Review: Christmas Angels: A Novel

Christmas Angels: A Novel by Nancy Naigle
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Unfortunately, I was very disappointed by Nancy Naigle's "Christmas Angels." I thought it would be a light, sweet Christmas romance, in the vein of a Debbie Macomber or Emily March novel. Instead, it turned out to be a cheesy, relatively boring story with annoying, underdeveloped characters and very little relationship development between the main characters, Liz and Matt.

I was annoyed by Liz in particular because she seemed to be living so much in the past and relying on "signs" to decide everything for her. She was so fixated on re-creating her grandparents' "perfect" life that she never really seemed to get a life of her own. I didn't feel like I got to know Liz very well outside of her relationship with her grandparents, either. For example, her divorce was mentioned a few times in passing, but there was zero detail or explanation to go along with it. It seems to me like that would have been an important part of her life, and might have helped explain why this project was so important to her. In addition, Liz's "friendship" with Dan didn't make any sense to me. On several occasions, she went out of her way to say how much she "treasures" it, but constantly complained about how everything was always about him, and that Dan was selfish, didn't support her, etc. If that's the case, why would she be friends with him in the first place? His character didn't seem to serve much purpose in the story anyway, other than to create unnecessary drama.

I didn't feel like I got to know Matt very well, either. For example, it's mentioned a few times that he's an architect, and I think it was also mentioned that he's based in Chicago, but I was very confused about how he was able to take so much time off to spend working on the renovations to Liz's house in North Carolina. Is he self-employed? Further, I found it to be incredibly cheesy that Matt's first reaction upon seeing Liz was to say to his friends, "She's the woman I'm going to marry." I don't understand how he could possibly have known exactly who Liz was based on just her first name, and then, knowing nothing else about her, decide that he was going to marry her. After so much time had passed, her personality and interests could have been completely different from those of the girl he once knew.

Additionally, there were a number of plot points that didn't really make sense to me. For example, why would Liz take the rest of the year off to fix up the house when it was supposed to be about 30 days before it would be legally hers? It would be stupid to start working on the house before then in case the sale fell through. (Of course, she bought it sight unseen, so she already didn't seem like the brightest bulb.) Further, after her fall in the woods, Liz started worrying about not having liability insurance, and interpreted that as one of the "signs" that she wasn't meant to re-open the lodge after all. Almost immediately after that, however, she decided to allow a strange couple (with a small child, no less!) to stay on the property, which was a giant construction site complete with an open trench. Again, that doesn't seem very smart to me if one is trying to avoid liability issues.

Finally, I hated the "big misunderstanding" between Liz and Matt at the end of the book. It seemed stupid and unnecessary to me, and like the author felt a need to create drama for drama's sake. What bothered me the most about it was that it didn't even make sense for Matt to believe the rumor. He knew Liz's long-term plans and that she was about to hire a caretaker for the property, so why would she also be planning to sell the lodge?

Bottom line, this book just didn't work for me. It could have been interesting given the HGTV-like elements involved in fixing up an old house, but IMO the annoying, underdeveloped characters and weak plot overshadowed all of that.

*ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are my own.

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