Review: It’s a Wonderful Night

It’s a Wonderful Night by Jaimie Admans
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Imagine every Hallmark Channel movie ever made. Now imagine they were all spun into one film that was so sweet it would make your teeth ache. That is the gist of It’s a Wonderful Night, a barely PG (more G) romance novel by Jaime Admans.

The book opens with Georgia Bailey, a charity shop manager, taking a late night call at work from a suicidal man who has misdialed. He is threatening to jump from a local bridge and initially believes he has reached a suicide-prevention line. Georgia impresses upon him the folly of his trajectory, then gently reveals that he has the wrong number. He begs her not to hang up, and the two fall into a conversation in which they share some very intimate details about their similar hopes and dreams. It’s the anonymity that encourages the moments of introspection, fueled by the loneliness that envelopes them both. They end the call, and though both have been moved by the encounter, they seem to be resigned to the fact that they were simply two ships passing in the night. The next morning, Georgia stops into a local coffee shop to buy her morning latte and get a glimpse of Leo, the hunky barista. She is stopped in her tracks, however, when she recognizes his voice—Leo is the man on the bridge. Her knee-jerk reaction in that moment sets the stage for the rest of the book.

So...as established above, it’s a predictable plot that plays out exactly how you think it will, with lots of miscues, missed opportunities and swooning. This veers from the predictable millennial rom com, however, when we learn Georgia’s and Leo’s ages. Although they speak and act like overly-hormonal teenagers, they are actually older adults. Georgia is 34 and Leo is 37, and both are dealing with aging parents and coming to terms with regrets about the roads not taken. The problem is that the dialogue is more realistic for that of a much younger couple. While reading, I kept wishing that the author had either developed them as mature adults or made them younger to more closely reflect their seemingly immature behaviors. In any case, it takes a bit of a leap of faith to not want to smack them both and scream “GROW UP!”

I was looking for an easy read that wouldn’t make me think and that’s exactly what this book delivers. Although the author tackles head-on the issues of male suicide and depression, I didn’t find it heavy-handed enough to ruin the feel-good tone. The writing is rock solid, and the author’s style and structure make for a relaxing evening lost in the pages. Against a backdrop of references to It’s a Wonderful Life, those who know the movie will also find it to be relatable and nostalgic.

View all my reviews