Hallmark Movie Roundup: The Weekend of Hallmark Movies

A friend and I got an Airbnb for the weekend and pretty much spent the entire time just watching Hallmark movies (and snacking). It was glorious and I highly recommend it to everyone. I don't have the energy to do full posts about each movies, but obviously I must share some thoughts.

For Love & Honey (2024): Andrew Walker is an archaeology professor in Malta, looking for something mentioned in an old manuscript. The treasure is bees, which he discovers with the help of a local beekeeper who runs a successful apiary. Whatever money the Malta tourism board paid for this movie was well worth it; Malta looked gorgeous. And Andrew Walker looks hot in sunglasses, so it's a win-win.
Dead Mother: Yes 

The Magic of Lemon Drops (2024): Lolly works at a restaurant with her father, who won't let her alter the menu in literally any way. Her aunt, who is #LifeGoals, gives Lolly four magic lemon drops--she can use three to see what her life could be and the fourth to choose to stay in one of those lives. The moral of this story is that if you manage to save one of your parents by a wish, the other will be dead in the alternate timeline. I appreciate that she rejected one timeline because it meant stifling her love interest's goals. That said, the logistics of the movie were confusing (the love interest worked for the Columbus Blue Jackets but was moving to a "cottage" in upstate Michigan). 
Dead Mother: Yes

The Snow Must Go On (2025): Isaiah had starred in an original Broadway production unspecified years ago, but he's now down on his luck, so agrees to spend Christmas with his sister and niece upstate...and then agrees to write and direct his niece's Christmas pageant in hopes of catching the eye of a Broadway producer. I kept going back and forth on whether I thought Isaiah was the worst and they dropped a subplot with a kid that I thought was going somewhere, but they did hire an actual Broadway actor and allowed him to sing.
Dead Mother: It probably mentioned the siblings' parents, but I don't remember the details. I'll just assume dead. Or retired in Florida. But probably dead.

Beverly Lewis' The Reckoning (2015): It turned out this was the third movie in a trilogy, but we just powered through. Katie/Katherine was raised Amish, fell in love with Daniel, was supposed to marry a bishop but didn't after she thought Daniel died, found her (non-Amish) birth mother, inherited her mother's many money and huge house, got shunned from the Amish, and is now running a charitable foundation with boyfriend Justin...when Daniel returns from the dead. This movie was nuts and Katie just needed a lot of therapy and to choose herself, but naturally that isn't what happened, even though Daniel came off as a creepy, incel stalker. Also, her household staff were probably a bit too overly involved in her life.
Dead Mother: Yes

Cozy Hallmark-watching vibes.

The Professional Bridesmaid (2023): Maggie is a professional bridesmaid (do we ever learn how she became one? No. Did it bother me the whole time? Yes. At least in Stacy Birchall's The Secret Bridesmaid, you get the full backstory) who gets hired to be a bridesmaid for the daughter of the mayor of Columbus, so she has to juggle fairly normal professional bridesmaid stuff with trying to keep a reporter covering the wedding from questioning the mayor about his views on a proposed condo development. Honestly pretty cute and enjoyable except for my annoyance at not having her backstory and the usual annoyance at writers not really thinking about what scaling her business would actually look like.
Dead Mother: Yes

Blind Date Book Club (2024): Meg runs a bookstore on Nantucket that's become known for doing a book club that uses that "wrapped in brown paper so you don't know the title, just a pithy description" method. Again, we have no idea what the logistics of this are--it honestly makes no sense how it's presented in the movie--and they also somehow seem to have multiple book clubs a week, and those book clubs involved free food and alcohol and activities like flower arranging or painting. Anyway, she's featured on NPR and YA bestselling author Graham Sterling decides to try to get the club to read his new book, which is a historical romance. I quite liked the discussion of what makes a book successful, and Meg was able to point to Graham why his books worked even though she herself wasn't particularly a fan. Also, Meg is debating whether she actually wants to run the bookstore; she was good at selling real estate in Boston, and she enjoyed it. I mean, obviously she's going to keep the bookstore on Nantucket, but the movie made her questioning believable. My other quibble is how much they were outside in a Nantucket winter.
Dead Mother: Yes

