One of my guilty pleasures is Hallmark-style holiday movies. Fine, they’re Christmas movies mainly. But, whenever there is a Jewish character, plotline or, in rare instances, it’s a Hanukkah movie, I am even more a fan. Comfortable in their predictability, especially the happy ending, my body relaxes just thinking about the break from reality they offer. In the last few years, I’ve also read more than my share of Hallmark-style novels, and this is why I was excited to receive an email from Amelia Doyle, author of Two Weeks in Toronto, which was published last year but was just named a finalist in the romance category of the Canadian Book Club Awards. The winners will be announced in February.
Doyle, a Jewish author based in Dublin, Ireland, has written a few romance novels and has another on the way for next year. Two Weeks in Toronto would make a wonderful holiday movie – and a welcome gift for anyone who’s admitted to you that they like romance novels. There’s no will-they-or-won’t-they-fall-in-love here, just how they will, what obstacles they will have to overcome, what role their best friends or family members will play.
In Two Weeks in Toronto, our protagonists are Ciara and Ethan. They live in Dublin and know each other because Ethan is Ciara’s dentist – and Ciara is terrified of the dentist. Not of Ethan, but of the dentist as a larger concept, its root canals, teeth-cleanings, etc. Ethan does what he can to help Ciara overcome her fears. So, though the two have known each other awhile, it’s been a professional relationship, and they don’t know each other well.
This changes when Ciara’s sister’s wedding requires Ciara to return to her family in Toronto, which she really doesn’t want to do because of a brutally harsh mother and a very difficult sister, and Ethan must go home for the celebration of his parents’ 40th anniversary and of his brother’s engagement, which will be awkward, to say the least, because his brother’s fiancée is Ethan’s former girlfriend.
Ethan suggests to Ciara that he join her in Toronto for the wedding (and Hanukkah) and she join him in Galway over New Year’s – as “boyfriend” and “girlfriend,” so neither will have to face their situations alone. While Ethan is not Jewish, he ends up feeling quite at home with Ciara’s family. Turns out her father, who’s from Ireland, knows Ethan’s parents, and there are connections with other folks in Ciara’s realm. Ciara’s dad also makes sure Ethan knows what’s going on with the candlelightings and what Hanukkah is all about.
I had some trouble believing the sheer horridness of Ciara’s mother and sister, in part because her dad and brother are so friendly and caring, but also because I’m lucky enough not to have such nasty people in my family. I would have been more heavy-handed in the editing process, but, overall, Two Weeks in Toronto is a light, fun read. I’ll keep Doyle in mind when I’m looking for my next escape.