Lovelight Farms

“I wasn’t exactly level-headed when I bought this place. Blinded by positivity, probably. Too focused on the cute little cottage that hugs the corner of the property, visions of curling up in front of the stone fireplace with a mug of tea dancing through my head. Imagining the first snow of the year, walking through rows and rows of trees. A place of my own. A place to belong—finally.”

Stella never put down roots growing up, always having to move from one place to another for her mother’s jobs. When she found the Christmas tree farm in Inglewild, she felt like she could finally “belong” somewhere. This quote again shows how Stella’s past experiences greatly affect her present actions.

“Maybe this time, for once, I want my story to be something different than a sad one.”

Stella thinks this when she considers Evelyn’s contest and her fake relationship with Luka. The image she presents of the farm on her contest application is idealized and happy, representing the life that she wants to live rather than her real life.

“I think about Beckett and Layla. The stack of bills that are getting harder and harder to pay. I think of the wrought iron gate that welcomes you to the farm, the two giant red bows I put on it last year. I remember the day I was given the keys, how the sound of the rusted chains slipping off the bars almost made me cry. I think about closing that gate and looping those chains back around the bars and almost want to cry for an entirely different reason.”

This quote highlights how much Stella cares about Lovelight Farms and how it has become such a major part of her life. The farm is a symbolic extension of Stella, and her fear that she might have to close it parallels her fear that she hasn’t done enough to keep it open. This quote also alludes to Stella’s stubborn self-sufficiency and how she hasn’t asked anyone like Beckett or Layla for help with the farm, speaking to the theme of Self-Sufficiency Versus Relying on Others.

“When I was sixteen years old and programmed to hate most things but fell in love with the wide-open space that smelled like balsam and orange slices and just a hint of cinnamon. I want her to walk through the rows and rows of trees, just as the sun is setting, where it’s quiet enough to hear the way your boots crunch along the frozen ground. Where pine needles tangle in your hair and you feel like you’re the only person in the world. I want her to get a hot chocolate from Layla’s bakehouse, go ice skating in the rink Beckett organized last winter, and watch the kids chase each other by the barn. I want her to see the magic.”

Here, Stella pictures Evelyn’s visit to Lovelight Farms and how she wants to give her a magical experience. This quote highlights Stella’s childhood memories of the farm and how much of an impact it had on her teen years. Stella often connects the farm with memories of her mother as she does here, remembering everything they did together, which she tries to mirror for others who come to her farm.

“Honey, […] Just because you let yourself love someone, doesn't mean they’re going to leave.”

Layla tells this to Stella as they discuss her feelings for Luka and their fake relationship. This quote succinctly summarizes Stella’s deepest fears and shows how Stella justifies keeping her distance from Luka. The simple way in which Layla lays out this fear, however, shows how clearsighted she is about the situation compared to Stella.

“It’s easy like this to think of him as mine. This Luka, with this smile, in this place. Brown laced boots and a sweater over plaid. The surge of possessiveness is so fierce it takes my breath away, and I rub at my sternum in an effort to rid myself of the feeling. I feel like our display in town yesterday has cracked open the tiny steel box I keep all my Luka feelings buried in.”

Throughout the novel, Stella gives peeks into her true feelings for Luka. She also frequently uses the metaphor of her feelings being kept in a box, one that Luka continues to crack open as the novel progresses. This quote also highlights how much of their relationship was built before the beginning of the novel and how easily Luka now fits into Stella’s life, explaining why it is so hard for her to think of changing their relationship.

“I sit at that table and the whole time, I wonder. I wonder if every time she looked at me, she saw him. I wonder if it made her sad.”

Stella thinks this when she considers how much she looks like her father, Brian. She wonders how her mother took this, knowing her disdain for him after he abandoned them. This is part of the reason why she feels bad about letting her father back into her life after her mother’s death.

“I hesitate, unsure if I should say that Luka rarely talks about his dad. Is it wrong for me to share these things with her? Is it dishonest to Luka and the relationship we have if I talk to his mom about it? I don’t know where I stand with this fake relationship and how it blurs the lines of my real ones.”

