Currently we have over two hundred reviews tagged as holiday romances. One, One Christmas Knight by Kathleen Creighton garnered one of our rare (55) A+reviews. There’s also an snarky F–our reviewer had nothing good to say about Johanna Linsey’s 2000 release, Home for the Holidays. We’ve Hanukkah love stories–I couldn’t find a Kwanza one which is something we’ll have to work on–and holiday HEAs for all sorts of lovers. I had a wonderful time looking through these festive reviews. (We talked about our favorite holiday romances a few years ago as well.)
That said, I don’t really love holiday romances. They’re often just too sweet for me. To this day, the only holiday romance I love is Courtney Milan’s A Kiss for Midwinter which begins an unwanted pregnancy and a horrifically inept physician. But, hey, maybe I’ve just not found the right one yet. How about you? What holiday romance do you adore? And why?
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I don’t particularly like holiday romances. They tend to be too cheesy for my taste. If they are a novella from a series it usually is about children or pregnancy, two tropes I kind of dislike, I think. Or at least, I don’t see the romantic part of those themes. Anyway, there’s a novella I’m quite fond of, wich is ‘Unwrapping her perfect match’, by Kat Latham. This is the first book of hers that I read and I just fell in love with her London Legends. I’ve already read all her novels and it’s a pity she does not publish anymore, as I really enjoy her stories.
I have enjoyed many holiday romances, but I don’t particularly seek them out and don’t reread them very often.
I have read Santa Reads Romance by Dara Joy, in The Night Before Christmas (and possibly elsewhere), several times. I rated it at 5 stars in my list of romances with humor.
I have also read Promises to Keep by Victoria Alexander (in the same anthology) more than once, but not for humor. It is the only story in my entire book list for which I recorded a rating of ’’’ (3 tears) instead of stars for humor. That story just gets to me.
I realized after posting the above that a few repeat rereads that I mainly think of as Regencies are also holiday romances:
Christmas Wishes by Barbara Metzger
Father Christmas by Barbara Metzger
On the First Day of Christmas by Cindy Holbrook
I enjoy Christmas romances…family bonds, friendships and the holiday spirit are most important but a bit of angst makes for a more compelling read. I have ~30 rated 4* and 5*. I re-read Mary Balogh’s A Christmas Bride every couple of years—Snow Angel is good. Second the recommendation for Mimi Matthews’ A Holiday by Gaslight.
Other favourites:
I guess I do like them because I read several a year! This year I’ve enjoyed Five Night Stand by HL Day, Mr. Winterbourne’s Christmas by Joanna Chambers, Wrapped Together by Annabeth Albert, His Last Christmas in London by Con Riley, and Masters in This Hall by K.J. Charles. I also read several so-so ones. Right now I’m reading some stories out of this years Heart2Heart anthology. So far I’ve really enjoyed Con Riley’s story and also liked Eden Finley’s.
Some I’ve enjoyed in previous years are A Holiday by Gaslight by Mimi Matthews, Angels in the City by Garrett Leigh (my favorite of hers), and The Winter Spirit by Indra Vaughn. A Kiss for Midnight mentioned here is also one of my favorites.
While I enjoy low-angst, I do like some emotional weight in my books, so I rarely jump into holiday books without reading reviews from people I know I often agree with.
P.S. I just remembered a novella from last year that I enjoyed immensely, A Very Genre Christmas by Kim Fielding. It stars a private detective in an alt-American 1950’s where magic stuff happens. He’s tasked with returning an errant elf back through the Rift, but, well, things happen. Whimsical and different, with fun literary references sprinkled in. Great on audio narrated by Greg Tremblay.
Yes! That one was really good – clever and entertaining wtih great narration.
As an unabashed “Queen of angsty heartache”, I’m not a big fan of Christmas romances because they tend to be far too “cozy” for me; I never really feel that the stakes are high, and whatever conflicts exist tend to be easily resolved. That being said, I love Kati Wilde’s Christmas trilogy: ALL HE WANTS FOR CHRISTMAS, THE WEDDING NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS, and my all-the-feels favorite, SECRET SANTA. These stories have a higher level of angst than most Christmas romances along with some serious themes (the heroine of WEDDING NIGHT is neuro-divergent, the heroine of SECRET SANTA grew up in foster care and is struggling financially, the hero of ALL HE WANTS is a former cop who was shot in the line of duty), plus Kati brings the emotion and the heat she’s famous for. I always do a reread of the three books every December.
I loved this Katie Wilde trilogy too! Rated five stars. Trio is available as Three Nights Before Christmas: A Holiday Romance Collection. Now I have to re-read…
Thank you for the recommendation. I bought the collection (thanks to Nic for letting me know about the bundle too!) and read Secret Santa this morning. I really enjoyed it. I have not read any books by this author previously. Of her backlist, are there some that you particularly recommend?
I’m curious too! I’ve never read Wilde.