The Wedding Cottage (2023): Vanessa runs a wedding...guide...website...thing? and has published a wedding guidebook. To promote her site/service/thing, her company has a contest for a free wedding; the winners want to have their wedding a cottage in Vermont that has hosted weddings for generations. Only problem is that it closed 5 years ago, and the current owner, Evan, a Fancy New York Artist Who's Hiding, has let it go to pot and has no interest in reopening. But naturally he does. The Vermont location was cute, the third-act conflict was annoying, and the vagueness of what Vanessa's business actually is was beyond frustrating. Too twee, all around.
Dead Mother: Unclear, but since Evan inherited the cottage from his grandparents, I can only assume his parents are dead

3 Bed, 2 Bath, 1 Ghost (2023): Anna and Elliot broke up and dissolved their business, so now Anna is trying to be a real estate agent in her dad's agency while Elliot works to get a local building designated as being historic. Anna's first listing is a 100-year-old house that's been uninhabited since the 1950s and is haunted by the owners' daughter, Ruby, who died in 1923. The relationship between Ruby and Anna was honestly fun, but Anna was frustrating to watch. It's clear she shouldn't be a real estate agent, but it isn't clear what she should be, and I get that's how life is for a lot of people, but I don't really feel the movie handled her journey well. Elliot was great, though.
Dead Mother:Again, I can only assume. Anna's mother isn't around and wasn't mentioned that I remember.

The Wish Swap (2025): Casey and Henry have the same birthday; at a restaurant, they wind up blowing out their birthday candles into each other's faces and then the other's birthday wish comes true...for them. So Casey, an executive recruiter, winds up inheriting a farm (with goats!), while Henry gets cast on a television dancing competition. Kudos for executing the set-up; they quickly realize what's happened and Casey having Henry run the inherited farm and Henry agrees to partner with Casey. The dancing contest premise doesn't really make sense, nor does the timeline, nor do some of the details of Casey's job (and the distances between places and also where is the dancing show filed?), but it was cute. I may have been swayed by the choreographed dances.
Dead Mother: Yes

Netflix's show about President Garfield is Lightning in a bottle

I've spent the last 10 years recommending Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard to people, particularly when I'm volunteering at Ford's Theatre. Most people don't know anything about President James A. Garfield, much less about his assassin; before reading that book, I only really knew what I had learned from Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell and the musical Assassins. The book is fantastic; go read it.

So naturally I was VERY excited when I saw that Netflix was released a limited-run series based on it, titled Death by Lightning (from a letter written by Garfield, in which he noted that "Assassination can no more be guarded against than death by lightning"), and prayed that it would be better than Apple TV's Manhunt. Of course, being much less versed in Garfield assassination lore than in Lincoln, I knew I wouldn't be turning quite the same critical eye on it--particularly since it has been almost 10 years since I read the book.

Matthew Macfadyen (Charles Guiteau) and Michael Shannon (James Garfield). (Larry Horicks/Netflix)

I was struck that, like Manhunt, the tv adaptation told a pretty different story than the book did. There's maybe 40 minutes left in the series when Charles Guiteau shoots President Garfield, which seems like an odd choice, because one of the remarkable things about the Garfield assassination is how very long it took Garfield to die (more than 2 months). Another fascinating piece is the Guiteau trial, one of the first major trials where it looked like the insanity defense could come into play.

One of the biggest things I remember from Destiny is the involvement of Alexander Graham Bell--his history, his inventions, his motivation to try to help find the bullet lodged inside of the President. In Lightning, he's basically a cameo.

I do wish the show had spent more time after the shooting. But the story the show wanted to tell was, for some reason, the clash between Garfield and Roscoe Conkling. It makes some sense, in today's world, to want to tell the story of Garfield, who seems to have been an excellent person, fighting the political machine and winning. If there's a takeaway from this story, it's that the spoils system is bad. And especially right now, it's good that people (a) learn what the spoils system is and (b) learn that it's bad.

The show does a good job of weaving Guiteau through the story. We only get flashes of his life before 1880, but it's enough. Macfadyen's portrayal is pretty much exactly as I've picture Charles Guiteau--enthusiastic and off-putting and sometimes charming but a bit strange. It's truly a fantastic performance. The flashes of anger, of betrayal; his convictions; the way he writes his story in his head, it's all there. There are moments when you feel bad for him, but then he goes and does something and you're out.

