Fun and campy holiday rom-com. A bit heavy on the sex scenes, and a few too many storylines to follow. Wondering if a second book will wrap everything up. Entertaining.

Following social media backlash, event planner Morgan's employer tells her to take the month of December off, and she goes back to her hometown for the first time in years. Her ex Rachel runs a tree farm there, and she gets roped into organizing a fund raiser to prevent a big corporation from buying the land and turning it into an outlet mall.

This is a cute second-chance smalltown romance between two bisexual women, but if the plot sounds familiar, that's because you've definitely read it before. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy this, and I especially enjoyed the writing style. But overall, it did not stand out to me, and I wanted a little more out of this. I didn't feel like a lot was happening in these pages, and I felt myself zoning out at times. I especially wish the characters were fleshed out a little more, because I feel like they all stayed pretty surface-level.

My only regret is that I read this book in the heat of summer. This book is like a warm and fuzzy Christmas hug, and deserves to be read by the glow of the Christmas tree, while snuggled under cozy blankets with some hot chocolate.

It’s a super sweet second chance romance that gave me all the wonderful Hallmark Christmas movie feels, but thankfully it isn’t hindered by the G rated status, so it actually depicts a realistic queer love story.

Lastly, I rooted for Rachel and Morgan from the very start, and I know the third act relationship trouble/break up happens in almost every romance, but they seemed so solid that when trouble started my first thought was “no, no, no, no, no, no- get it together, ladies!!!!” but don’t worry, it’s worth in the end because their HEA is absolutely adorable!!! 😍

If you like a cute holiday F/F romance with a lot of heart and a little spice, I would highly recommend this book.

This book is perfect holiday second chance romance. Morgan is an event planner to the rich and famous but doesn't let anyone close because she had her heart broken in Fern Falls. Morgan has a tabloid fiasco and flees to Fern Falls where she falls into Rachel Reeds arms the girl of her dreams. Rachels family farm is dying so Morgan plans an event with the town to help save it. But she also learns a big corporation is trying to buy it and its being bought by someone who helped break her heart. I love all the characters in this book and really hope we get some more stories about Fern Falls!

Before I get into the review, I want to say a quick thank you to both NetGalley and the publishers over at Kensington Publishing for allowing me access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review. In the Event of Love is a queer holiday romance in the style of a Hallmark Christmas Movie. Morgan flees L.A. following a faux pas that becomes the next trending hashtag In doing so, she finds herself face to face with the girl who broke her heart, Rachel. Can the event planner from L.A. help save the local Christmas tree farm? Can the local girl help right past wrongs? In the Event of Love is out on August 30th and is available for preorder now.

There was so much to enjoy from this debut! Courtney Kae shows off her love for Hallmark Christmas Movies with such a movie worthy setting and plot. Despite the fact that it’s been in the 100 degree range all three days I’ve been reading this one, I’ve found myself in a very Christmasy mood because of this novel. I could see this mountain town and all of the acres upon acres of trees so clearly in my mind. And the Christmas spirit gets kicked up a notch when the girls throw the fundraiser to help save the Christmas tree farm. I also really loved the small town feel. I could so clearly picture the town square and how cosy and quaint it all seemed. I felt like the conflicts in this novel were realistic. It never felt like I had to suspend my disbelief when everything came to a head. Which can be a problem with a lot of Christmas romances (books or movies). I really think the author did a great job with this one.

While I found so much to love in this story, I wish there had been a little more depth to the side characters. I know this is going to be book one in a companion series so I’m sure we’ll get more depth from them later on. But I just wish we had another 20 or so pages to get scenes with the side characters that were fluffy or filler. Something to give them more depth. I also didn’t 100% love the epilogue. And I think epilogues can be tricky with romances. It can either make a book a shining star or make the reader doubt everything they had read before it. I liked how the conflict worked out at the end, but I didn’t feel like everything had to be wrapped up in such a neat bow at the end. Maybe we could have finished with a different type of event taking place on the Christmas tree farm instead? (Trying to be as vague as possible here.) But that could just be a me thing.

Overall, I think this is the perfect book to get anyone into the Christmas spirit. Not just us crazy Christmas in July people. It comes out at a great time of the year so people can grab this one and enjoy it on a cool Fall night next to a fire.

i really enjoyed this. I love queer romance and i really loved this book. Beautiful writing and lovely characters!

This book was really good, I enjoyed it a lot.
The best parts were:
- the sapphic rep. I really loved the romance and the relationship between Rachel and Morgan!
- Ben!!!!! Uh, he was such a good character, I loved all the parts he was in but boy, did he deserve better in terms of a certain friend.
- The holiday vibes!! The farm! The inn!!

