Review: "Christmas of White" by K.D. Elizabeth

Christmas of White by K.D. Elizabeth
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As with the previous book in this series, I had mixed feelings about "Christmas of White" by K.D. Elizabeth. I liked the story itself and found it to be generally well-written, but I wasn't a big fan of the main characters, Buck and Julia. In the beginning, Buck was super grumpy, and while I mostly liked that (grumpy heroes are my favorite kind!), there were several times when he came across as just plain mean. To his credit, Buck usually realized pretty quickly when he was wrong, apologized, and made an effort to change his behavior going forward. Also, Buck's concerns were generally valid and understandable, apart from his intense dislike of women based on a bad experience with only one (his ex-wife).

About halfway through the book, Buck's personality abruptly changed and he suddenly turned into Mr. Seductive when he decided that he owed it to his son, Cole, to try dating so that Cole wouldn't grow up to hate women too. This was apparently only a temporary personality shift, however, because Buck's anger was back in full force by the end of the book, when he started throwing temper tantrums and threatening everyone when he didn't get his way. Bottom line, I never quite figured Buck out; was he really the grump with a heart of gold the author seemed to want him to be, or was actually he a man with anger issues who needed professional help? It really could have gone either way IMO.

Buck's love interest, his son Cole's teacher Julia, wasn't much better. She was very pushy at times and seemed determined to tell Buck how to raise his son even after he clearly told her that he didn't want her advice. While she did have some good insight to offer, IMO she could have been nicer in her approach to the situation. Julia also seemed to have a martyr complex, which I found to be incredibly annoying. Her reasoning for breaking up with Buck near the end of the story didn't make much sense to me because it was based on things that could possibly happen in the future if other (far-fetched) scenarios came to pass, and it drove me crazy that she refused to talk to him about any of it. She subsequently changed her mind and decided that she wanted to be with Buck after all, so she went out and did several (kind of crazy) things to make that happen, again without talking to him. While I understand that Julia was used to handling things on her own, she really needed to learn how to communicate!

On the positive side, Julia and Buck's chemistry was excellent, and their attraction was obvious from the start. Further, Buck's son Cole was a very cute kid, and I enjoyed seeing the three of them come together as a family. Finally, it was nice to catch up with Jessica and Ethan, the main characters of the previous book in this series. I wasn't completely sold on their relationship by the end of their book, but they certainly seemed happy here, which I appreciated. They added some much-needed lightness and humor to what was at times a rather weighty story.

Overall, despite the aspects of this story that bothered me, I would recommend "Christmas of White" because of its enjoyable holiday feel and the cute family moments between Buck, Julia, and Cole. My favorite of the series remains book #1, however.

*Review copy provided by the author. All opinions expressed are my own.

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