I wanted to read more festive reads this Christmas that my festive TBR is now as long as my normal TBR. I saw this one around on the book community and I wanted to read some of Claire Kingsley’s work and decided to start with this one. I was disappointed with it, it was kind of festive but with all the hype, Elias just annoyed me and needed to grow up. 

This book has two points of view. The first is Isabelle Cook, and she has a serious problem. Her family farm, site of Tilikum’s Christmas Village is in trouble. Big financial trouble. And worst of all? The man trying to buy it is none other than the grumpiest man of them all – Elias Stoneheart. That's a big nope. She is not letting him get involved. The second point of view is Elias Stoneheart, and he is in the business of making money, not friends. Especially when his boss is promising a long-awaited promotion. All he has to do is convince one struggling family to sell their farm. There is just one small problem, it’s the Cook Family Farm. And Isabelle Cook is his ex. He might have history with Isabelle, but this is just business. A Christmas-loving farm girl is not going to come between him and his ambition. And Christmas? He hates it. Christmas Village needs to go. But as Elias spends time in the small town he once ran away from, holiday spirit – and Isabelle – get under his skin. And she might be the only one who can melt the ice around his heart.  

My main issue with this book was Elias, like I understand you have trauma, and your parents don’t love you, but the love of your life went through a miscarriage, and you were going to proposed and then left. Massive red flag behaviour. I just wanted him to grovel a bit more, it just felt like he got off too easy. The storyline ended up getting repeated quite a bit and the miscommunication was driving me up the wall. One minute they trust each other, the next they are back to hating each other. It wasn’t very festive besides the obvious “grinchy” vibes and the fact that Isabelle worked on a farm that was for the Christmas Village. The story was mainly focused on both business of Elias trying to get his promotion and Isabelle trying to save the business, but I wanted more of a relationship with them. 

Isabelle grew on me once I knew what had happened with her and Elias and she had every reason to be pissed with Elias and let him off way too easy in the name of Christmas. The side characters saved this book. Isabelle’s best friends and the town and Elias’s assistant and her child. I was more interested in Alice’s love story than Elias and Isabelle especially with Cole basically wanting her from the get-go. I liked seeing the drama unfold with the Bailey Brothers and from the one chapter of their dynamic, I'm interested to see how it might go that I might start that series, but if it is like this book, I might not.  

This book was okay, but it fell flat at times, and I was wanting more.