Lovelight Farms

Lovelight Farms is the 2021 debut novel of the American novelist B. K. Borison and the first story in her Lovelight series. A contemporary holiday romance about friendship, honesty, and commitment, Lovelight Farms centers on Stella, the owner of a Christmas tree farm in the small town of Inglewild, Maryland. To get Lovelight Farms out of its financial trouble, Stella must rely on her best friend, Luka, but fears that her plans to save the farm might change the course of their platonic relationship. By employing many classic tropes of contemporary romance, Borison explores the themes Self-Sufficiency Versus Relying on Others, Fear of Abandonment and Change, and Biological Versus Found Families.

This guide refers to the Kindle edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide mention the death of a parent and grief.

Plot Summary

Estelle “Stella” Bloom has fond memories of Lovelight Farms, as she grew up going there with her late mother. When she saw that the farm was for sale two years ago, she jumped at the chance to buy it and—with her business partners, Beckett Porter and Layla Dupree—has turned it into the holiday wonderland of her dreams. However, the cost of running a Christmas tree farm is more than Stella expected, especially with myriad mysterious problems plaguing the farm. Stella does not let this affect her business or her employees, often secretly going without a paycheck herself so that she can keep everyone else afloat.

To help the farm gain some funding and publicity, Stella enters Lovelight Farms into a contest run by a famous travel influencer, Evelyn St. James. Yet to make the farm sound as appealing and romantic as possible, Stella mentions that she runs the farm with her boyfriend on the contest application. However, Stella is single, and her only plan is to ask her best friend, Luka Peters, to pretend to be her boyfriend when Evelyn comes to visit the farm.

Stella and Luka have been best friends for years, but Stella has been hiding that she has feelings for him because she is worried about him abandoning her if he finds out. People like Layla and Beckett don’t see a problem with asking Luka to pretend to be her boyfriend for a week—as everyone is rooting for them to start dating regardless—but Stella worries that it could ruin their friendship. Luka has no such worries when Stella asks him, and they begin showing off their pretend relationship around town to make it believable for when Evelyn visits.

Meanwhile, Stella and others at the farm begin to believe that the string of inconveniences at the farm is part of something bigger when an entire field of pumpkins gets smashed. One night, they see a trespasser on the security camera, but he gets away before anyone can catch him.

As Stella and Luka pretend to date, their feelings for one another seem to become less pretend. After they nearly have sex with one another, the two agree to give a romantic relationship between them a trial run, despite Stella’s fears that an indefinite relationship would ruin their friendship. Their feelings for one another grow as they contend with uncomfortable family dynamics, a gossipy community, and the fear of more vandalism.

Stella finally reveals to Beckett, Layla, and Luka the extent of the farm’s financial struggles. Though her partners are angry with her for not telling them about what she was going through to keep the farm afloat, they agree to take on some of the financial burdens of the farm by becoming part-owners. Evelyn arrives in town and is in awe of the farm and how the whole community has come together to support it. She believes that Stella’s story will be great for her platform, but Stella still feels guilty about lying to her about her relationship.

The person who had been vandalizing the farm is caught and wants to apologize to Stella. It is revealed that the town librarian—who had been promised the farm by the previous owner before Stella bought it—had been inconveniencing the farm for revenge. He agrees to pay back everything he owes to Stella and the farm.

One day when Luka is talking about the future, he mentions the romantic relationship with Stella, leaving her confused. Stella thought that everything would go back to how it was between them before, but Luka sees their experience as just the first step in their relationship. He tells her that he is in love with her, but Stella doesn’t believe him and tells them that they can’t be together—despite having the same feelings for him—because she is still afraid of losing him if things go wrong.

Heartbroken, Luka leaves Stella on her own, and she tries to figure out what she did wrong. She runs into Evelyn and admits to her that she and Luka were never together, something that Evelyn had already known from the gossipy town residents. She shows Stella some video footage that she had taken of the farm, and in it, Stella sees how Luka looks at her and how much he must love her. She finally recognizes that she was not lying to Evelyn about her relationship with Luka—she was lying to herself about her feelings for him.

Stella asks Layla what to do and is instructed to just be honest with Luka. Luka comes back to apologize for abandoning her and promises that he will always be her friend regardless of their romantic feelings. Stella finally admits that, though she is still scared about what can happen between them, she is in love with Luka, and the two make amends. Though they have been disqualified from the competition, with the money they received from the vandal and the publicity from Evelyn’s social media, Stella and Luka are confident that Lovelight Farms can survive.