Honestly, the entire cast is fantastic. There's a lot of great performances, including Michael Shannon as Garfield, Nick Offerman as Chester Arthur (and I feel like Arthur historians undoubtedly were yelling at their televisions throughout the show; I know virtually nothing about the man and still feel like liberties were clearly taken with his story), Bradley Whitford as James Blaine, Betty Gilpin as Lucretia Garfield. Like, yes, thank you, I do want to watch Josh Lyman and Ron Swanson go at it! And when Gilpin's Crete confronts Macfadyen's Guiteau while he's in jail...that scene was amazing. I'm sure it never happened, but I don't care. 

Do I wish the show reflected Millard's book better? Absolutely. Do I plan on recommending it to anyone and everyone, particularly when I'm volunteering at Ford's Theatre? Also yes. Seriously, go watch this show; it's only four episodes and is well worth your time. 

On change and book-tracking

In which you get to work through my thought process with me. 

Like many others, I'm trying to use Amazon less. For a long time, my line in the sand in buying stuff from Amazon was books; as someone who works in publishing, and who deals with the fulfillment and distribution side of it, I know how bad Amazon is for publishers. (And just to work with, in general, from that side. Ugh! My go-to answer for "What's the least favorite part of your job?" in interviews has been "Dealing with Amazon," and it pretty much always gets a knowing laugh.)

But there's a book-related entity that's owned by Amazon that I use regularly and keep trying to ignore its ownership: Goodreads. I joined Goodreads in 2010, three years before its purchase by Amazon. And it's always had its controversies, but still. At some point I got bored and inputted my reading history, going back to 2004. 

There are alternatives, I know, the most prominent being The StoryGraph, which I try not to judge too much for the "The" in its name. (I'm sure it was so they could get the web domain or some other valid reason.) I tried to do StoryGraph maybe a year or so ago. I ported over all my data, so I wouldn't lose everything. But I just find it incredibly not user-friendly. Some of that undoubtedly is my own resistance to change.

I admit I like re-reading the reviews I've written for books; someone mentions a book and I'm like, "Oh, I've read that! What did I think about it?" (which is why I write reviews for pretty much everything I read nowadays; I'm mad at my past self for not writing down my thoughts and now I don't remember anything about the book). On Goodreads, if I pull up a book that I've written a review of, it pops right up, followed by reviews from other people.

On StoryGraph, the review is there. You just have to hunt for it.

And I'm sure I'd get used to clicking on the little "see review" in the upper right. It's just that I'd rather see that--or others' comments on the book--than what they actually have on the main page:

I...do not particularly care about any of that. Or, I do, but I definitely will not consult StoryGraph when I'm figuring out what to read, though I'm sure many do. There are times when I'm more in the mood for plot-driven than character-driven, and I'm sure rating this kind of thing is helpful for many other readers. It really comes down to wishing that I could customize the page. 

I'm also annoyed that if I go to thestorygraph.com on my browser, it assumes I'm not logged in, so I sign in--in a new window--and it's all, "You're already signed it." Dude, I know. I just need to learn to go to app.thestorygraph.com.

That said, even just playing around on the site has gotten me more familiar with how it works, which is good. I also quite like the Stats page they have and that you can give books half (or quarter!) stars. 

Honestly, the biggest hurdle to totally switching is that pretty much all my friends are on Goodreads. I like seeing what they're reading and reading their reviews. Right now I only have one friend on Storygraph; I guess if you want to join there, feel free to friend me--my handle there is @editbarb. We can all see whether I get bored enough to load the books I've read since...um, November 2024. Sigh. And then stay active.

It's also interesting seeing what other options are out there. For example, NetGalley, which I sometimes use to get advance reader copies of books, has launched Booktrovert. They aren't really going for the same vibe; they're less about tracking books and more about discovering books through giveaways or sweepstakes, getting preorder offers, actually reading books through their platform, playing games, participating in reading challenges, and that kind of thing (per their "About" page). You can track books there (and categorize them in "Stacks"), but it doesn't look like you can even rate them, much less write reviews.

