Miracle on 5th Avenue

Morgan completes her From Manhattan with Love trilogy (Sunset in Central Park) at Christmastime, with a sweet, snowy take on the “opposites attract” trope that lets optimism win the day. Crime writer Lucas Blade’s grandmother hires lonely Eva Jordan, a caterer, personal assistant, and unshakable romantic, to decorate and fill the freezer of his penthouse while he’s away on retreat, but Eva discovers the whiskey-drinking, widowed, Scrooge-like Lucas in residence when she arrives. Eva becomes the inspiration for Lucas’s new novel’s protagonist, and though he takes the opportunity to shoot down her sunny worldview at every turn, she slowly convinces him to open up about his past and begins to thaw his heart. But their differences don’t fire the relationship as much as pace it, and chemistry between the characters is weak. Though the stylized sparkle of Christmas romance comes though at the end, the triumph of those who love love is more about worldview and persistence than about passion, and it sometimes feels as though Eva is bullying Lucas into accepting his potential for happiness. (Nov.)