ARC Received from NetGalley.
For the most part, I have enjoyed the Whiskey Creek series. I like small town contemporaries, and HQN is typically my go-to pub for this genre. The first five books flowed well and featured likable couples and subplots that worked within the community. I mentioned here that Book 6, Come Home to Me, disappointed me mainly because of the Chey/Dylan subplot and the lack of chemistry between the main characters. I usually give a series a second strike before I decide to end, and I'm sorry to say The Heart of Christmas didn't quite do it for me.
I have liked reading about Eve in the previous books. When you get to know her, you figure eventually she'll get a story of her own. This particular one, however, struck me almost as a copy of the Callie/Levi story in Book 3. Eve yearns for true love, and a stranger with a mysterious past drifts into town. It read too similar to Callie's story (only there's no life threatening illness involved), and I felt as Eve might have been cheated with a "retread".
As for the Chey/Dylan subplot, it continues to play out, but as you read you have a feeling it's going to blow up in a future book. In all honesty I don't want to be around for that. I think the only thing that could entice me to read more Whiskey Creek is if the lone gay character, Baxter, gets a full book. Not scenes as a secondary character, but A. Full. Book. Seeing as this is Harlequin, though, my hopes are not high.
2
 - Brenda Novak)