It is kind of neat. I'm always pro offers of free books, and you can create cute virtual bookshelves and do bingo cards for reading challenges. They also have book-related merch, which is also fun. It's probably smart of them to not challenge Goodreads in the book tracking sector but instead offer something adjacent with the reach they have of NetGalley. 

There are other sites/apps, too, like Fable, Bookmory (seems to be app-only), Hardcover, LibraryThing, Bookwyrm, Bookly, and more. It's enough to make me wish I had the energy to evaluate all of them to see what matches best for what I want.

Though as I said, one of the biggest drawbacks to leaving Goodreads would be losing my friends there. I could always just keep getting the Goodreads emails to see what people are up to...we'll see. 

Booktok pick not hitting for me

⭐⭐⭐

I don't believe I've read romantasy before, not even going back to The Mists of Avalon or Mercedes Lackey; I'm not huge into fantasy, really, but the concept for Assistant to the Villain looked cute and the series was on my sister's shelf when I visited, so it was easy enough to borrow.

The premise of the book is good: Evie Sage winds up working as the executive assistant for The Villain (whose real name we learn thankfully early in the book) through Circumstances. This is a world where many people, though not all, have magical powers; there are dragons and other creatures and kings and sort of a standard fantasy set-up. The plot ultimately becomes Evie and the Villain trying to figure out who's betraying him and wreaking havoc at Mayhem Manor (or whatever the actual name for his place is; it's something like that).

The book took a while to get going, but once we got more into the plot about the spy and things happening there, it picked up and I got invested. I enjoyed the various people who worked for the Villain and the details of their jobs and what working for a fantasy villain entails.

However. Evie is clearly meant to be endearing, but it's in that "Blurts out inappropriate things and then babbles" way; when she's not doing that, she's fine, in a too-perfect way. I really just needed the book to cut, like, 80% of Evie and the Villain thinking about each other and how much they like each other and "Stop thinking about your boss that way, Evie!" internal thoughts, etc., etc. The Villain himself was pretty interesting, but his backstory...just did NOT work for me. Or, at least, the details of it didn't; its general arc made sense.

The actual plot itself is pretty good, but the book just took too long to get going and honestly, the writing isn't great. I'll still read at least the next book in the series--this one ends in a cliffhanger--and I'll see how I feel after that.

Hallmark Movie Roundup: Twelve Dates 'Til Christmas

Title: Twelve Dates 'Til Christmas (2025)

Actor(s) You Know:
Mae Whitman (Parenthood, Arrested Development, Independence Day), Jane Seymour (Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman;  The Scarlet Pimpernel)

Plot:
Kate is an American who lives in a cute English village and was traumatized by her mother leaving her father when she was a teenager. She works in textiles in London and is single enough that her friends sign her up for a "12 Dates of Christmas" service. Based on a Jenny Bayliss book that I read a few years ago, enjoyed, and remembered little of except who Kate winds up with.

Trope(s):
    Royalty
    Alternate reality
    Small town ✔
    Fake relationship
    Family business getting sold/going bankrupt
    Enemies-to-lovers
    Best friends-to-lovers ✔
    Second chance ✔
    Stranded ✔

Meet Cute: 
Kate has a few in the series, but the primary one is with Richard, who was supposed to be Date #1 but couldn't make it. The other primary love interest is Callum, one of Kate's best friends. They kissed once as teenagers, but nothing came of it.

Rundown:
    Dead parents
    Montage(s)
    Christmas-related name(s) 
    Animals
    Returns to hometown
    Is Santa a character? 
        Secretly or overtly?
    Cookie baking 
    Tree decorating
    Somebody hates Christmas
    Christmas festival in a small town 
    A literal competition
    Child plays matchmaker
    All work, no romance/life
    Kiss before the end of the movie ✔
    Interrupted kiss ✔
    Flashback to childhood ✔
    The leads literally run into each other
    Gratuitous shirtless scene
    Big Secret
    Wacky misunderstanding
    Just. Talk. To. Each. Other. ✔
    Someone pushing the leads together ✔
    Real family = chaos / bad families = cold and not chaotic
    Learns the meaning of Christmas
    Stranded by snowstorm
    Hot chocolate 
    Ice skating
    D-list celebrity ✔
    Enemy-to-friend storyline
    The love interest is an ex
    Career change
    Lying to each other
    Tries to apologize, but keeps getting cut off
    Christmas pageant 
    End with a flash-forward

Did I actually like/root for the heroine? How do the lead(s) annoy me?
Kate was frustratingly believable. She has a hard time trusting people after her mother left her father. At times I got annoyed with her for her self-involvement but I generally understood where she was coming from. She ultimately was a lot more understanding toward her mother than I probably would've been in her situation.

