Story for the Week
Cheesy Christmas movies tug on the heart strings. And no matter how high the cheese factor, I get sucked in every single year…even after Christmas is over.
Predictable in every way, they all seem to be set in a small town where two people find themselves stranded. One person is obsessed with Christmas, and the other has typically lost their Christmas spirit along the way. Forced to spend time together, they eventually come together completely embraced by the magic of Christmas.
I typically watch these movies by myself at night when everyone has gone to bed. Some of them have really cringey acting. Some aren’t so bad. None of them are going to go down as 5-star films. I know exactly what’s going to happen, so I always expect to multitask while I’m watching. But I still spend more time focused on the television than on my task.
One of the ones I watched this year was Amazon’s Snowed Inn Christmas. Two journalists from New York compete to keep their jobs in the New Year. When their flight to Aspen makes an unexpected landing, they find themselves stranded in Santa Claus, Indiana. Jenna (played by Bethany Joy Lenz), always the organized planner, is fresh off of a breakup. Kevin (played by Andrew W. Walker), hasn’t spent Christmas at home since his dad died three years ago and doesn’t believe in Christmas miracles.
It’s Christmas-y and romantic and cheesy and predictable, but I loved every second of it.
During a traditional Christmas movie scene where they both share their personal stories, Jenna confides in Kevin about her recent breakup. She mentions that she and her ex were right on paper. She felt they should map out their future, but he couldn’t get on board with her five-year plan. Kevin feels that falling in love should be exciting, impulsive, and unpredictable and that you shouldn’t have to try so hard.
I agree with Kevin. Maybe that’s the romantic in me…the one who always gets sucked in to the cheesy Christmas movies. Love shouldn’t be about the person who’s perfect for you on paper. But if you believe that it should, maybe a resolution to join a matchmaking service might be the way to go. (I’ll pass.)
I haven’t seen a Christmas movie about a matchmaker yet, but IMDb tells me that Amazon’s Matchmaker Christmas is rated 6.1 out of 10. Even at only 6.1, I might check it out anyway while I’m still in the cheesy Christmas movie mood. Something tells me the outcome will be better for the leads in the movie than they were for the main characters in the book reviewed below.
Book Review
⭐⭐
2 Stars for The Matchmakers by Vanessa Edwards
341 pages
Publisher: Books Go Social
Publication Date: December 3, 2024
I received a copy of this title from NetGalley and Books Go Social.
Publisher’s Description
Lucy is a lawyer. When her estranged sister Stephanie dies in an accident on her honeymoon, Lucy contacts the dating agency she used. But they deny any knowledge of bride or groom.
Carol is a reporter. When she stumbles on a brief press report of Stephanie’s tragic honeymoon, she scents a human-interest story. But the widower is untraceable.
Hannah is a detective constable. When she’s posted to her first murder investigation, she’s keen to impress. But there is nothing to identify the body or the killer.
Three determined women follow three strands which come together in a shocking revelation of amorality, greed and ruthlessness.
************
Main Characters:
- Stephanie Faulkner – mid- to late-40s, recently widowed from a controlling husband who isolated her from friends and family but left her very wealthy, hires a matchmaking service but dies in a bath on her honeymoon
- James Anderson – matched with Stephanie through MadeInHeaven MatchMakers
- Lucy Hawkings – works as a lawyer, Stephanie’s older adopted sister, hasn’t talked to Stephanie in years because of her late husband, Stephanie sends her a picture of her new husband and her wedding ring the day she gets married
- Kate Lincoln – recently turned 50, venture capitalist, has spent her life focused on her career instead of relationships so she hires MadeInHeaven to find her a match
- Jake Andrews – matched with Kate through MadeInHeaven MatchMakers
- Vivien Harrison – owner of MadeInHeaven MatchMakers
- Max Carrington – Vivien’s partner in MadeInHeaven MatchMakers, handles the business side while Vivien handles the matches
- Carol Turner – a journalist, recently laid off after a merger, looking for a good human interest story that she can write an article or book about to sell, focused on the story of Stephanie’s death on her honeymoon
- Hannah Davies – Detective Constable, working on her first murder investigation
The premise of this book fascinated me. Stephanie Faulkner enlists a matchmaking service and then mysteriously dies on her honeymoon in Cornwall. When her sister Lucy Hawkings calls, the service claims never to have heard of either Stephanie or her new husband. Later in the book, Detective Constable Hannah Davies begins her first murder investigation—the suspicious death of a groom on his honeymoon in Dorset with no sign of his new bride. Both victims died in a bathtub in a remote rental property. Both used the same matchmaking service.
I envisioned lots of secrets and twists and misdirection, and I certainly got that. But the execution left a lot to be desired.
Let’s start with point of view. The book presents six different points of view—Stephanie and Kate in the first person and Vivien, Lucy, Carol, and Hannah in the third person. There does not appear to be any rhyme or reason for Stephanie’s and Kate’s sections to be first person versus third person, so the narration likely would have been just as (in)effective all in the third person. Additionally, the author splits the book into six part but not one point of view per part.
