In Merry and Bright, Merry is working a temp job to save money for school that will end just after Christmas. Her boss, Jayson, just seems to make her and her coworkers lives difficult as he makes overtime mandatory, won’t let them eat at their desks and won’t allow Christmas decorations in their office. Despite not having a lot of time on her hands, her mother and younger brother sign her up for a dating site and put a picture of their dog for her profile to weed out men just looking based on a woman’s looks. She finds someone nice and starts chatting with him. Being able to chat online with him every night starts to make her days more bearable. Then, they decide to meet.
I enjoy reading Christmas books during the holiday season and I also really like Debbie Macomber books, so I requested Merry and Bright from the library through Overdrive to read on my Kindle. It’s her newest holiday release, so I waited a few weeks for it to become available, but I was glad it came through before Christmas.
Merry had originally decided to chat with Jay on the dating service, because he also had a photo of a dog as his profile picture. She thought it was great that he was nice to her younger brother, who has special needs, when he would sometimes get on to chat with Jay. When the night comes for them to meet, she spies him sitting in the coffee shop and turns around and leaves. She knows him, but has to reconcile the person she knows online with the person she knows in reality before she can reveal herself. The book has a few more twists and turns, but I don’t want to give too much away.
I really enjoyed reading Merry and Bright. It was a quick read, but a very cute love story for the holidays. The characters come alive very quickly and the story is only mildly predictable. If you are looking for a good holiday read, this book would be good for high school readers and older.
What holiday read is your favorite? Comment below!
