Blind Date Book Club
Some Hallmark movies win us over. This one had us from the wrapped brown paper. Blind Date Book Club stars Erin Krakow as a Nantucket bookshop owner weighing whether to keep the store her mother left her, and Robert Buckley as the bestselling author who shows up to pitch his new novel to her book club under a name that is not quite his. We both gave it 4.5 stars, and we are still not over how neatly it pulls off the exact thing it spends the first act criticizing. Here is our full review.
Listen to Girls Gone Hallmark’s Review of Blind Date Book Club
What Blind Date Book Club Is About
Meg Tompkins runs the Nantucket bookshop her late mother left her, and she is weighing whether to keep it or sell. The thing keeping it interesting is her own invention: a blind date with a book club. Customers buy novels wrapped in plain brown paper with only a few vague descriptors written on the outside, then come back to talk about what they found inside.
Across the country, bestselling author Graham Sterling is getting hard notes on a manuscript that is not landing. He has been told to stop writing about things he knows nothing about. Then he catches a radio interview with Meg about the club, and he flies out to pitch his new book to her group.
There is a wrinkle. Graham is publishing the new novel under a pseudonym, and that is the name he gives Meg. The lie does not run the whole movie, which is a relief. It resolves early and the story gets on with the actual relationship.
Meg reads the book. Meg does not love the book. What she gives Graham instead of flattery is careful, specific, honest feedback, and that turns out to be the thing he has been missing.
Cast
| Actor | Role | You Know Them From |
|---|---|---|
| Erin Krakow | Meg Tompkins | Elizabeth on “When Calls the Heart,” plus “The Wedding Cottage,” “It Was Always You,” and the “Finding Father Christmas” trilogy |
| Robert Buckley | Graham Sterling | Evan Kincaid on “Chesapeake Shores,” both “Christmas House” movies, “Love in Store,” plus “iZombie,” “One Tree Hill,” and a 2006 show called “Fashion House” that also starred Bo Derek and Morgan Fairchild |
| Faith Wright | Alice Waters | “Three Wise Men and a Baby,” “A Godwink Christmas: Miracle of Love,” “Riverdale,” “Nancy Drew,” “So Help Me Todd” |
| Glynis Davies | Aunt Renee | Long list of credits, though her last Hallmark appearance before this was “Picture Perfect Mysteries” in 2020 |
| Hilary Jardine | Lizzy | “One Bad Apple: A Hannah Swensen Mystery” |
| Johannah Newmarch | Raina | Molly on “When Calls the Heart” |
Directed by Peter Benson, a familiar Hallmark face on both sides of the camera. This was his 17th directing credit, after “The Wedding Veil Expectations,” “The Santa Stakeout,” and “Sweet Carolina.” Written by Nicole Baxter, whose other credits include “A Pinch of Portugal,” “We Wish You a Married Christmas,” and “Presence of Love.”
Related: Listen to the Girls Gone Hallmark review of “A Pinch of Portugal”
Related: Listen to what Girls Gone Hallmark thought about “One Bad Apple”
What We Liked
The romance is actually earned. Early on, Meg reads Graham’s book and tells him the romance in it does not work. She does not believe it. The character development is not there. And then this movie turns around and makes us believe in its own romance completely. Meg and Graham are not love at first sight, and they are not enemies either. It builds. He asks her to dinner. He walks her home. There are a dozen small moments stacked up so that by the end, the thing the movie criticized in Graham’s manuscript is the thing it pulls off itself. That parallel is the best trick in the movie.
No unnecessary conflict. Meg’s whole personality is not “I am single.” Her business is not collapsing. There is a real decision about whether to keep the bookshop or sell it, but that is a normal, relatable life hiccup rather than the kind of catastrophe these movies sometimes manufacture. It is just a nice movie, and that is not a small thing.
Text flirting. The whole “send me that picture, the one where I look awkward” exchange was extremely cute. Our only quibble is that grandma needs to put her glasses on, so zoom in, folks.
