Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for this ARC.

Kate Hunter, 35, is a British corporate lawyer who also sometimes works for the US arm of her law firm. One day she is called to Boston urgently to deal with a complex inheritance matter and due to a very strange old will has to live in the Vermont house of the late client, Cora Moreaux, for at least six weeks to detail the assets and decide who of her family will inherit the house and the business.

It is here she meets Sam Langston, 38, who lives in the house because he was brought up by Cora and husband William. At first they can't stand each other and play really childish pranks on each other but after an attack on her by one of the psycho relatives they start over.

All this is complicated by the fact that Kate has a fiancée at home who she accidentally agreed to marry in eight weeks' time so her overbearing mother is on the phone every five minutes with wedding stuff.

This is where the book fell flat for me. Kate doesn't even tell Lance that she is living in the same house as Sam, she doesn't tell anyone that she doesn't really want to marry Lance and have children, and just strings everyone along, even as she develops feelings for Sam. She tells herself that she has morals, but this is emotional cheating. Lance has to come over unexpectedly for her to finally take her head out of the sand. I think that's a serious character flaw.

I only like about half of the characters, and while Cora's diary is interesting, I absolutely don't understand the research that Kate does into the prospective heirs if she makes such a monumental mistake when it comes to one of them.

The setting is beautiful  and the scenery is snowy and Christmassy but the romance didn't convince me. 

Read this if you like the enemies go lovers, forced proximity tropes and  unusual meet-cute plots.