Mini Book Reviews: Holiday Romance Edition

🎄 Happy Christmas, everyone! 🎄

The Christmas List (Strawberry Hollow #3)
Pub Date: 25 November 2024
Genre: Contemporary Romance

Panda Rating:

(3.5 pandas)

📖 SYNOPSIS

I love Christmas.
So much so that in my smalltown I’m known as The Queen of Christmas.
And no one knows holiday festivities quite like Strawberry Hollow.

Only this Christmas season delivers an unexpected twist in the form of Wyatt Owens.
The handsome single father of my new student…
Who just so happens to also be my first love.

The one who broke my heart all those years ago.

I haven’t seen Wyatt since he left our hometown behind, but a piece of my heart has always been his.
And all those old feelings come rushing back the moment we see each other again.
Only now the boy I once loved is a charming, delicious and intoxicating man.

One I’m not sure I can resist.

Especially when neither of us can deny his daughter Lucy’s holiday wish- for the three of us to compete together as a team in Strawberry Hollow’s Annual Christmas List tradition.

At first, he’s determined to win every festive challenge on the list but the more things we check off, the more it seems like he wants to win me instead.
Soon things are heating up between us, and suddenly I find myself at risk of falling… for my ex.

But I’m not sure I could survive the heartbreak of losing him again.
Is this just a holiday fling… Or is this the second chance I’ve always secretly hoped for?

The Christmas List was super sexy cute and the perfect addition to the Strawberry Hollow series of festive romances written by Moore. If you enjoy extremely Christmassy romances, the single parent and second-chance romance tropes, precocious kids, and no third act or miscommunication because they are Adults™️, then I’d recommend checking this out!

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Mini Book Review: Her Big City Neighbor by Jackie Lau

Her Big City Neighbor (Cider Bar Sisters #1)
Publisher: Jackie Lau Books
Pub Date: 8 September 2020
Genre: Contemporary Romance

Panda Rating:

(3.5 pandas)

📖 SYNOPSIS

When small-town engineer Amy Sharpe inherits a house in Toronto, she decides it’s the perfect opportunity to start over and go back to school. Away from the family that takes her for granted, away from the ex who expected so much and gave little in return.

The new Amy enjoys wandering around the city and frequenting bubble tea shops, German beer halls, dim sum restaurants, and coffee bars serving Japanese pastries. She has a roommate with the same name as her favorite fictional character, and a group of friends who meet at a cider bar every couple of weeks.

The new Amy is also in lust with her brooding, tattooed next-door neighbor, Victor Choi, who is far from friendly but looks really hot cutting the grass without a shirt. Too bad the grass doesn’t grow faster.

As she starts telling him about her daily adventures—and as a little kissing in the garden becomes a regular activity—Amy begins to feel more than lust. But she fears she’s falling into her old patterns in relationships and refuses to let herself be underappreciated again.

Is Victor really more than a hot fling? And what’s he hiding behind that grumpy exterior?

⚠️ CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNINGS

Death of sibling (recounted), grief

Her Big City Neighbor has been on my TBR for years now so I’m glad that I finally read it but I’ve also got very mixed feelings about it! There was a lot that didn’t work for me initially and I was close to DNFing it because I couldn’t tell whether I was enjoying it or not. I’m happy to say that I ended up liking this much more towards the end and it was enough for me to want to pick up the second book in this series!

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