Girl is stranded away from home, boy takes her home to spend holidays with his family, they fall in love, but have to deal with careers and relocation before they can live happily ever after. That is basically the plot of Feliz Navidad, with about 200 pages of minutiae added to fill up the rest of the book.

Rebecca Garcia is looking forward to Christmas Eve celebrations, or Noche Buena, with her family in Miami. She is, however, about to be made a partner at her law firm, RLL, and that hinges on Rebecca closing a deal with a firm in New York. She travels to the Big Apple hoping to be done in time to return to Miami, but the weather seems to be conspiring against her. Then again, now that Rebecca’s met the very sexy opposing counsel, Raul Santos, maybe all is not lost.

The deal to be made involves some very up-to-the-minute issues in biotechnology, and just as Rebecca is close to making a deal with the company Raul is representing, her boss at RLL throws in a last-minute monkey wrench which forces further negotiations. Rebecca and Raul struggle to behave professionally as they deal with their mutual attraction and their business endeavors. When it’s clear that the weather has made it impossible for Rebecca to go back to Miami, Raul asks her to celebrate with his family. Too soon, however, the weather changes and Rebecca can go back home, only to find out that what she has wished for all along may not be what she really wants anymore.

I mentioned minutiae at the beginning of this review, and let me explain a little. If you’ve never stayed at a hotel before, this is the book for you, there is a whole chapter practically devoted to what a business traveler does in a room. I’ve made business trips, too, from a similar warm location to a below freezing East Coast, and I honestly don’t remember them being so boring. Similarly, there is plenty of Fodor’s style information about New York City. Please don’t think I’m heartless, I started out enjoying being able to read about a fantasy Manhattan where terrorist attacks haven’t occurred, but all the details got a little tiresome as the book went on.

The relationship between Rebecca and Raul progresses nicely, and despite the number of relatives we have to get acquainted with in a short period of time, the family scenes are warmly depicted. The scenes between Rebecca and her colleagues are a little strained, but otherwise we get a nice sense of the other two characters.

Despite the nice touches, this was another Encanto that never quite rose above average. As much as I’d been looking forward to a romance line for Latinos, the offerings here, for the most part, have not fulfilled expectations.