Christmas by Candlelight by Karen Swan is by far my least favourite book of hers so far.
Yes it takes place around Christmas, but it didn't really hit the christmassy feel for me, and the romance just didn't catch me.

It also tried to be a bit of a - creepy? - mystery, which it failed miserably at. Instead of making me look over my shoulder (I'm easy to spook), it just felt odd and out of place. So instead of goosebumps, I just got annoyed. Some books manage to straddle genres and be even better - this just felt like it didn't pull off anything well.

There's a lot of hard topics in here, be it r@pe, grief and other things, and I thought these topics were handled really well. I also liked how the friendship worked around these things happening, and the loyalty! This really is the only reason I read this to the very end, and why I end up with three stars.

If you're looking for a light Christmas read that leaves you feeling warm and cosy? This is not it. If you're looking for an actual creepy mystery? This is still not it...