Is it in any way not completely generic? 
Well, it is a (limited) series, so there was a lot more depth than what we get in a normal movie. Kate's father's relationship with Jane Seymour was also given a lot of space, and there was also a decent amount about Kate's career that I don't remember being in the book at all. Callum also has a bit of an arc with his pub/restaurant/bakery, as does other best friend Laura.

It still ends up exactly as you'd expect, though. 

Is the BFF actually the best? Do they need their own movie?
I loved how supportive Laura's husband was; their relationship was super cute. I actually totally would watch a movie/show about Laura after the end of this show.

How is the romantic alternative wrong for the heroine? 
I really liked that I found Richard to be a solid option for Kate for the vast majority of the series; I was actually a bit annoyed at his portrayal in the last episode because it didn't match up for me with his actions in the rest of the series. And I wish the Kate/Callum relationship was handled differently. I'm always a sucker for best-friend-turned-lover, and God knows I have my own issues with thinking people should be able to read my mind and act accordingly, but Callum's attitude and behavior was pretty off-putting. I was honestly rooting for Richard for most of the series, and wish the last episode had been rewritten to strengthen the reconciliation of Kate and Callum.

Thoughts/Other Notes:
I quite enjoyed this. I liked the book, and I liked the series. Opinion on Hallmark Movie Reddit seems mixed, largely because it doesn't entirely feel like a Hallmark production. It was a good binge watch for the end of the year for me. 

I do also kind of wish they had spent more time in Blexford. In the book, Kate only goes to London occasionally, where the series is very much split between the two (to the point that I joked to my husband that the series was produced by British Transport, given the amount of time spent on trains). And I also appreciated, as in the book, the variety of dates the service sets up.  

Rating:
🧀🧀🧀🧀

Another in the "Don't Read While Hungry" series: Trigger warning for rugelach

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I quite enjoyed The Matzah Ball, by Jean Meltzer. Rachel is the daughter of a prominent rabbi and a doctor, has myalgic encephalomyelitis (a.k.a. chronic fatigue syndrome), and is in love with Christmas--to the extent that she makes her living as a Christmas romance novelist. She's told she needs to write a Hanukkah book, though, so she determines that she needs to attend the Matzah Ball, a party being thrown on the eighth night of Hanukkah by Jacob, who was her camp boyfriend when they were 10 years old.

Having read a bunch of holiday-themed rom coms lately, I particularly appreciated that both Rachel and Jacob are flawed. (And I really appreciated that the book does include both POVs.) A misunderstanding at camp affected both of them, but it's not like they've spent the last 20 years pining for the other. Jacob has issues from his upbringing and Rachel is pretty self-absorbed. The two of them together were good, though.

I also enjoyed getting a look at the life of more observant Jews; the description of the Shabbat where Jacob visits Rachel's parents, particularly, was illuminating. It brought me back to 2002, when I wound up booking a hotel in a quite Jewish neighborhood, staying on a Saturday night. (There was...not much available. Also, the elevators stopped on every floor!) I also found the discussion of Hanukkah interesting--how it is a minor holiday, but the characters brought their own depths and perceptions to it. And characters run the gamut from very observant to less; it all felt very inclusive and realistic.

A big highlight for me was Jacob's journey and him coming to terms with his past and family issues. He's truly more than just the love interest in the book; he has his own arc and adorable, supportive bubbe.

Recommend for a good late-year read. 

Yes, my friends and I have Hallmark bingo cards. And ours are correct.

⭐⭐⭐ 

My opinion of It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas kept changing while I read it; I started out skeptical, grew to enjoy it, then got a bit annoyed with it again at the end. It's probably more of a 3.5, but I can't bring myself to round up to 4 stars.