This quote comes from a conversation between Stella and Luka’s mother, Carina, when they are discussing Luka’s late father, Leo. Not only does it show how Luka is also burdened with complex grief like Stella, but it also emphasizes the confusion of their relationship at this time in the novel. Not knowing what is pretend and what isn’t, Stella is left unsure of whether she is crossing a boundary by talking about Leo.

“I recognize the sadness in her words, the loneliness of remembering someone all by yourself.”

Stella thinks this about Carina when they discuss Leo and how Luka never mentions him. Stella details her own grief here when she notices it in Carina, thinking back to when she was alone with no one else to remember her mother. This quote also gives insight into why Stella is so fiercely independent and won’t ask for help; she has always had to do hard things on her own, highlighting the theme Self-Sufficiency Versus Relying on Others.

“I feel terrible every time I get a compliment from either of them. I still haven’t been completely honest about our finances. I’m too afraid of their reaction, of their disappointment. I swear I’d chop off my arm before I let them down.”

This quote emphasizes Stella’s generosity in keeping her workers adequately compensated during the farm’s financial troubles. However, even more so, this highlights Stella’s self-sufficiency and how it often gets her into trouble in the novel. Here, Stella admits that it is her Fear of Abandonment and Change that is holding her back from telling Beckett and Layla about the farm’s finances, as she is afraid of them leaving when she tells them.

“I’ve been waiting all morning to feel the awkwardness, the panic. To feel weird about my best friend whispering into my ear about the noises I make. But I’ve felt only the same bubbly feeling of contentment I’ve felt since he kissed me in the barn. I don’t know, maybe I’ll have a breakdown about it later, but right now, I feel—I feel okay. Good.”

Stella thinks this after her first intimate encounter with Luka that prompts them to give a romantic relationship a trial run. Both she and Luka frequently repeat how they think it’s weird that they don’t feel weird about their romantic involvement. For this brief time, Stella feels like it is okay to feel good, as she now believes their relationship will only be temporary and will return to normal after their trial run.

“I thought maybe it would be like scratching an itch, that maybe the tension between us would pop like a balloon. Instead it just feels like I’ve turned the heat from simmer to full blast. […] It’s like instead of easing something, we unleashed it instead. Amplified it. I just want more. I have a feeling I’m only ever going to want more where Luka is concerned.”

This quote summarizes the trial run of Luka and Stella’s relationship and how it is not going according to Stella’s plan. However, Stella quickly learns that she does not have control over her feelings like she does with other parts of her life. This change is concerning to Stella, as she worries about what will happen at the end of their trial period.

“Everyone is in everyone else’s business and you can’t leave your house without running into at least four people you know. But there’s always someone to ask me how I’m doing. And a helping hand when I need it. We’re a family. A strange one that you sometimes want an extended vacation from, but a family nonetheless.”

This is how Stella describes the small town of Inglewild. It is significant that she compares it to a family since she feels like she has little other family, speaking to the theme of Biological Versus Found Families. However, by the end of the novel, she comes to appreciate her nosey little community and the support it gives to her and her farm. 

“Leaning on other people doesn’t make your achievements any less yours.”

Luka tells this to Stella once he learns about the farm’s financial circumstances and how Stella has been living off as little as she can to keep it running. This highlights Stella’s fear of not being able to do things on her own, something she feels like she needs to do to protect herself from harm if she is ever abandoned. She lets this lesson sink in throughout the remainder of the novel, when she finally learns how much letting others help her can mean to her and her business.

“What I’m trying to say is that you can trust me. You can trust me to help you carry the load. You don’t have to do all of this alone […] I know you can take care of yourself. You’ve been doing that as long as I’ve known you. But let me hold your hand while you do it, okay?”

Luka tells this to Stella after the above quote. He sees Stella’s fear of abandonment perhaps better than she does, and in this way, he assures her that he has no plan to leave her alone. Though Luka offers his help in many ways throughout the novel, Stella only recognizes that she can trust him to help her toward the conclusion.

