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Holiday romances tend to be a strictly Christmas affair, so when I saw Holiday by Candlelight, I was intrigued. There aren’t many Hanukkah romances out there, but I’ve read a couple good ones. One side of my family is Jewish so I tend to keep an eye out for books that represent that side of my world in fiction. I’ve been in a reviewing slump this year, so I was hoping this book might help me get my fire back. Sadly, while it does dig deeper than usual into some issues of PTSD and anxiety, the advertised holiday plot really does not work.
We learn right away that the hero, Dr. Caleb Matsuda, is struggling. He used to be an avid outdoorsman, but injuries from an avalanche took away his ability to perform as a surgeon, and somehow he is now practicing medicine in a different specialty. I’m no expert on the medical field, but it did seem a bit odd that he could switch specialties without much explanation. The only doctor I’ve known in real life who did this had to do a second residency.
This isn’t the only part of Dr. Matsuda’s life that gets glossed over in rather jarring fashion. From the text, one can eventually figure out that he was raised Jewish and that he had a Jewish mother and Asian father. There is some passing mention of at least one relative on his father’s side being Methodist, but the multiracial and interfaith aspects of the hero’s identity really don’t get explored in any meaningful way even though one might think that these make up important parts of his identity. The mentions of any cultural or religious practices are slight and far between. He talks about bringing sufganiyot to a Hanukkah party, and reference is made to his mother’s typical practice of making a nice shabbat dinner. With regard to his father being Japanese, there is pretty much nothing there about how this may have shaped his identity.
While the lingering issues of survivor guilt, anxiety and trauma related to Dr. Matsuda’s accident do get plenty of discussion in the story, something kept feeling off as I read. I reread parts of this book, and what stood out to me was the overarching theme that somehow Caleb needed to be ‘fixed’ so that he could then be a good partner for the heroine, Garnet. While it’s natural to see someone in emotional pain and want for them to find healing, there is a difference between loving someone and wanting to support them versus having your love for someone be conditional upon them changing. And I felt as though things veered too close to that second scenario here.
The romance between Caleb and Garnet throws some of my issues with the story into broad highlight. For starters, Caleb apparently needs to adjust to his disabilities and deal with his issues by moving to a small ski town in Montana. Him doing something that seems so very triggering never really does get explained. Get used to that. Lots of stuff doesn’t get explained.
Once in Montana, Caleb meets Garnet. She is supposed to be the sweet, girl next door who ‘saves’ him. However, her lack of sensitivity to his issues on occasion made me roll my eyes more than once. With regard to the ‘holiday’ of the title, this isn’t so much a story of Hanukkah as it is of Garnet planning a Christmas party and wanting to make it inclusive so she gets Caleb involved in the planning. What occurs isn’t really a true multifaith celebration. It’s still basically a Christmas party, with not much traditionally Hanukkah-related to set it apart. There is something which is passed off as Hanukkah dinner, but it really felt off to me. The Jewish side of my family is very secular, but even so, I found myself wondering why there was no fried food, candles, Hanukkah gelt, or dreidel, etc…
Getting back to Garnet and Caleb, we figure out right away that they are attracted to each other. However, Garnet insists on planning her Christmas party in a place that is set up on the slopes so Caleb is going to have to ride a ski lift to get there. He tells her this is triggering for him – yet she persists. And this sets a pattern that continues. There are repeated situations where Caleb is basically traumatized, but he is somehow in the wrong for not just getting over himself. The insensitivity of that stung.
I could see where Garnet and Caleb would be initially attracted to each other. However, Caleb survived a terrible event that killed people close to him. I could see why he would have issues. Garnet’s framing of his issues as some kind of affront to her independence irritated me. Relationships are about compromise, but I felt like she was too rigid with Caleb and not nearly accepting enough.
I agree that romance needs to more accurately represent the diversity of the readers who love the genre. However, this book doesn’t really accomplish that. Holiday by Candlelight could have been so much more, but really it’s mostly a small-town Christmas story dressed up as something else. I can’t recommend it.
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Grade: D
Book Type: Contemporary Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 10/01/20
Publication Date: 10/2019
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
I enjoy spending as much time as I can between the covers of a book, traveling through time and around the world. When I'm not having adventures with fictional characters, I'm an attorney in Virginia and I love just hanging out with my husband, little man, and the cat who rules our house.
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This reads like that Hallmark movie about Hanukkah which ended up being about Christmas in the end; it could have been interesting, but depth is skipped in favor of quickness. Geesh authors, at least explore your setups!
America makes it very very difficult to switch specialities in any way. If you’d be a surgeon, you could switch to being an administrator. But you couldn’t switch to practicing any other kind of medicine officially. You would indeed have to complete another residency or fellowship.
Now, that said, that is just officially. You can’t say you’re a radiologist unless you’ve done a residency in radiology. BUT, in your practice, you can do whatever the hell you want to. So, if you’d trained as a surgeon but installed an x-ray machine in your office, you could certainly read x-rays for your patients. It’s unlikely insurance would reimburse you and hospitals would be unlikely to let you do this because of risk issues but MDs can practice any kind of medicine they want to as long as patients consent to it.
You mentioned you’ve read some good Hanukkah romances. Could you share the titles? I’d love some suggestions!
“I’m no expert on the medical field, but it did seem a bit odd that he could switch specialties without much explanation.” I’m not an expert either, but I am aware of doctors who switch from practicing medicine/surgery to working in an administrative capacity in perhaps a slightly different area of specialty. For example, going from general practice to performing pilot exams and/or doing the paperwork associated with it. Is this similar to what Dr. Matsuda was doing? Because that would make sense, otherwise, I agree that sounds a bit fishy.
I love the cover of this book, especially how it makes Hanukkah the focus by centering the menorah. Also, it is nice to see the hero so clearly depicted as Asian on the cover. There are lots of examples online of how diverse characters tend to get shown in silhouette or not shown at all on book covers, which is unfortunate. Thankfully, I think romance novel covers have been good about showing a wide variety of heroes and heroines lately- ones who actually look somewhat like how their characters are described in the book.
It’s too bad this story suffers from hand-waving and doesn’t really delve into the intriguing setup. I was wondering about this story, but I think I’ll skip it based on this review. Thanks, Ms. Spencer, for reading it.
I agree, that’s a beautiful and very accurate cover! Thank you for giving the book a try and reviewing it.
To answer the question, Caleb is not working in a purely admin capacity. He’s shown as an actual practicing doctor in the book.
I loved the cover, too, so I was kind of taken aback when the story focused so much on a Christmas party instead. It reminded me of discussions I saw about some of the not-very-Hanukkah movies on Hallmark