Mally works in internal communications, but for various plot reasons, winds up being told to write a feature piece for the website she works for--she's a big fan of Hallmark-type Christmas movies, so is sent out to experience Christmas in a village and see how many tropes she can check off her list. But lurking beneath this light concept is the heart of the story, which is that Mally returns to her hometown for the first time since the death of her younger sister when Mally was away at uni.

I appreciated that author Hayley Dunlop didn't have Mally realize that Hallmark movies are bad; instead, Mally comes to understand why exactly people keep going back to them--the focus on family and community, the predictability that allows people to feel safe in a world of chaos and uncertainty. She finds comfort in them, she bonds with others over them. They're good!

I also mostly liked Mally relationship with Tom, her high school crush. Naturally it turns out that he had also had a crush on her. He winds up falling into the "too perfect" characterization that so often happens in these books, but the two of them did have really good chemistry. They were adorable.

(Also, oddly enough, this is the second book in a row that I've read where the male lead's father left the mother because the mother had MS.)

Mally's growth in her hometown is good. It was nice seeing her reconnect and her journey to begin to grapple with her sister's death 20 years earlier was well done. The whole family basically shut down after Livvie's death, which is wholly believable, and I liked how Mally started to reconsider their reactions, confront what had happened, and reevaluate. I particularly liked how Mally wasn't the only one who felt guilt about what happened.

I think my problems with the book largely revolve around the treatment of Elle, Mally's best friend. One of the tropes on Mally's bingo card (linked here) is "Annoying best friend," which is honestly opposite of what's on my own personal Hallmark bingo card--I tend to think of the friends in the movies being way cooler than the leads, and I have more than once wound up rooting for them. (Mally's bingo card, in general, is very different from my own list of tropes, which may have also colored my reaction to this book.) Elle moved in next door when Mally was in Year 9, I think, making her somewhere in her early teens. She does honestly seem like she was awful as a teenager, and Mally winds up coming to a fairly nuanced view of her, but others' perceptions--and her depiction late in the book--make me wonder what we're supposed to think of her, and how she affected Mally.

There is a lot of nuance in this book, which is a good thing. But it didn't quite hit the right notes for me. But still worth a read, I think. (Plus the writing was a bit clunky at times.)

Hallmark Movie Roundup: Three Wisest Men

Title: Three Wisest Men (2025)

Actor(s) You Know: 
My Boyfriend Paul Campbell, Tyler Hynes, Andrew Walker (all three from a million Hallmark movies), Lochlyn Munro (Lucky 7), Margaret Colin (Independence Day)

Plot:  
This is the last entry in the Hallmark Wise Men trilogy about the Brenner brothers: Stephan (Campbell), Taylor (Hynes), and Luke (Walker). Stephan is overthinking wedding decisions for his upcoming nuptials, Luke's wife is pregnant with twins, and Taylor has been offered a job in San Francisco. Plus, their mother wants to sell the family home.

Trope(s):
    Royalty
    Alternate reality
    Small town 
    Fake relationship
    Family business getting sold/going bankrupt
    Enemies-to-lovers
    Best friends-to-lovers
    Second chance
    Stranded

Meet Cute: 
n/a

Rundown:
    Dead parents
    Montage(s)
    Christmas-related name(s) 
    Animals
    Returns to hometown
    Is Santa a character? 
        Secretly or overtly?
    Cookie baking 
    Tree decorating
    Somebody hates Christmas
    Christmas festival in a small town 
    A literal competition
    Child plays matchmaker
    All work, no romance/life
    Kiss before the end of the movie
    Interrupted kiss 
    Flashback to childhood
    The leads literally run into each other
    Gratuitous shirtless scene
    Big Secret
    Wacky misunderstanding ✔
    Just. Talk. To. Each. Other. ✔
    Someone pushing the leads together 
    Real family = chaos / bad families = cold and not chaotic
    Learns the meaning of Christmas
    Stranded by snowstorm
    Hot chocolate 
    Ice skating
    D-list celebrity
    Enemy-to-friend storyline
    The love interest is an ex
    Career change
    Lying to each other
    Tries to apologize, but keeps getting cut off
    Christmas pageant 
    End with a flash-forward

Did I actually like/root for the heroine? How do the lead(s) annoy me?
I wasn't too bothered by any of the brothers, particularly. I did get annoyed at their various love interests for not understanding pretty basic stuff. When Stephan's father-in-law-to-be Bob shows up uninvited,  fiancée Susie takes her dad's side on everything; she's clearly annoyed at how wedding planning is going, which shouldn't be a surprise for her--Stephan's indecisiveness is one of his key character traits. Bob is awful and Susie should apologize to Stephan.