The parts I didn't really like/care for:
- the motives behind everything that was happening were not well executed. It just felt very shallow and unexplored in depth. I would've felt more sympathy for Morgan and Rachel than I did had they been well executed.
- most of the characters here felt like caricatures like the author assigned a certain character trait(s) to a character while writing this novel and then ran with only that trait(s) without exploring any other facets of them.
- a lot of times the writing got repetitive when talking about the past stuff. I get it you can't just start having an inner monologue about something that happened in the past without rehashing how it happened but how many times??? It got very irritating when even some new info about the events was prefaced by rehashing what we already know.
- morgan's relationship with her dad. Uh, I just didn't feel this was executed well. Her dad seemed more of a friend/acquaintance than a parent which is not a bad thing IF they are both but he wasn't. I'm trying not to give any spoilers but I just kept waiting for things to go differently in their relationship but they never did like an actual parent-child relationship. It always seemed like more of an acquaintance/friend than a parent except for when they talked about Morgan's mother.

If the reasons that disappointed me a little don't bother you, you should definitely check out this novel for some amazing bi (both Rachel and Morgan are bi) and sapphic rep!!

actual rating: 3.5

This ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. August 30, 2022.

This was a cute female female second chance romance that is basically a Christmas Hallmark movie in book form.

Our main character Morgan is an event planner in LA who goes back to her home town Fern Falls to salvage her career by helping to save the Christmas tree farm. Rachel is the owner of the Christmas tree farm. Morgan and Rachel pined for each other back in high school, and this is the first time they’ve been reunited in seven years.
The book follows Morgan and Rachel trying to put on a fundraiser to save the tree farm while also falling for each other.

What worked for me:
-Cute Christmas small town atmosphere
-The pining and steam

What didn’t work for me:
-Slow paced. Lots of boring setup before Morgan even gets to Fern Falls, then lots of explanation and introduction of side characters in Fern Falls before we even meet Rachel
-Disconnected writing style. The writing of the Morgan and Rachel scenes had a completely different tone than the scenes where they talk to anyone else or have internal monologue. This also added to the slow pace.
-Lots of caricature side characters and quirky Fern Falls places that were only superficially discussed. It was hard to tell what and who were important so my brain started to blur them all together as unimportant.

Despite those issues, it was super cute and I had fun reading about saving the Christmas town. I will definitely read the second book if it’s about Adam & Ben (Rachel’s brother & Morgan’s childhood friend).

This book felt very much like a Hallmark movie but in book form. I don’t typically watch Hallmark but other family members often have them playing on the TV around Christmas so I have gotten a sense of key themes that they tend to feature. This story was fun and sweet, with a cast of characters who immediately endeared themselves to me.

One theme of Hallmark movies is a big-city career person discovering the important things in life in a small town. Here we meet Morgan Ross, event planner for LA, who is forced to return to her childhood small town, Fern Falls, after a situation with a client in the city. She left the town 7 years before after a series of events that left her feeling unwanted there and has not returned since.

This book has a lovely second chance romance between Morgan and her former best friend, Rachel. At the beginning, the feelings that Rachel has towards her are unclear but I think they work through their pasts well, without a lot of miscommunication or difficulties. There are some complications near the end, as often happens in romances, but I think these are resolved well.

Aside from the second chance romance, I think a lot of this is in some ways about second chances. Morgan and the people of Fern Falls both have to give each other a second chance. Morgan gives a second chance to her relationship with her dad and to her friends from high school that she hadn’t spoken to in years. Seeing these relationships develop again feels meaningful and true to life.

An important character in the book is the small-town itself. Fern Falls has the charm and cute restaurants and shops characteristic of small towns. This story is also about keeping this charm and not losing it to something more corporate that lacks that heart and soul. Saving that small town from corporate developers is a big part of the story. The story shows how people caring and coming together can help so much.

This was a lovely, holiday story that would be perfect to read with a mug of hot chocolate on a cold and snowy day! It releases on August 30th.

This was literally the epitome of a Hallmark movie in a book just make it a little spicy and sapphic. I enjoyed my time with it but it was cheesier than I usually like my romance novels and I could see the third-act conflict coming from a mile away. It definitely wasn't anything new or original. It's a bummer people are giving this bad reviews for being too spicy or fetishizing queer women. I didn't get that at all and the author is bisexual herself so saying the only people who write sapphic romance well are lesbians is quite biphobic in my opinion. If you just want a sweet holiday read come this December and don't mind that it's not anything new in the romance genre (besides being a sapphic holiday romance, which is why I requested this in the first place) I'd recommend picking it up. It's like candy.

I loved the premise, second chance romance, small town, the uber cute cover and there was so much buzz about this. I wanted to love this book so much, however getting into it, the read didn’t quite match my expectations and by the looks of things, mine might be the unpopular view. 😞

Morgan ran away to the big city in LA and after working tirelessly for a event management firm lands in hot water because on an unexpected event that has her reputation in ruins.

The story is told from Morgan’s POV and right of the bat, you realize she is a bundle of anxiety, self doubt, low self esteem and a healthy dose of imposter syndrome. Now I’m all in for a good growth and self discovery journey, but I thought the narrative didn’t flesh this out properly. All of Morgan’s issues are resolved really quickly with a quick sorry from either side and it felt like all of the issues she’d been worried was overblown. All those moments felt like lost opportunities to show Morgan’s growth. I think the Rachel Reed character(the other MC) was more flushed out and I felt I could relate more to that character.