- Part One: Stephanie and Vivien
- Part Two: Lucy and Vivien
- Part Three: Vivien, Kate, and Carol
- Part Four: Lucy and Vivien
- Part Five: Vivien, Hannah, Carol, and Lucy
- Part Six: Lucy and Carol
Another challenge is multiple points of view in a single chapter with the only reference to a timeline being at the beginning of Chapter One, labeled three months before the Prologue. In the first chapter, the narration starts with Stephanie in the first person, flips to Vivien in the third person, back to Stephanie, and then finally back to Vivien.
By the time I got to Part Three, I was so confused by the point-of-view whiplash that I didn’t even remember there was supposed to be a character named Carol. It seems like the author introduces her out of nowhere. To add to the confusion, every single character has the same “voice,” and everyone sounds really pretentious. There is no way to distinguish one character from the other based on how they speak, which makes the chapters with multiple third-person POVs really tough to get through.
- “I never called Robert ‘darling,’ or any other endearment come to that, nor he me.”
- “Is there even a pattern? Two apparently accidental deaths, fifteen months and many more miles apart. Lucy remembers, with a wry smile, a maths class where they were learning to plot a graph, and someone in the class announcing with pride that her first two points made a straight line. More points are needed for a pattern of any significance.”
- “Grace stands, straight and elegant, an embodiment of her name. She shakes hands with both of them and glides out of the room, the beads in her braided hair whispering….”
At the same time, it feels like the author intentionally wrote inner dialog for the characters to make them appear less pretentious, but they just end up sounding like they’re not that smart.
- “…thankful that she moved from transactional work to back room research last year so has no imminent, unmissable company takeovers or applications for injunctions or whatever.”
- “She needs jeans. Those things that used to be called sweatshirts but are now hoodies or something….She’ll have to buy some of those scrunchies or whatever they’re called.”
- “But she supposes she’ll have to pull the horrible baseball cap, or whatever they call it, down so her face won’t be very visible anyway.”
There are also really random details that feel like the author thinks they would lend authenticity, but they just seem so out of place.
- “…she must have bought wild salmon by mistake, she finds it a little strong for her taste….”
- “Carol finds a packet of clean tissues in her bag—another habit she’d formed after interviewing hundreds of emotional witnesses over her career—and hands it to Deborah, who uses several of the contents to staunch her eyes—now piebald—and nose—now red.”
- “I take their coats and hang them up along with mine. ‘There’s a loo in there if you need it,’ I say, gesturing to the door. ‘Just in case you’ve been waiting for me for hours.’ Hannah and Zhen thank me and use the facility.”
Finally, so much narration and dialog is unnecessarily repetitive. I assume the author intends to show big reveals, but they just reinforce what the reader already knows. I would have rather read other interactions in each relationship rather than the parts that were the same (see spoilers).
***SPOILERS*** SPOILERS***SPOILERS***
So let’s talk about the reason for the repetition. James Anderson and Jake Andrews (along with multiple other “JA” aliases) are both Max Carrington. Max and Vivien do run a legitimate matchmaking service, but they target wealthy widows and divorcees with no immediate family to question their eventual deaths. Max marries each of them and remains married for a period of time until their untimely accidental deaths, when he inherits their substantial estates and shifts the money into offshore accounts.
Kate Lincoln is Lucy Hawkings, an identity created when Lucy discovers who James Anderson is and wants to avenge her sister’s death. She spends months establishing Kate’s identity, residence, back story, etc., to make her the perfect candidate for Vivien’s “special” clients, but readers don’t know Kate is Lucy until after the fact. It feels a bit manipulative because Kate’s first-person chapters read as if she is actually a completely different character.
For instance, on one of Kate’s dates with Jake, she says, “I decide to follow Vivien’s advice. I’m sure, even after only three dates, that Jake is the man I want to marry,” as if she’s really Kate and really in love with Jake. We find out later that she’s Lucy posing as Kate to set Jake up. This is just deliberate misdirection by the author.
When James dates Stephanie and Jake dates Kate, the pattern of the dates is identical. The women are invited to a temporary apartment, sparsely furnished, because James/Jake couldn’t buy out his (fake) former wife, so he had to sell their beloved house right away. Both of them have a framed photo of the house, which looks amazingly similar to Stephanie’s and Kate’s houses. Stephanie and Kate both get the same story about their groom not liking to be photographed. Both couples schedule a quick wedding with a secluded honeymoon rental several hours’ drive from home. Both couples ask not to be disturbed for the duration of their rentals, and both women love a relaxing bath.
By the time the book gets to the Jake and Kate story line, we know that Jake and James and Max are the same person. There is no need to repeat all of the same narration and dialog…almost word for word. What I hadn’t figured out by that point was if Vivien is in on the scam, which isn’t revealed until after Jake is killed by Kate. I spent so much of the book trying to figure out why Vivien didn’t screen her male clients as well as she screens her female clients.
And then about 70% of the way through the book, we learn that Max is also scamming Vivien. He seems kind of sketchy in the beginning when they’re talking about how much money they have stashed and when they can close the business and just live out the rest of their lives. This is why I wondered if Vivien was actually in on the scam. How could she not know that Max is marrying these clients? But he’s actually sketchy because he’s apparently in love with someone else and plans to ditch Vivien as well. It seems like a bit of a throwaway plotline designed just to give Carol (the journalist) a source to uncover everything.
I opted for 2 stars because of the decent premise, but I could have easily gone with 1 star. This book is a miss for me.
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