The Christmas Tree Farm Review

The Christmas Tree Farm by Laurie Gilmore

I gave The Christmas Tree Farm by Laurie Gilmore 2.75 stars, and honestly that rating might be a little generous.

I absolutely loved The Pumpkin Spice Café, which is what hooked me into this series in the first place. It had the cozy, small-town charm I was hoping for, and it left me excited to keep going. My mom even bought me the rest of the series for Christmas because of how much I enjoyed the first book. Unfortunately, with each book the increase in spice and vulgarity has made the series less enjoyable for me, and this installment really pushed that feeling even further.

I wanted to like Kira, but I really struggled with her character. She’s clearly meant to be the grumpy heroine, but somewhere along the way grumpy just turned into mean. Instead of coming across as guarded or misunderstood, she often felt unnecessarily harsh, which made it difficult to root for her. Her insistence that she needed to live like a hermit also felt strange and a little forced. Adding to that, her backstory as a Southern debutante didn’t feel believable when compared with the personality we actually see on the page. The two versions of her character just didn’t line up very well.

Bennett was another disappointment for me. I really wanted to love him because I adored his sister in earlier books, but his constant hero complex was hard to get past. At times it felt like he was going out of his way to be helpful to the point of being cringey rather than charming. What could have been sweet often felt over-the-top.

The romance itself also took a direction that didn’t work for me. The shift in Bennett’s character once the relationship turned physical felt jarring and uncomfortable, and the dynamic between them in those moments didn’t match the tone I had been expecting from the series.

There were still a few moments of humor scattered throughout the book that made me laugh, and the small-town setting still has potential, but overall this installment just didn’t capture the cozy magic that drew me into the series in the first place.

At this point, I’m honestly feeling a little hesitant about continuing, but I do plan to finish the series. I’m really hoping the later books find their way back to the charm that made the first one so enjoyable.