Early review: So This is Christmas by Jenny Holiday

September 22, 2022

by Jenny Holiday

Pub date 10/4/2022 Avon/Harper Collins

🏔 3.5 stars out of 5 🏔

✨ 🏰 👑 🎿🛷❄️🎄🎅🏻✨

Matteo Benz has spent his life serving at the pleasure of the Eldovian crown. His work is his life and his life, well…he doesn’t have much of one. When he is tasked to aid a management consultant who has been flown in to help straighten out the king’s affairs, he is instantly disturbed by her brash American manner—as well by an inconvenient attraction to the brainy beauty.

Cara Delaney is in Eldovia to help clean up the king’s financial affairs, but soon finds herself at odds with the very proper Mr. Benz. As intrigued by his good looks as she is annoyed by his dedication to tradition for its own sake, she slowly begins to see the real man behind the royal throne.

As they work together to return Eldovia to its former glory during the country’s magical Christmas season, Matteo discovers he is falling hopelessly in love with the unconventional American. But a man who has devoted his life to tradition doesn’t change easily. Can he become the man Cara needs, or will their love be another sacrifice to the crown?

✨ 🏰 👑 🎿🛷❄️🎄🎅🏻✨

So This is Christmas is the third book in Jenny Holiday’s A Princess for Christmas series. I really enjoyed Jenny Holiday’s previous book (and second book in the series) Duke Actually, so I immediately requested this when I saw it on NetGalley.

So This is Christmas reminded me how much I like Jenny Holiday’s writing style. It’s funny, sweet, and her characters are well drawn. I quickly got a sense of who Cara and Matteo were and liked them very much. I especially enjoyed getting to see characters from the previous two books.

It was a little slow going at times but overall is a very enjoyable book and everything you’d want in a Christmas romance. I really like the cozy, wintery world of Eldovia that Holiday has created in these books. It was like being inside a snowglobe. A total delight. The story was delightful as well up until the third act breakup.

Cara was awful to Matteo for what felt like no reason other than as a plot device to precipitate the breakup. And afterwards she proceeded to come up with ways to cash in on Eldovia’s Christmas spirit and commercialize it to bring in tourism revenue. This felt cynical to me and like it went against everything that makes Eldovia charming and wonderful.

I honestly thought this was such an enjoyable, lovely story up until the end. The unpleasantness that cropped up in the final 20% seemed unnecessary and brought the whole thing down for me. Also, there was a sweet subplot with side characters Torkel and Sebastien that just ended up disappearing at its climax which seemed really odd and a little disappointing. So the end was a bit underwhelming for several reasons. But overall I did very much enjoy this sweet, funny book. It will definitely make you want to curl up in front of a fireplace with a cup of hot chocolate while you read.

3.5 stars out of 5

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