Luke Grayson and Christie Harmon are united by an accident. Luke’s son, Ethan, has slipped on some ice and hit his head while on a play date and Christie is the attending physician in the emergency room supervising his exam. A frightened Luke is instantly smitten with and comforted by Christie, and his son is soon pretty fond of her too.
The pair conduct a gentle courtship over the holiday season, filled with self-doubt and concerns due to their past romantic foibles. Luke’s been divorced for five years and has not seen his ex in as much time, and Christie’s last relationship scarred her so badly it caused her to flee Tulsa for Cheyenne and an entirely new life. Can they overcome their difficulties to find a holly jolly romance? And will Christie trust Luke with the key to her frightening past?
Sometimes there’s nothing better than a nice love story about two good people falling in love. There’s something very cozy about When Snowflakes Fall; it’s like a Santa’s village of positive emotions, a blend that’s hard to resist.
Luke and Christie are decent, relatable, hardworking folks. Luke’s relationship with Ethan is adorable, and his relationship with his brother is gently familiar. Christie’s friendship with Shannon, a fellow nurse, is also wonderfully realized, and the union between Christie and Luke – forged from loneliness and from chemistry and compassion – manages to build in a lovely way even with the limited page count of a novella.
Wyatt is a very capable writer in general; her narrative is clear and emotionally involving, and it is easy to root for Luke and Christie’s lives to unite. The flow of the entire piece is beautiful and easy to get absorbed in, a high compliment for such a short piece of work. It also manages not to entirely be frothy Christmas fluff and give the audience a meaty message about letting go of self-recrimination and the ugliness of revenge porn.
So why the A-? I had a few problems with Christie’s tendency to self-blame; absolutely nothing about what happened to her is her fault and while it’s perhaps natural that someone who had been victimized as severely as she was might have some recrimination rolling around in her head, by the time her ex has gone to the lengths he does in the story I think she ought to be fully ready to blame him and not herself. But this is an acceptable character flaw in general; I just wish it hadn’t been used as a last-minute stopgap to keep Luke and Christie apart for a few more pages.
But that’s not enough to keep When Snowflakes Fall from being a lovely and worthwhile holiday treat. It’s as small as a snowflake and quick to consume as a brightly-decorated cookie, but it’s a sweet little nip into a kinder, more romantic reality, and left me wanting more of Ms. Wyatt’s prose.
Sensuality: Warm
Publication Date: 10/2016
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