This book is a cutesy small down cozy holiday book that will be enjoyed by those looking for something to read while they sip hot chocolate. Unfortunately that reader would not be me.

Sigh. This sounded right up my Hallmark Christmas movie loving alley, but it missed the mark on some pretty major fronts. 

The writing wasn’t great overall. Information was dumped onto me instead of being woven into the story and I was being told most things rather than shown. Now I usually associate this with weak writing but hey, if I’m invested in the plot/characters, I can persevere. Which leads me into the characters and why I did not care about them. 

When reading a romance or a romcom I am expecting one thing to shine through and that is chemistry, which is often led by dialogue! And the dialogue at play here was so awkward and stilted I found myself cringing. WHO talks like this? (I’ll answer that : the teen lead of a Disney channel movie from 2010.) Quinn’s voice was juvenile and Noah was written to be the “mysterious deep handsome stranger”… which is a type and not a multidimensional character. I’m gonna be so real, my hate for Noah clouded me the whole book. It was hard to see past the massive ick he gave me. Together these two had no chemistry. At all. 

Honestly I’m most disappointed that this could have been great! The concept is fantastic for a cozy holiday novel and the narrative of Hermione reclaiming her story while Quinn fights for his bookshop (and romance) is heartwarming.

Special thanks to HarperCollins UK, One More Chapter and Netgalley for providing an arc of this book! I am leaving this review voluntarily!