Cozy, holiday reads are excellent - cozy, romantic, holiday reads are even better!

Anita Hughes has crafted a lovely, heart warming story about two women finding their loves during Christmastime.

Louisa works in a bakery, when suddenly Noah shows up needing Christmas desserts for a reality television show he is working on. When those desserts make the lead dangerously ill, Louisa is hired to take her place!! Meanwhile, the assistant Kate finds love again with a man from her past... Oh, and Noah and Louisa get along quite well.

I found this book to be very sweet. It's your typical holiday romance with a bit more description than romance. The beautiful displays at expensive stores take the forefront with Anita painting beautiful pictures in my head of these designer stores. I wish there would have been more fluffy romance throughout the pages, but this book was more contemporary fiction with a hint of romance than full on holiday romance.

The romance itself is quite bland at the beginning. Lots of cheek kisses to establish the leads might like each other. Also throwbacks to the relationship failures, instead of the current love that should be occurring on the page. Again, this book is more contemporary than romance. The men are also... weird. They aren't normal men (or even romance novel men), they all act very strange and have very aggressive or manipulative behaviour. It was still an okay read if you get over the fact that they are kinda weird.

If anything, I found this book to be the perfect feel good book. While I was reading it, I just wanted something to escape and feel nice and fluffy. This book fit the bill. It doesn't need to be the romance book I hoped it to be, it was perfectly nice to escape from the insanity of the real world. Thank you Anita Hughes for giving me an escape. If you're looking for descriptions of Christmas displays and beautiful Christmas desserts, this book is perfect!

Three out of five stars. ( )

While I normally adore this type of book with all of its details about baking, this one fell supremely flat for me in various ways.
 
Firstly, the misogyny was too much for me. The two main characters are both female but seem to have absolutely no idea of their worth. Male characters fight over one with no ever visible connections and another suggests that a famous chef is only interested in the other for her looks, and not her talents. Regardless of ultimate results, it was really frustrating to see the girls rarely standing up for themselves and instead letting the guys drag them in every which direction.
 
The speech in this book was the other killer for me. Barely any of the dialogue written was lines that people would actually say. All of the speech was incredibly stilted, with characters speaking for a good paragraph or two before allowing someone else a turn. They gave far more details than would ever be interesting and relevant, and blurted out stuff that people just wouldn't say naturally. With every set of quotation marks, I found myself pulled completely out of the story.
 
There were two plots going on in this book, and quite honestly, we could lose Kate's entire story. It reads as a subplot--it's not until chapter four that we read from her perspective or learn anything about her--and doesn't contribute anything to the other side of the book. I also wish that there had been more offered in the beginning; Louisa is picked to be in a cooking show because the other girl had an allergic reaction and her lips were swollen up… I don't buy it. Get some allergy medication. It works wonders.
 
I did, however, enjoy all of the details about pastries, though I wish that there had been more variety and that we'd seen Louisa learning more new recipes. One strong scene was when she got distracted from her agenda by buying ingredients and that was probably one of the only real scenes in the novel.
 
This book just wasn't a success for me, and I'll be reading other novels this Christmas.
 
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
  ( )

Just what I wanted in a Christmas romance - new and rekindled love, fantastic location, and great descriptions of food. Some parts might have been a little improbable, but I can overlook that in a holiday romance ( )

The author did an amazing job of describing the Season in London. The food descriptions were amazing, and will leave your mouth watering.

Two relationships are forming in this book, one a reconnection and one new. The men in the book seem to have no backbone, not your usual romance novel type.

Enjoyable read for the Christmas Season.

I received an advance review copy of this book from the Great Thought's Ninja Review Team. All opinions are my own." ( )

This book I thought would be more about one couple getting to know each other and the other being a young man they get together and see more of London at Christmas. This did somewhat happen though not the way I pictured it.

It about two women, one a pastry chef and the other network producer. The one named Kate was a better storyline that kept me reading. I was half attempting to not complete reading it and making it DNF. It was boring to read. It was a romance. There was not much going on about this cooking show. The woman Louisa was more worried about her dreams. She did not see that she had two men falling for her. If the author had made it more about cooking and her recipes. I would then see how Louisa was acting. No, that not what I got.

The subplot with Kate seems more like what I was expecting. Her penning for her love and see London with her lost love. She runs into him at the hotel and spends the week sightseeing. This story is a better storyline and more enjoyable. I enjoy meeting Trevor. Their story was more of a love story and seeing their experience in London at Christmas.

I enjoyed hearing about some of the places in London. Imaging the couples there experiencing London during Christmas. Kate and Trevor's story is one that I would have read more about. Trevor and Kate have a history together. Reading about St. Andrews and their past. I may be happy to read. I was could picture the area. Scotland and some of the landmark the best parts. ( )