(Also, side note, Bob is played by Lochlyn Munro, who played one of Patrick Dempsey's friends in Lucky 7, which is an AMAZING MOVIE. Anyway, he is only thirteen years older than My Boyfriend Paul Campbell, and I kept being upset by this throughout the movie.)

Meanwhile, Taylor's girlfriend doesn't understand why he doesn't immediately leap at a job offer he's given; she's convinced that he might be hesitant about their relationship when it's clear that the issue involves moving from Seattle to San Francisco. This is a man who lives in his mother's (very nice) basement. 

Is it in any way not completely generic? 
This is very much not a generic movie--it focuses on family, and it's the third in a trilogy (and yes, we did have issues only vaguely remembering details from the first two movies). Christmas is very much a theme, with trying to make this the Best Christmas Ever Before Everything Changes, but there's a signature zaniness to the series that's absent in the generic Hallmark Christmas movie.

Is the BFF actually the best? Do they need their own movie?
n/a

How is the romantic alternative wrong for the heroine? 
n/a

Thoughts/Other Notes:
A cute end to the trilogy. Campbell, Walker, and Hynes are the key to the series and they really are a delight; they do give off brother energy. If you like any of the leads, you'll probably like the movie. 

Rating:
🧀🧀🧀

A slightly imperfect production of the perfect musical

Guys and Dolls is the show that got me into theater. I mean, yes, I did also grow up listening to a compilation of Andrew Lloyd Webber shows, so the groundwork had been laid. I just remember attending an assembly in elementary school where the high schoolers came in and performed a bit from Guys and Dolls. Someone explained how choreography was done in counts of 8, using "The Crapshooters' Dance" to illustrate. I was hooked. So I am always delighted to see it performed, and the current production at Shakespeare more than does it justice. 

Guys and Dolls is frequently called a perfect (or almost perfect) musical. It's set in the...1950s? I guess? (it premiered on Broadway in 1950, but is based on stories written by Damon Runyon in the 1920s and 30s) and is mostly about gamblers and one particular do-gooder who's trying to reform them. When Nathan Detroit (Rob Colletti), who runs a craps game, bets Sky Masterson (Jacob Dickey) that he can't take Sarah Brown (who works for the local mission) to Havana, hijinks involving wonderful singing and dancing ensue.

I do have some quibbles with this production. It was directed by Washington National Opera Artistic Director Francesca Zambello, who made some choices. The primary set is the Save-A-Soul Mission, and the show starts with it as a modern-day thrift shop. The other actors come in wearing modern attire and change into their flashier character attire, but Sarah (Julie Benko) starts and remains in costume. In the program notes, Zambello notes that "by introducing Sarah in a recognizable contemporary setting, we hoped to give her character a bit more gravitas" and that the idea of "haves and have nots" remains resonant and how she wants to "acknowledge . . . the reality of the wealth gap." I appreciate that Zambello doesn't want Sarah and the others at the mission to appear to be "cartoony do-gooders," but I think the show does that well enough on its own. The show isn't about the wealth gap or haves and have nots; the whole premise came off to me a bit awkwardly. (I will say that it came together nicely at the end.)

Particularly, honestly, because Benko does an amazing job with Sarah. Her voice, of course, is lovely, and I could see why people enjoyed her in Funny Girl--her comedic chops are on point. Actresses playing Sarah have to walk a fine line to avoid being that cartoony do-gooder Zambello mentions; she can't be too uptight, the audience needs to sympathize with her and her frustration at her own inability to connect with people. Sarah goes on a journey--moreso than any other characters--but the role itself isn't showy. Benko knocks it out of the park.

Hayley Podschun and Julie Benko in Guys and Dolls at Shakespeare Theatre Company. Photo by Teresa Castracane Photography.

