So much more than a holiday romance, this cozy lesbian love story is about finding love when you least expect it. Equal parts family drama, quarter life crisis and a fun, quirky cast of characters that will stay with you. Written in a new “scrovel” format, it’s like reading a rom-com movie - a fun, fast-moving frolic with irresistible charm and sparkling chemistry. Susan Winslow’s life is falling apart and home for the holidays is not all it’s cracked up to be. She’s quit her job, been dumped by her fiancée, and—worst of all—must return home to Christmas Falls, Ohio, where holiday cheer is mandatory and unresolved family drama is everywhere. It doesn’t help that she’s still not out to her mother, Maggie Winslow, glamorous star of Inn-side Job and reigning queen of Millhouse Farms. So when Susan clashes (and sparks) with Maggie’s brilliant, beautiful business partner—Chef Roslyn Granger—everything gets a whole lot more complicated when you fall in love with the exact right person at exactly the wrong time. The Lesbian Review Christmas Falls on New Year's Eve by Laura Gail is an unusual prose concept and rom com about a woman who should have come out to her mother a long time before. If it weren't for bad luck, she'd have no luck at all. Susan loses the woman who should have been her fiancé, quits her job at the law firm and then has to go home to Christmas Falls for mandatory holiday celebration. It's bad enough to be forced into proximity with her mother, who still doesn't know she's gay, but the cheer is hard to come by. She's not in a great mood to meet her mom's business partner, Roslyn at the airport. She knows it's not easy meeting someone as you help collect the underwear that has spilled out of their luggage on the carousel, but Roslyn is baffled by the distance and silence from Susan. Much as she would love to know her better, she has a lot going on herself, between their tv show about the Inn-Side Job and opening a high end restaurant onsite. She continues to be interested in Susan, despite all the emotions swirling around the large family gathering. Writing The author offers a hybrid reading experience that they refer to as a Scrovel, a movie script and novel combination. There is a lengthy note at the beginning of the book that gives a solid introduction to movie script format, which is radically different from a novel. This is helpful because most people have never read a script, and it does take some getting used to. Inside the story all the dialogue - which is a script's strength - is in the movie format, and everything else is exposition. Pros And My Favourite Parts I was impressed by an unusual attempt to merge two very different writing formats. I've written a script or two in my day, and have read more than a few, this was not only easy to read but entertaining. Readers who aren't quite that much into the mechanics of movie making should expect to have to ease into the format, but I believe it's worth the effort. The author has only used the script format for dialogue, which is a real strength of that set-up because it lays the words bare and gives the reader or actor leeway to understand it or present it as they see fit. There are a lot of twisty interrelationships for the reader to navigate, secrets that aren't actually secrets or shouldn't be secret, and a somewhat large cast of characters. There is also more than one romance involved in the story, giving it a little more depth. It was interesting to me how the author portrayed two women who need each other more than is typical in a romance novel. Roslyn may not struggle a lot with alcoholism, but that's something a wise person never takes for granted and I liked how wise Roslyn is. Heads Up Frank talk about alcoholism. The Conclusion After losing her fiancé and quitting her job in a law firm, Susan is required to attend the family holiday soiree at her mom's Inn-Side Job inn and now high-end restaurant. Meeting her mom's chef and business partner Roslyn at the airport is all manner of embarrassing, and both of them spend a lot of time being interested in the other without managing to connect. Days together in the inferno of family holiday, tv show premiere and opening of a swank restaurant brings their simmering attraction to a boil. With an unusual format that blends movie screenplay format with standard exposition, the author has given the reader more than one romance, and a new way to experience them. There are a lot of moving parts in the story, which keeps the momentum going nicely.