A Lot Like Christmas by Jennifer Snow – a Review

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Description:
This Christmas season, love comes where you least expect it. 

For Jessica Connolly, there is no better place than her coastal hometown of Blue Moon Bay. She has a wonderful family, supportive best friends, and a successful bakery on Main Street. Unfortunately, every time she designs one of her ex-boyfriends’ wedding cakes, she’s reminded just how unlucky she is with love…and that she’s a good luck charm for men to find their happily ever after. With someone else. The minute they break up.  So she’s decided to be done with love.

Dr. Mitch Jameson is more comfortable traveling the world with Doctors Without Borders than staying in one place. He just needs to survive the holidays in his small hometown before he can leave again. The beautiful, intriguing bakery owner with an aversion to dating might be just who he needs to occupy his restless heart.

From sipping hot chocolates at the local festival of lights to early morning dessert deliveries, Jessica and Mitch rediscover the spirit of the holidays. But when the 25 days of Christmas are over, will their romance be over, too?

 Each book in the Blue Moon Bay series is STANDALONE: 
* A Lot Like Love
* A Lot Like Christmas

Review:

A Lot Like Christmas by Jennifer Snow is the 2nd book in her Blue Moon Bay series. A Christmas story in September! But if you read it, you could easily swap it for any season. I can see me picking this book up again and again, it has fun, it has humour and it has heartbreak (like any good romance) and it has a couple of intimate moments (might want to read those at home) ? 

* A Lot Like Christmas  is sweet small-town romance with a happy ending. However, the story includes elements  that might not be suitable for all readers. Depression, anxiety, and symptoms of PTSD appear in the novel, and a child’s illness and death are relayed through a character’s backstory. Readers who may be sensitive to these elements, please take note.*

Poor Jessica, I felt so sorry for her! Couldn’t imagine how she must have felt to design a cake for a man she could have married! It feels like a curse, she meets the man of her dreams…. It doesn’t work out…. He then meets and marries someone else! That happens a few times!! I’d call it a curse! So although she doesn’t begrudge them, it’s enough to make Jessica swear off love. 

Mitch isn’t looking for long term, he’s not looking to stay long at all! Being a doctor is all he’s wanted to do, fulfilling his dream of being a Doctor without borders has been exhausting but rewarding. Coming home before jetting to another place that needs him, Mitch needs a little quiet time then he’s gone, back to saving the world…..

When Mitch and Jessica meet, sparks of interest between both the couple is evident. And when Mitch tells her it’s only for a few weeks, Jessica assures him that’s fine with her. Both fight their feelings for one another, but I hope the feeling Jessica was invested a lot more than Mitch, yes they both were having fun, but I truly believed Mitch would walk away!! 

There is a part in the book I was totally going to hit the guy with a cake!! And then scream at Jessica to not let him get away!! 

I’ve not read the previous book, and it’s not necessary either, but I’ve added it to my (never ending) TBR (To Be Read) list. It’s written really well, and it captures the charm of the little town of Blue Moon Bay (which if I could I’d love to climb into the pages and explore the coastline) characters come to life as you witness Jessica’s love of Christmas and family. Shake your head at Mitch’s decisions not to have ties, and then cry into your tissue as secrets, and decisions will pull this couple apart!! 

So is it just a Christmas romance? Is it just Mitch wasting time until his next adventure calls? Or will Jessica be able to prove that you can have just as much adventure in a small town as you can anywhere else? Or will she have to bake a fourth cake? 

Reviewed by Julie

Copy provided by Publisher