I think Kati Wilde’s best book is GOING NOWHERE FAST which features a number of tropes (best friend’s brother, antagonists-to-lovers, road trip, Pride & Prejudice retelling), but wears them very lightly. The book is quite angsty and has an absolutely heart-rending breakup scene. Love it!! Kati has also written a whole motorcycle club series called Hell Fire Riders (at one time they were published to be interconnected with MC series by Ruby Dixon, Ella Good, and another writer whose name escapes me right now, but Kati’s books can be read without reading the others). My favorites there are FAKING IT ALL, BREAKING IT ALL, and LOSING IT ALL—they can technically be read as stand-alones, but reading the entire series gives a richer feel. She also has a couple of shifter romances (my favorite being TEACHER’S PET WOLF) with at least one more to come in 2023. I’m not a big fan of fantasy, but I love Kati’s THE MIDWINTER MAIL ORDER BRIDE. She has several other books set in the same universe (called The Dead Lands), but MIDWINTER is my favorite. If you can’t tell, Kati is one of my favorite writers. She’s gone through some personal challenges over the past couple of years, so her output has dropped somewhat, but I think she’s moving on now and she has several books in the pipeline for 2023.
Too many choices!
Thank you! I think I will try Going Nowhere Fast first.
I bought it too and plan to review it!
I forgot to mention—although I bragged about it endlessly at the time—that I’m mentioned on the dedication page of Kati’s LOSING IT ALL. One of my proudest moments as a romance reader!
Around Christmas, I do like a good holiday romance – probably because I could use something light and sweet when everything is so stressful. I think Debbie Macomber’s Angel books are cute, Balogh’s A Christmas Promise and A Christmas Bride are excellent, and while not a DIK, I did enjoy The Captain’s Christmas Homecoming this year.
I am a sucker for Christmas romances. I also have a large collection of Christmas ornaments, and a lot of Christmas cookie recipes. So, I am sentimental about Christmas in a totally unrealistic way. An unrealistic Christmas romance fits right into all that cognitive dissonance, or cognitive accommodation, or whatever niche in my brain handles Christmas-related stuff.
I like most of the Mary Balogh Christmas stories. One of my favorites however, is The Duke’s Progress, by Edith Layton. The Gingerbread Man, also by Layton, is another Christmas story that sticks in my mind. Because I like Lady Osbaldeston in Stephanie Laurens’ Cynster books, I also like the holiday mystery novellas that Laurens wrote — a little romance, a lot of precocious children. I have enjoyed many other Christmas romances, some by people whose work I don’t normally read, so there are plenty of stories I liked that I have not mentioned.
I loved Edith Layton’s THE GINGERBREAD MAN. It’s a short story that packs a number of 3-dimensional characters and complete stories into the hero’s search for the source of the gingerbread scent that wafts through his house. He asks everyone he meets about their associations with gingerbread and hears tales of the sweet young man whose father was clearly emotionally abusive, the courtesan whose stepfather sexually abused her and “rewarded” her with gingerbread — these and others are all organically woven into an emotionally satisfying romance that manages to accomplish in not so many pages what much longer novels try (and often fail) to do.
I don’t remember trying Edith Layton before, but this novella sounds intriguing. I’m gonna go for it and try to read it before the holiday.
She was a wonderful writer, primarily of Regencies but she wrote books set in other eras too, not afraid to tackle difficult subjects or address gender imbalance in a historically-appropriate way. My favorite book by her is THE FIRE FLOWER, set right after the great fire of London and more of a love story than a traditional romance.
She has a special place for me , a bit similar to Katherine Kingsley. I particularly love her Love trilogy, of which the last, Surrender to Love, is the most poignant to me. The amazingly beautiful man who is justifiably traumatized by various reactions to his physical beauty finds love with a friend.
Like Marian, I prefer angsty romances and like you, I hate over sentimentality and saccharine sweetness, so the pure fluff that is generally the province of Christmas books isn’t something I’m particularly interested in. I can generally take or leave Christmas romances, and when I do look for them, I will generally look for ones by authors whose work I generally enjoy at other times of the year. I usually read a few each year, for review or the TBR Challenge, and lucky for me, I’ve found some good ones that feature well-developed characters and interesting storylines.
I’m also a big fan of the two Milan books mentioned here, and this year I’ve really enjoyed Marie Sexton’s Winter Magic, Con Riley’s His Last Christmas in London and H.L Day’s Five Night Stand. KJ Charles just released a Christmas novella related to her Lilywhite Boys series – Masters in This Hall (review coming soon) that has mystery, romance and merry mayhem and I really enjoyed that, too. Mary Balogh’s A Christmas Promise – on sale now, I think? – is another favourite, a realistic take on an arranged marriage. My pick for the December TBR Challenge (up next week) was excellent, too – The Best Gift by Eli Easton (2021), a lovely romance between a grieving father and a military vet that takes place on a Christmas tree farm and has lots of snow, seasonal colour and feels.
I suppose my answer to the question, then, is “I like them provided that…”
Balogh’s A Christmas Promise and A Christmas Bride are two of my favorites by her and, consequently, two of my favorite holiday romances.
I think the reason most holiday romances don’t click for me is that I love angsty romances with serious conflict and high stakes. Though Courtney Milan’s “This Wicked Gift” hooked me right away because the heroine was working-class and was trying to save enough money to buy a goose for her family’s Christmas dinner. That’s the kind of problem I’ll always want to read about.
I love This Wicked Gift. It is, in my view, a story Milan would NEVER write today, by the way. Fo me, it’s not that it’s all that angsty–there’s a tone to it that makes you know all will be well. Rather it’s that the hero does an absolutely awful thing and it doesn’t come across as such because it is truly what the heroine wants. Plus the brother is adorable.