As the story progressed, I felt the narrative relied on a lot of cliched situations and the dialog at some points became a little cheesy-cringey. I love romance, especially sapphic romance but even though the setup was a classic hallmark Christmas romance, I just couldn’t get into it and I found myself wincing a lot towards the end.

As I said before, I’m probably holding the unpopular view here, but this book just didn’t work for me. 3.5⭐️S

Thank you NetGalley and Kensington Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was an extremely refreshing take on winter romances, which have always been owned by heterosexual couples. I was pleased to say that this book was 5 stars and an amazing read, cannot wait to see what else this author comes up with!

I loved the protagonists so much. I’m so glad we’re getting more sapphic rom coms.

They were both so great. I loved their background history and their chemistry, the love and support for one another, the angst, the push and pull, the sexual tension between them, everything was so well executed by the author. The characters were not perfect, they had their own struggles and obstacles they had to overcome before they came to the realization that they are better together than apart.

I’m so happy with how everything wrapped up at the end. It was such an enjoyable book. I hope the author continues to put out more stories like this!

Broken career dreams, your first broken heart, and a lost identity through family drama - get out your kleenex.

Morgan ran from home at 18 and has barely looked back. Working hard, barely taken a moment away while building her brand as a seller event planner 8n LA.

One night, a moment's indiscretion and her career is fodder for the LA paparazzi. Morgan returns to home, waiting for her loss of reputation to be yesterday's news.

Back home, Morgan faces the demons of her past - broken hearted first love, letting herself and others down - while attempting to redeem her 18 year old self she was and bringing her 25 year old self to the party for a win.

This book was like such a warm hug!!! So wholesome and heartwarming! I couldn't stop smiling!!

Both Morgan and Rachel are extremely likeable and a perfect match, I adored them together and was rooting for them from the beginning!! Second chance romance at its best! And oh my god, Ben and Adam were so cute! Really enjoyed all the side characters, the cast was perfect and the whole atmosphere of the small town was so well done.

I really liked the bi representation and I think many will see themselves in Morgan. We need more books like this! It was also quite steamy, so if you're into open door romance, this fits the bill. I totally understand why they call this a Hallmark-esque book because the vibessss!! It's such a sweet story with so perfectly crafted characters. I would recommend this to everyone and I can't wait to see what's up next for Courtney Kae.

Omg thissssss book is so adorable! In the Event of Love is so cozy and heart warming! It is chock full of Christmas cuteness and sappy romance, it is just perfect! I loved all of the characters. Everyone had great character development, and fantastic personalities. This book is just…… *chef’s kiss.* please do yourself a favor and READ IT!

Thank you to Netgalley and Kensington for an advance review copy in exchange for my honest review.

This was a fun read! I love a good second chance romance and think that Kae delivered here. I felt the yearning between Morgan and Rachel and enjoyed their journey to reconnection. Add in some great side characters like Ben and a cozy small town during the Holiday season, and we've got a good read.

Despite enjoying the tropes and the storyline of this book, I did feel like some of the writing was staggered and hard to follow, especially with the insertion of flashbacks. While I do enjoy steam, I think this story may have featured too generous a sprinkle.

All in all, a solid seasonal read with a town that I will gladly return to if Ben gets his own HEA!

FLEW through this excellent, incredible book. Tightly written, earnest, laugh-out-loud funny at several parts—one of the best page-turning sapphic books I've read in ages.

I adored all the characters and the atmosphere so much and I hope the author continues putting out more books like this!

Firstly, I’d like to say how much I adore this cover! It’s so lovely and I couldn’t stop staring at it while reading the book.

Secondly—this book! I was nervous because this has been an anticipated read of mine but I had no reason to be. I enjoyed the main characters and their relationships. Taylor does such a beautiful job curating these endearing and wonderful characters with seemingly real personalities and ambitions. I absolutely busted out laughing so many times! This book was so fun, witty and honest! And it warmed my heart to see such a fun light hearted novel about two women falling in love.

Any who, I AM SO HONORED I GOT THE CHANCE TO READ THIS NOVEL. It hooked me immediately and I love how much we focused on all the side characters as well.. I really enjoyed the storyline and wow my heart melted so many times.

I think this one even topped so many lgbt novels this month, and I can't wait to tell everyone to buy it when it's in stores or be annoyingly persistent about it when I’m at the library.

I adored all the characters and the atmosphere so much and I hope the author continues putting out more books like this!

There are not enough words to describe how much I love this book! I actually read it several months ago and I have not stopped thinking about it. The characters, the setting, the holiday vibes, the second chance tension and the STEAM! This book is off the charts good. Courtney has a fabulous voice and the wit and banter is top notch. I cannot wait to read what she comes up with next (no but seriously send it to me immediately please!).