Book reviews

My favourite Christmas novellas

Text reads My Favourite romantic christmas novellas. The text is white against a red background. The image if a close up of red baubles on a fir tree.
| Rhoda Baxter

I’ve been neglecting this blog lately, so when I wrote a longish post on Facebook, I thought, ‘hey, why not share this with my blog readers too?’. So here we are.

Someone asked for Christmas novella recommendations. I love reading novellas at Christmas. I stack them all up on my Kindle and have a reading binge in the strange liminal time between Christmas and New Year. Here are some of my favourites.

First of all, I must mention my own ones. Please buy them –

Girl At Christmas (m/f) – two people who work in the same lab finally tell each other how they feel. [Content note: hero is overweight and trying to lose weight for health reasons. He has a heart attack – but he’s okay in the end. If either of these things are sensitive topics for you, pick one of the other books instead!]

Snowed In (m/f) – Secret millionaire heroine, nice guy hero, lots of falling over in the snow.

Christmas for commitmentphobes (f/f) – a workaholic and a commitmentphobe walk into a pub … and get snowed in there over Christmas.

These are my favourite reads:

The Boys of Christmas (m/f) – Jane Lovering. I’ve read this many times. The hero is a clown (literally, a children’s entertainer). The setting is really pretty and coastal. It’s hilarious.

A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong by Cecelia Grant (m/f) – historical. Buttoned up and very proper guy meets adventurous and not-very-straitlaced heroine. She trains hawks! Only one bed. Usually Free.

Not Your Royal Christmas (m/nb) – Kate Johnson. Non-binary love interest. The story is told backwards, which sounds weird, but it totally works.

Not You Prince Knight in Shining Armour (m/f) – Kate Johnson. I love this whole series, but this one is my absolute favourite. Heroine is a plus sized pop star. Hero is a prince with PTSD. (Prince Tom – swoon). It’s a Christmas-ish book, rather than a Christmas book per se, but … Prince Tom.

Cora’s Christmas Kiss (m/f)- Alison May. Fun times at the department store. This is one of three novellas. The other two are fun too. Fake Alan for the win.

Only One Bed for Christmas – Jackie Lau. Inflatable dinosaur outfit.

What are your favourite Christmas novellas? Do you have any gems that you love?

*As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn a few pence from qualifying purchases. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Book review: A Blend of Magic by Kate Kenzie

| Rhoda Baxter

This is a lovely witchy story set in the spooky town of Whitby. I loved the atmospheric descriptions and Vincent the giant maine coon!
Willow owns a little magic shop (one of those shops that isn’t always findable) and is happy in the cosy little world. Then Nate appears – with a meet cute engineered by cats and ghosts. Things are set for a wonderful Christmas, but secrets from Willow’s past rear their ugly heads…

If you’re looking for a book with witchy vibes, this book delivers in spades.

I received an ARC (thank you!) and this is my honest review.

Buy link: https://amzn.to/45zvrpI

*As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn a few pence from qualifying purchases. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Book review: The Christmas Love Letters by Sue Moorcroft

| Rhoda Baxter

Maddy Cracy is carer to her aunt Ruthie and to her own little girl Lyla. Her life is predictable, if a bit stale until Raff turns up with a box of old love letters between Ruthie and his father. As with any Sue Moorcroft book, this did not disappoint.

The Christmas love letters is about two romances – the one between Maddy and Raff that is unfolding in the present, and the one between Ruthie and Raff’s (married) father, that happened in the past. The discussion of Ruthie’s affair is gentle and nuanced. There’s some exploration of what it was like to have had a child out of wedlock in the 60s and 70s. There’s a lot of strong emotional elements pulling in different directions in this book – long lost parents and siblings, blood family vs adopted family, living with a sick parent, living with the uncertainty when someone has disappeared …
I found this book very moving. I also found an interesting exploration of how to help someone with waning sight live in their own home comfortably.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the review copy.

Buy Link (Amazon)* https://amzn.to/3LUT1q0

*As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn a few pence from qualifying purchases. It won’t cost you anything extra.

The Holly King by Mark Stay

| Rhoda Baxter

I’ve read all of the books in this series. There are few mentions of the previous books, but only in passing, so you can read this book as a standalone novel without reading any of the others in the series.
This book feels slightly ‘older’ than the earlier ones and has leaned into the horror elements a bit more. Is Cozy Christmas Horror a thing? If so, this is it. It’s scary, but in places it is also genuinely funny. The big fight with the Christmas ornaments made me giggle.

