In an effort to get into the holiday spirit I went in search of some holiday romances, and came across The Oddest Little Gingerbread Shop. After all, as a fan of all things ginger, a story about a gingerbread shop has to be wonderful, right? This short romance delivered in terms of holiday story, albeit with a bit of a dark overtone at times. I found myself trying to figure out just what was going on in the gingerbread shop, and was left wanting a bit more detail about our hero and heroine.

Workaholic Sophie Soper is desperately trying to get to an important work conference when her GPS lets her down. One minute she’s on a well-lit highway and the next her GPS has her in the middle of a dark, scary wood, and keeps telling her that she’s reached her destination. Suddenly she’s blinded by the headlights of another car, thinks she sees a reindeer, and ends up crashing. When Sophie comes to, someone’s knocking on her car window, asking if she’s okay.

It turns out Mark Fisher was also rushing to the same conference, also ended up in the same dark, scary wood, and also crashed his car. Neither car is drivable and they can’t get a cell signal, so the two begin walking, hoping to find help. When they encounter a sign proclaiming “Gingerbread Shop, Open,” things seem more hopeful, but what’s a gingerbread shop doing in the middle of the woods?

When Sophie and Mark finally reach the gingerbread shop things get strange. The proprietor, Nick, looks exactly like Santa. While the shop is filled with amazing baked goods, Nick claims not to have a working phone. And when Nick asks the couple to watch the shop while he goes out to feed his reindeer, things get even odder. Just what is going on? And where do all the customers come from? And why do none of them seem to have cell phones or cars?

It’s apparent pretty quickly that something was up with the gingerbread shop. I found myself reading quickly, trying to guess what was going on, and what was going to happen to Sophie and Nick. While I liked the eventual outcome and thought the story itself was pretty clever, I found the romance portion of it lacking. Yes, Sophie and Mark do get their HEA, but I could have done with a bit more romance and a bit more about them mixed in with the eerie holiday tale.