“I’m still hesitant about starting admission prices. Not having to pay to get into the farm was a big reason why my mom and I came here so often when I was a kid. […] I bought this place so everyone could experience the same magic. No one should feel left out.”

This quote again connects the way Stella runs her farm to her childhood memories. In many ways, Stella keeps her mother’s memory alive through the farm, so changing its core tenets is scary for her. Through Lovelight Farms, Stella wants to make everyone feel the magic that she felt when she was there with her mother.

“‘This place makes me feel like a kid again,’ she says. ‘Everyone should get to feel like a kid this time of year.’”

This exchange between Evelyn and Stella again connects the farm to Stella’s memories. Though Stella had a difficult childhood, she didn’t think of those difficulties when she used to visit the Christmas tree farm, and she believes that everyone deserves to forget their worries there as well.

“None of this feels like faking or pretend. I don’t have to act at all when Luka winks at me over his wine glass, foot nudging mine beneath the table. I don’t feel dishonest at all when I clear the plates from the table and drop a kiss on Luka’s head as I pass by, his fingers catching mine with a gentle squeeze.”

Throughout the novel, Stella questions what parts of her fake relationship with Luka are real or pretend. Especially as they grow closer, Stella feels that Luka’s feelings for her are real, but she also has trouble letting herself believe this due to her Fear of Abandonment and Change. This quote also emphasizes her trouble with dishonesty and how she hates lying to Evelyn, something she has fewer qualms about when she is actually with Luka.

“I don’t believe in fate, or kismet, or any rule or reason to the universe and all its random, wonderful, terrible happenings. But I do believe I found Luka when I needed him the most, and I like to think my mom played a part in that. It’s a comfort. Like she’s still looking out for me. Still holding my hand.”

Stella thinks this when she tells Evelyn about how she and Luka met. Though the story is meant to recount how their fake romantic relationship began, it highlights how there have always been real feelings between the two, especially on Stella’s side. Stella frequently refers to Luka as a steadying presence, and here she reveals why she thinks he steadied her so well.

“I am merciless as I recount our argument. Luka says he’s in love with me, but I don’t think it’s true. Last night was amazing, but I think—I think he’s been homesick, up in New York. The new job, the move. He’s looking for things that are comfortable. That feel good. I know Luka loves me, but he’s not—he isn’t in love with me. And I don’t want to give in, give him all the pieces of myself that I’ve been holding close and have him figure out the difference a month from now. Six months from now. I don’t think I’ll be able to come back from that. Better to be a little bit broken by this, than irreparable later.”

Stella thinks this shortly after she rejects Luka when he tells her that he loves her. This quote shows the lengths she goes to in rationalizing her behavior, despite the fact that she loves Luka and wants to be with him. It also emphasizes her fear of abandonment, particularly in the last sentences, as she feels like it is better to lose Luka as a romantic partner than lose him forever.

“You think you’ve been lying to me, but you’ve just been lying to yourself this whole time.”

Evelyn tells this to Stella after revealing that she knows that Stella and Luka were never together. This quote succinctly summarizes Stella’s trouble with dishonesty throughout the novel and how much her own lie to herself has impacted her relationship with Luka.

“‘I didn’t see it.’ ‘You did, […] You saw it, honey. You were just too afraid to do anything about it. You’re comfortable in the friend zone and so you decided to keep yourself there.’”

This exchange between Stella and Layla continues to highlight Stella’s fear of being abandoned by Luka. Layla knows that it is this fear that holds Stella back from being happy and that, as such, she refuses to hope for more than she has with Luka. By not taking any risks, Stella stays comfortable but never gets what she truly wants.

“I still shouldn’t have left like that. I know—I know that’s a big deal for you, the idea of people leaving. I think that’s why you kept Beckett and Layla out of the loop on farm business. Because you were afraid they’d leave if they found out you were having some trouble.”

Luka tells this to Stella when he returns after their fight, highlighting how he can see how much her fear of abandonment impacts her life, perhaps even more than she does. Though he speaks of her keeping the secret from Beckett and Layla, Luka knows that this fear stems from her father’s abandonment and knows that leaving her was the worst thing he could do.