If you like Terry Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching books, you’ll enjoy these books. I’m looking forward to reading more books set in Woodville.
I received an ARC through Netgalley. This is my honest review.

Buy link Amazon*

*As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn a few pence from qualifying purchases. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Bad Men by Julie Mae Cohen

| Rhoda Baxter

This is an unusual thriller. It was so much fun to read!

Saffy is a serial killer. It’s a hobby, of sorts.
Jon is a true crime podcaster who actually helped catch a serial killer. Two, in fact. His marriage has fallen apart and he’s quite depressed.
Girl is a dog. She is a Very Good Girl.

Saffy has a crush on Jon and she’s worked out exactly how she’s going to meet him and help him fall in love with her.
In the meantime, Jon’s podcast seems to have been provided a place, not just for true crime fans to gather, but for serial killers to find a place where they feel less alone. And these people want their favourite podcast back.

As thrillers go, this was tense, but also light hearted in places. It’s wry and enjoyable. I raced through it in one train journey. It’s the sort of book that I will press into people’s hands and urge them to read.

Don’t worry, the dog doesn’t die … or even get hurt.

Buy link to Amazon*

*As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn a few pence from qualifying purchases. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Anatomy: A love story by Dana Schwartz

| Rhoda Baxter

I bought this book because of the cover. It’s so beautiful and clever.

The story is a gothic love story set during the early 1800s in Edinburgh. Hazel wants to become a surgeon – a profession not available to a lady. She’s promised in marriage to a viscount (her cousin Bernard, whom she’s known since childhood).
Jake is a bodysnatcher (or ‘Resurrection man’ as he’d prefer), who removes bodies from graves and sells them to the doctors to practice on.

The story touches on medicine at the time and the differences between what life was like in the different classes of society. It’s quite gruesome, in places. At the core of it, it’s still a love story.
I enjoyed it a lot.

Buy link to Amazon*

*As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn a few pence from qualifying purchases. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Act like It by Lucy Parker

| Rhoda Baxter

Richard is a grumpy actor known for being a bit miserable and rude. Elaine is an actress known for being nice and kind. In order to save Richard’s reputation, the management of the theatre they work in engineer a fauxmance between them.

Richard was so very, very grumpy. Elaine was fun. She was strong and the polar opposite of Richard in personality.
There’s a lot of fun banter between the two and some of the interactions were hilarious. I always like a fake relationship story too.

I really enjoyed this book and will be reading the rest in the series.

Buy link to Amazon*

*As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn a few pence from qualifying purchases. It won’t cost you anything extra.

To Marry A Prince by Sophie Page

| Rhoda Baxter

I’ve had this book on my Kindle for ages. Since Prince Harry got married, in fact. I finally opened it whilst on holiday.
I loved the voice of the heroine. Bella is a normal, sensible, ‘normal’ person. I loved how down to earth she was. (And how angry she was when she found out who Richard really was, because you would be, wouldn’t you?)
Richard feels quite bad about not telling her who he was. His flaws make him likeable.
I especially liked some of the background stuff about the Royal household. It made me want to revisit the royal romance I have in draft from a few years ago.

The tone was lovely and light. The banter was delightful. All in all, I adored this book.

Buy link to Amazon*

*As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn a few pence from qualifying purchases. It won’t cost you anything extra.

ROLE Playing by Cathy Yardley

| Rhoda Baxter

This was a refreshing book because the protagonists were older. They are friends online but have not met – which, as you know, is completely my catnip. Because of the way their online interaction panned out, she thinks he’s a 20-something youngster and he thinks she’s an old lady in her 80s. When they meet they realise that they are the same age.

Maggie is wonderfully grumpy and anti social (frankly, I can relate). Aiden is a sort-of muted Sunshine to her grumpy. I liked that too.
One of my favourite things about this book was the explicitly demi-sexual hero. The fact that he’s only working out what’s ‘wrong’ with him (and she’s there to tell him that there’s NOTHING wrong with feeling the way he feels!) allows his demi-sexuality and his bi-sexuality to be discussed without it getting in the way of the story. Their whole interaction is really caring and adorable.

I love a prickly heroine and a beta hero, so I completely adored this story.

Buy link from Amazon*

*As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn a few pence from qualifying purchases. It won’t cost you anything extra.