A review by mindsplinters
Season of Love by Helena Greer

emotional fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

A quick-to-read rom-com that really leaned more towards rom-drama with some clever banter.  I admit that, while I ended up quite liking this book in the end, it was a slow grow for me.  The beginning felt like such an abrupt tumble into the brewing drama of this extended group of family and friends and it took a bit to sort out who was who and the relationships.  A bit like the cast page of a play if that makes sense.  BAM, here they are.  Then there was the problem of Miriam who was just... a mess and not in an amusing way.  Heavy hints about her childhood trauma, flashes of narcisism in herself, and a staggeringly tone-deaf way of behaving in general.  The fact that she was grieving and you had a handful of quite nice characters speaking up on her behalf was all that kept me going until the author leveled out her hint-dumps and expanded things to include the rest of the bunch better.  There was still a very heavy hand on everyone's trauma but, by and large, it was handled with sensitivity and, in the end, support.  Plus we got more and more Noelle and I really liked her.  Miriam had an awful lot of self-analysis and improvement to do before I could give my blessing to them.  LOL

But I did because, in the end, while the Last Ditch Rally was straight from White Christmas, the characters had wormed their way into my heart enough that I really did want them to be happy and get that therapy that Hannah talked about.  Besides... My dad also has a collection of Old Ladies in much the way Miriam does and I can't hate on that.  (Mind you, he's their handyman/driver/etc and hardly any of them are antique dealers)