Hayley Podschun's Miss Adelaide, engaged for 14 years to Nathan Detroit and working as a showgirl, is another standout. Unlike Sarah Brown, Miss Adelaide is always going to be a fun role whom the audience loves and "Adelaide's Lament" is always a highlight of the show. Even so, Podschun shines, finding both the brashness and vulnerability in the role.

The other real standouts for me are Calvin McCullough and Kyle Taylor Parker as Benny Southstreet and Nicely-Nicely Johnson, Nathan's sidekicks. I was always delighted to find them on the stage; "Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat" is, again, always guaranteed to bring down the house (this show is FULL of bangers, folks; you're missing out if you don't know it), but the two of them together are an absolute delight.

Dickey makes a perfectly fine Sky Masterson--charming, suave, great vocals. Unfortunately, I was a bit let down by Colletti's Nathan Detroit. I mean, he's fine, but doesn't quite project the likeability necessary for the role. This is a guy who's been engaged for 14 years with no plans for marriage, who runs an illegal craps game, who lies to his fiancée about said craps game, but you still enjoy him. Colletti comes across as just a touch too unsympathetically. I'm still rooting for Nathan, of course, but not as much as I do in other productions. 

My other quibble with the show is that it doesn't lean into the particular Runyonese of the show. There's a cadence to the dialogue, due in part to the fact that Damon Runyon does not use contractions in his writing. There's a flow to how the book actually sounds that I felt was lacking. Similar to the way I wind up thinking like Bridget Jones after reading or watching Bridget Jones's Diary, my brain shifts slightly after seeing Guys and Dolls into that voice.

This review is coming across as more negative than it should, I think. This production is still absolutely worth attending; I have plans to usher for it a couple more times and I am absolutely delighted at the prospect. Even with some minor complaints, it's hard to do Guys and Dolls wrong. I'm thrilled to see a major production of it staged. 

Hygge yes to this snowmance

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⭐⭐⭐⭐

A Copenhagen Snowmance is quite good; good enough that it makes me want to seek out author Pernille Hughes's other books.

Anna lives in London, but needs to pop over to Copenhagen to pick up her cat's ashes; she had left town abruptly a year-and-a-half earlier. Unfortunately, she finds herself in a Snowmageddon situation, trapped in Copenhagen due to a snowstorm, hotels all booked up by trapped travelers. So she winds up at her house--which she is now renting to Jamie, a Scotsman, who takes pity on her and lets her stay.

There's a level of complexity to the characters here that I appreciated. Jamie isn't The Perfect Man; he's made mistakes and he makes mistakes with Anna. Anna has a lot of baggage from her childhood (as does Jamie) and her recent heartbreak. She's in some denial about her life, which makes her a bit frustrating, but in a completely realistic way.

Even the situation itself made sense; the combination of a huge snowstorm and pre-Christmas travel means that it absolutely makes sense that Anna wouldn't be able to catch a flight back for a while. Anna and Jamie both treat the other with some caution at first, as one would when dealing with a perfect stranger. Their relationship built in an organic way, and as a destination romance book, this is aces--you will want to visit Copenhagen and eat all of the food described within. And even though the sex happens off-screen, as it were, Hughes wrote the sexual tension incredibly well; it honestly felt sexier than books I've read where it was all described.

So why not five stars? Some it's vibes, some of it's me being nitpicky. I went back and forth on it being written in the present tense; sometimes I liked it (it felt like a narrator reading the story to me, if that makes sense), but sometimes it grated. Though I loved the descriptions of Copenhagen at Christmas and all the food, the details at times felt a bit overwhelming, with just so many names being mentioned. And even at the end of it, I'm honestly not totally sure how I feel about Jamie; after he forced Anna to have tea with Maiken, who was AWFUL, good Lord, I don't know how much I'd trust him; throughout the book, he clearly sees his view of relationships (i.e., to never give up on them) as the Right Way To Do Relationships, and I think I'd need a lot more from him to show that he understands and won't do anything like that again. I'm not saying that Anna shouldn't be with him, and honestly, given her history, it's not like she's about to jump in and marry him right away.

A bit heavier than some holiday romances, but a lovely escape. Embrace the hygge. Recommend.