Book: The Christmas Crush

Author: Noelle Douglas

Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for an advanced audio copy.

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The Christmas Crush is a cute holiday-themed story. Lawrence is a local baker who owns a bakery in New Hope PA. A chain bakery is coming to the town and Lawerence is nervous and does not want them to open. Sparkle Bakery sends over someone from corporate to ensure the opening is smooth so they send over Elena. Lawrence and Elena are instantly attracted to each other but start off as rivals. 

This is called an enemies-to-lovers romance and I guess that’s true since after their initial meeting they did not agree with each other but there was really no enemies part here, they went to lovers too quickly. One day it seemed Lawerence wanted nothing to do with her and the next they were together. I didn’t mind this because I liked both characters so much that I wanted them together quickly. 

My biggest complaint with the book was the conflicts felt so forced. Especially what comes up towards the end of the story. I felt the characters went a little backward in their development. 

My favorite part of this book was the epilogue. This will have spoilers but I feel I have to talk about this because I appreciated it so much. Scroll to the end to avoid any spoilers. So many books like this have the same epilogue. It’s always one of two things, either the female lead is pregnant or there is an elaborate proposal after only a few months of dating. I appreciated that this story went two years into the future for Lawerence’s proposal. Relationships are hard work and it was nice to finally see one that took a reasonable amount of time to move on to the next step. 

The Holiday Crush is a great book to get your holiday season started!

Final score: 4/5