christmas shopping (for charity, no less!); mistletoe mischief; and the spirit of gift-giving.

On A Scale from The Grinch to Buddy The Elf: Regular Hallmark Movie That Was Repurposed For The Christmas Countdown

This book didn’t shy away from Christmas but neither did it completely indulge in it. Combining that with the chaste sexytimes, this felt more like a Hallmark movie—but not one of the ones where it looks like a reindeer threw up on it. I’m talking about the one where they’re walking around in fake soap-snow, bundled up like it’s a blizzard but you can seen the sheen of sweat on the actors’ brows because they showed up in June expecting to work on Autumn in the Vineyard but then the studio execs realized they were one Christmas movie short of their typical December deluge and decided to inject some vague holiday spirit into a current project (I have a love/hate relationship with Hallmark, okay?).

Deacon makes an empty promise while visiting his aunt in Charleston. Finding someone to date. Turning his empty promise into action he goes to Two Love Lane. A prosperous matchmaking business. However, when he is there he meets one of the entrepreneurs and immediately decides maybe this matchmaking business isn’t so bad after all.

charm era that we all know, but the description and action within the book boasted a small town, intimate community instead of the vast size and population of Charleston. The book intimates that everyone knows everyone, and I don't believe that is possible in a city the size of Charleston. Perhaps the "old families" know one another - the founding families and those around for generations upon generations, but that single-minded focus was very narrow and snooty to exclude newcomers to the city. The true purpose of Charleston's setting functioned solely to bring in Cecilia's character, her connections, and the reason Fran has hired her to help her make an appropriate splash into Charleston's upper crust. While the culture and houses were described well within the community, the Christmas setting seemed more of a convenience than providing the cheer and magic of Christmas. 

Being the first book in the series, it's focus was more on Macy Frost than her coworkers at Two Love Lane, a matchmaking service they founded together following some of their own disastrous love affairs. Macy is described as the perfect woman. Everyone says so. She is so perfect and believes to be descended from Cupid, hence the matchmaking service. While it is doing very well and Macy's mission is to find the soulmates for her clients, she absolutely will not commit herself. The high and mighty persona she wears about love - being good for everyone else, not for herself, woe is me, I'll live my life in solitude with this cat - definitely, put her last name into perspective. She is the contemporary ice queen! It was not an attractive quality and quite off-putting, making it difficult to relate to her character and like her.

There were some tidbits dropped about each of the other women, Greer, Ella, and Miss Thing. I mean, seriously? Miss Thing? How unoriginal. Any other name would have been better. There seems to be some discord between the girls, and Miss Thing operates within the office as a gossip hound imitating British fashion. One of the ladies is searching for buried treasure in the building and one is conducting an affair with a married man - of someone they all know! It seemed so random and out of character for women running a matchmaking business. The ladies all seem taken in by Deacon and I was astonished, like Macy, that they all left her alone in the building alone with the man and allowed themselves to be bought off with spas or hair salon appointments. He could have been a serial killer! Some friends. 

Deacon's character rubbed me the wrong way throughout the book, too. He comes to Two Love Lane - a matchmaking service - looking to be set up on a series of dates with the female clients. After his Aunt Fran moved to Charleston and is trying to acclimate into their society, her wish is for him to also settle down. To appease her wish without giving into it - in essence, to trick her - he will go on dates all through the Christmas season and if a bedroom relationship develops, great, but there is nothing more than two dates with the same woman. All of which offends Macy, but the business desperately needs the double fees Deacon is willing to pay. So she sets him up with some Charleston sparklers. 

In a twist of irony, Macy lives directly next to Aunt Fran, so there are several scenes set on their piazzas, yelling back and forth, watching bedroom windows and such. The cast of characters next door to Macy cracked me up! Fran is a vivacious, forceful woman - in the sense that she was a celebrity interviewer her entire life. She got people to do and reveal things they normally wouldn't while on air - and she had the audacity to kiss married men. And I do mean KISSSSSS. On camera. Now that she has retired, she has set her sights on truly getting into Charleston society. She has brought her manservant, George, with her. He serves every role possible in her household, except lover. He is a hoot and their friendship is adorable. Fran is a woman who steals every scene she appeared in. She has hired Cecilia to help her get in good with the old families of Charleston, and Cecilia and Macy have a past. They have several scenes of their own and things even continue to escalate in the present day events of the book. 

The pacing of the book was on the slower side. The situations in the book were quite comedic most times - especially if Fran or George were involved in a scene, and usually one or the other was. The scene breaking into one of Deacon's date's houses and what followed was also quite funny - and then Macy having to explain it to the homeowner later! Those instances are what I liked best about the book. 

Most assuredly, the back and forth "I'm not made for love" mentality of Macy definitely didn't endear her (or her business) to me. Despite that, there were a few sex scenes. They all began on the page and finished off the page, which was disappointing given all the tension and buildup. I prefer a little more sizzle to my romantic reads.

I love holiday stories. This one had likeable, interesting characters and great plot.

For me there is nothing better then a holiday romance book. It's my favorite time of the year so it would make sense that I would love to read them, right? So when they start coming out I have to say that I gobble them up!

When I saw this new series by Kramer I knew I had to try it. The Story sounded good and I loved both the title and cover! It had all that attracts me to a story.

After reading it all I can say is that for me it was just okay. I didn't love nor did I hate it. Maybe a solid 2.5. I really wanted to like it more. As I read it I kept thinking, "this would have made such a good series to read," but it didn't. At least it didn't for me.

I don't know, maybe I'll try it again at some other time. I can't even tell you what I really didn't care for. It was almost boring to read, like a slow drip. I know that sounds horrible but at the moment I don't have any other words to use.

I think my biggest problem was that I only liked the characters a little. Good characters can lift up bad writing but so-so characters will draw good writing down. I couldn't connect nor believe in them. It's not like they are horrible, I just didn't....

I think this is one of those books that you'd have to try for yourself and see how you feel about it. Again, I wish I could put in words more of how I felt about it but I just had very little feelings about it one way or another.

This was definitely a fun Christmas story, although pretty predictable. That did not detract from my satisfaction of reading it at all. I enjoyed reading about big shot Deacon arriving in Charleston and as a Christmas gift to his aunt (that raised him), looking for the love of his life. The author's writing brought the area to life, made me want to spend some time in Charleston. Macy, the main female character, was a bit frustrating in her reluctance to own up to her feelings and act on them. I liked how Deacon knew what he wanted and was not afraid to go after it. This is a quick read that would be perfect for a weekend getaway or weekend cuddled up inside by the fire.

This was my first book of this author. I usually prefer historical books but I did enjoy this one. Perfect to read in this Christmas season.

Deacon's Christmas gift to his aunt is joining a dating agency. Deacon has no plans to fall in love but he will settle for a few dates while he is in town just so his aunt can be happy. However Deacon is immediately attracted to Macy, the lady responsible for setting him up on dates.
Macy knows it's unprofessional to have any sort of feelings for a client but the more time she and Deacon spend together, the more obvious it becomes that the two of them may be meant for each other.
This was a sweet read but I didn't really enjoy it. I thought Deacon and Macy's love story was drawn out for too long (JUST GET TOGETHER ALREADY, DAMMIT!) and some of the supporting characters got on my nerves.
This book was romantic but just okay. There wasn't anything bad about it but I just didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would.