The first audiobook romance I read was B.K. Borison’s “Lovelight Farms,” the first in a series of books revolving around a Christmas tree farm in a small Maryland town. The struggling farm’s owner, Stella, has applied for a $100,000 prize being awarded by social media influencer Evelyn St. James, who is looking for romantic tales to delight her audience. In her application, Stella makes the case that her story — running a Christmas tree farm with her boyfriend, Luka — is the perfect candidate for the most romantic of small businesses.
The only problem is that Luka isn’t her boyfriend, he’s just her best friend (on whom she’s had a bit of a crush for a long time). But with Evelyn on the property taking pictures and livecasting her adventures, Stella and Luka have to put on a good enough show to fool the world, the small town, and Evelyn.
What drew me into this story was the setting. Borison presents a richly-imagined small town full of quirky characters, all with their own back stories and interpersonal chemistry. It’s not surprising that there are more stories in the series set in Inglewild: once you settle into its cozy environs, you never want to leave.
The “friends to lovers” trope is a good one for a cozy romance. There’s an established relationship already between the main characters, and the mutual attraction that may be invisible to them is often quite clear to the reader, who is almost immediately rooting for them to get together. Borison plays with this desire to see Stella and Luka make a love connection by having the whole town in on their relationship, with a betting pool tracked at the local fire station and a phone tree where the residents swap gossip and innuendo. There are so many opportunites for Stella and Luka to connect throughout the book, thwarted by their own apprehension and misreadings, and each one propels the story.
It’s also the story of Stella learning how to ask for and accept help (the farm is struggling largely because she hasn’t tapped into the talents of the people who work there), and of Luka working through the loss of his father. The characters are richly realized, sometimes bristly and often sweet, and the little romantic flourishes (like Stella’s drawerful of the evergreen air fresheners that Luka has been leaving in easily-discovered hiding places since she bought the farm) are delightful.
As an introduction to contemporary romance, you really can’t go wrong with “Lovelight Farms”; and since there are at least three more books in the series, there’s no reason to leave Idlewild once you’ve settled in.