Erin Krakow. Delightful. Her wardrobe here is very simple, very cute, casually professional in a way that actually fits someone running an island bookshop. Worth noting she had not been in a Countdown to Christmas movie in six years at this point, which feels like an oversight.
Robert Buckley. A real wowie zowie. He was 42 when this was filmed, which came up because there is a line about never having been married that made us wonder how old Graham is supposed to be.
Sister Lizzy. Her scenes do a lot of work building Graham as a warm, loving guy before we fully see it ourselves. “Girls, Uncle Graham is going to tell us about a girl” is a great line. And when he sends her breakfast because he knows she is having a rough morning, that is the kind of sibling relationship worth envying. Muffins and coffee appearing on the doorstep is the dream.
The two of them together. The banter is easy, everything flows. And there is a mid-movie kiss, which is Hallmark making progressive moves.
The writing sounds like now. A lot of current-day vernacular made it in. Graham is a goat, which somebody does have to explain. His agent calls him “yo G,” which briefly reads as the agent being a homie until you realize his sister calls him G too.
What We Wish
A sequel, mostly so Alice can have her baby. Bookstore bestie Alice needs to have that baby, and so does Lizzy. Two babies in a bookstore. And there is a whole plausible sequel premise sitting right there: Graham can write from Nantucket, and Meg gets through the slow months with author visits, because Graham brings his author friends in. Who does not want to come to Nantucket?
A better handle on the branding. “Blind date with a book” makes sense. “Blind date book club” makes sense. But by the end, all these people are meeting each other through the club, and Raina is pushing that angle hard, and those are not blind dates. Sell it as connections. That is still a great story.
A version where Graham skips the lie. Megan’s read is that he never needed it. He heard Meg’s interview. He knows she does not care about a book’s shelvability and wants to like a book on its own merits. He could have walked in and said, this is me, I am trying something new, nobody will buy in, will you read it? Wendy’s counter is that Meg might not have been so blunt with an established, well-liked author standing in front of her, particularly given what an author of his profile could do for the store. Being that honest to an aspiring writer is one thing. Being that honest to a name is another.
Somewhere between a lull and a lullaby. This is where we split. Wendy found the pace slow enough that it lulled her to sleep on first watch, and described Erin Krakow as acting at a low vibration, wondering whether we are all just conditioned to rapid-fire Gilmore Girls dialogue at this point. Megan thinks the low vibration is exactly the appeal, and that it is intentional: these movies are built to be soothing, cozy comfort watches, and the pacing is doing that on purpose.
Did You See That?
Alice Waters is a real person. The bookstore coworker shares a name with the James Beard award-winning American chef, restaurateur, and activist. That is not a nobody. Was it deliberate, or just a play on the fact that everyone in this movie is on the water?
The loneliest boat in the harbor. Meg’s aunt shows up and asks if they can find somewhere more private to talk. The very next shot is b-roll of the harbor, and the focal point is a single boat sitting all by itself in the middle of it. It really seems like we are about to cut to the two of them on that tugboat. We are not. They walk along the water instead. Probably just an establishing shot, but the timing is very funny.
You can see their breath. This was shot in January and February in Langley and Gibsons, British Columbia, for a movie set in spring. Production got hit with a snowstorm, and it shows. Breath is visible in many, many scenes, nobody is wearing gloves, and when it does snow, it never sticks. What a weird April snowstorm.
It is not Nantucket. It is Can-tucket. Van-tucket.
Where to Watch Blind Date Book Club
- Hallmark+, including via the Hallmark+ channels on Amazon and Apple TV
- Hallmark TV Amazon Channel
- Live TV services carrying Hallmark Channel: fuboTV, YouTube TV, Philo
- Free with a library card on Hoopla
- Rent or buy on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home
Runtime is about 1 hour 25 minutes.
Is There Going to Be a Sequel?
Nothing announced. Erin Krakow has said she would come back, telling Us Weekly there is potential in revisiting Meg and Graham and that she would work with Robert Buckley again in a heartbeat. The door is open. That is all it is so far. We remain available to consult on the two-babies-in-a-bookstore storyline.
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