Rating: 3.5🌈

I was looking forward to Once Upon A Christmas Song by Mary Calmes, a novel in the multi-author Once Upon a Holiday series.  And after reading it, I’m finding it hard to rate.

The story has many of the best elements of Calmes writing and some of her aspects of her work that just don’t seem as well thought out.

First the best of this book.  That’s the setting, New Orleans, which is beautifully rendered in atmosphere and realistic locations.  Then it’s the wonderful found family of La Belle Vie, the bar/restaurant that’s the home and heart for an entire group of people.  Calmes makes this key setting a hearthstone by folding into the workplace the multidimensional people who work there and are considered family of its owner, Chris Gardner.

Chris, his bar/restaurant and found family? Fantastic!  The issue arrives with the holiday romance aspect.

That’s a rockstar who left Chris (and the friends there) behind to find fame and fortune. Which he found along with drugs, alcohol, and addiction. Now 2yrs later, without any communication, Dawson West has arrived expecting open arms and to pick up the relationship where they left off. A ending that, reasonably, devastated Chris and took him a while to recover from.

What works here is (spoilers) Chris’s initial reaction and responses to Dawson’s nonstop entreaties to pick up immediately on the romance between them as if nothing happened because Dawson went to rehab. Now’s he’s out and a “new person “. It’s he’s back! And his band mates are just as strangely written as enablers or clueless with regard to relationships and specifically to their own personal relationships with Chris. 

If Calmes had decided that the story was about forgiveness and recovery, a friend relationship, and rewritten the ending, this might have worked. But Dawson is a problematic character, albeit one we’ve seen before in certain Calmes stories. The flip side to the golden boys every one loves. 

Dawson, an ambitious singer in a rock band, rises to the top of the charts, then , along with his fellow musicians, becomes addicted to drugs and alcohol, burning himself and them out. The story goes into a little more detail but the catch is that Dawson went to rehab, along with a band mate/friend twice, to return to Chris and home. Got clean because of Chris.  Two years after break up , and recently release from rehab. No mention of getting clean strictly for himself. Because what happens to addicts when plans fail if they went through rehab for the wrong reasons?

And now he’s constantly pressuring Chris to get immediately together, like there’s no past, because they “love” each other. Etc. Chris asks for space and time to think and talk. Immediately no, keep the pressure on, don’t respect Chris’s decision or wishes to make decisions based on his own personal feelings.  So many flags. And the author seems to realize that but it’s temporary stop in rational plotting.

While having Chris explain why the space is necessary or even why talking about the differences (he’d lived a full satisfying life in the singer’s absence) is required , a relevant part of the conversation here, Calmes then negates everything that is solid about this aspect of the story and has Dawson rolling right over Chris, abetted by the “friends”, and a child manipulated by the singer. That left a sour impression on me.

So for every well written piece of this story there’s an equally less thought out aspect that works against it.  It’s a love this character, no, this really isn’t working for me type of story. 

The series connecting element, The Hook’s Book Nook Traveling Library, has a larger role here. But unlike other series of this kind, while the married couple (adorable) and that bus are amazing, they never seem to fit well into any story.  They are either too big an element themselves or too quirky to fit into the plot that’s already in place.  The connection either needs to be a more simplified one or more suited to the specific series , like a seasonal object. Just mo. Give them their own story.

Cover design by Kelly York

Once Upon a Holiday series – 8 books:

Once Upon a Second Chance by Davidson King

Once Upon A Mistletoe Kiss by Sammi Cee

Once Upon a Holiday Vacation by Annabella Michaels 

Once Upon a Lullaby Lane by K York

Once Upon a Christmas Con by Skylar M Cates

Once Upon A Christmas Song by Mary Calmes

Once Upon a Yuletide Romance by RJ Peterson

Once Upon A Goth Dog Solstice by R L Merrill 

Buy link

        Once Upon A Christmas Song

Blurb 

Chris Gardner has a good life in New Orleans. He owns a club in the French Quarter, has a wonderful crew of people who call it home, loyal, caring friends, and even gets his kid fix by helping to take care of his chef’s daughter. What he doesn’t have is that special someone to share his days and nights with. He thought he did, once upon a time, but that man left to find fame and fortune, became a rockstar, and never returned. And that’s fine. Life isn’t a fairy tale. Now if only he could find a band to play music in his club at night, that would be a Christmas miracle.

Dawson West had to leave to see if his dreams could become reality, but what he didn’t count on was that once he had the world at his feet, he’d miss the man who’d held him tight. Between the endless climb toward greatness and the pitfalls of addiction, Dawson lost himself for a while, but that doesn’t mean he stopped loving Chris. Not wanting his love to see him broken, he makes certain he’s clean and sober when he finally comes home. Going radio silent while becoming the man Chris deserves seemed like a good idea at the time, but now…

Now, Chris has a problem. Dawson is back, out of the blue, and if Chris lets him return to rocking his club, is that an invitation for his heart as well? How can Chris ever trust again, even if it is the season?

Once Upon A Christmas Song is a part of the multi-author series Once Upon A Holiday Story. Each book can be read as a standalone and in any order. What links these books together is The Hook’s Book Nook Traveling Library, a library on wheels owned by two old ladies in love.

• Publication date: December 3, 2024
• Language: English
• Print length: 151 pages