Thank you to G.P. Putnam’s Sons, #partner, for an advanced copy of The Christmas Countdown in exchange for my honest review.
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Published: October 22, 2024
Summary:
From the author of The Christmas Wager comes a charming holiday rom-com about a young, recently heartbroken woman who is tasked by her sister to complete Advent calendar challenges in the lead up to Christmas to reignite her belief in herself, the holidays, and love again.
She’s given up on love and Christmas…but fate has other plans.
All Callie wants for Christmas is to hibernate. She’s still reeling from being dumped by her childhood sweetheart, and under no circumstances will she go home for the holidays considering her ex will be right next door with his new, perfect partner. Callie is officially in grinch mode, but her meddling sister, Anita, won’t let her give up on life, love, and Christmas quite so easily.
Anita stages a Christmas intervention for Callie with a homemade Advent calendar challenge—cheerful tasks to push Callie out of her comfort zone and into the holiday spirit, inspired by a childhood tradition. Callie reluctantly plays along, but when she comes face-to-face with a charming baker who just might be the spoonful of sugar she needs, her strict rules on love and the holidays are tested.
As they strike a deal to do the activities together, could the twenty four little doors on Callie’s Advent calendar not only open up one, but two closed-off hearts?
My thoughts:
It’s not too often that I read Christmas books, especially not in the early fall, but when your favorite thriller writer writes another holiday romcom, you drop everything to read it…and I’m happy to say, she has delivered another enjoyable, entertaining and cute story!
As I don’t tend to read a lot of romcoms, I’m not up on all the tropes that one might have, but I can say that this story had what I love in those Hallmark/Netflix holiday movies I so enjoy watching. This would be the perfect book to get those dragging their feet about getting into the holiday spirit in the right mood! How could you not? With all those witty puns and that amazing countdown Advent Calendar that Callie’s sister creates for her with so many fun Christmasy activities – it even got me in the holiday mood and it’s only September!
This book is all kinds of fun. All the holiday baking had me wanting to get back into the kitchen. Baking around the holidays is my favorite and its been a while since I’ve really done any…maybe this is the year I change that! I also loved how much of the author’s own heritage she wove into the story – knowing the author as well as I do, I really appreciated this aspect of the story. It makes me want to go visit Switzerland even more than I already did before picking up this book!
A fun, festive read that is as entertaining as it is cute, I highly recommend adding this to your holiday reading list!
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