Holiday Romance and Snowed In
This is a rare occasion where I loved the sequel, Snowed In, even more than the first one. And I really loved that one too! A bestie recommended these to me and I'm so grateful! Holiday books typically don't fully capture the festivity of the season other than just mentioning hot cocoa and that there's pine trees around and often they don't hold my attention. But these had the charm of Emily Henry's writing style, lovable characters and several moments that made me laugh out loud! They're also set in Ireland which I really enjoyed. Feeling very festive after reading these.
Holiday Romance is a friends to lovers story about two Irish natives who live in Chicago and have been friends for 10 years and always share a flight home to Ireland for Christmas. But when a snow storm prevents them from flying directly to Ireland, they take the long route by boat and train and cab! Lots of mishaps happen and it made me laugh out loud several times. Their families are hilarious and they had fun chemistry! Friends to lovers isn’t typically my favorite trope but I really loved this one! They had great banter and I was rooting for them the whole time.
Snowed In is a fake dating story which I normally don’t love either. Mainly because it takes way too long for them to admit to each other that they have developed real feelings and because usually someone in the family finds out they “lied” about their relationship being fake and then there’s a fallout and unnecessary third act break up and it’s very grating.. but that doesn’t happen here! They have chemistry from the get-go and they just slowly figure it out without it being overly dramatic. They both grew up in a small town in Ireland together but weren’t really close. Megan ran out of her wedding 5 years ago and hasn’t been back home since out of the shame from her runaway bride incident. As a result of running out of her wedding, she’s the village pariah for breaking its supposed golden boy’s heart.I really loved Megan’s character. She’s a recovering people pleaser who is stepping into herself and isn’t shy about what she wants. Christian was fun too! He was a nice guy but still had a full personality and wasn’t just a head nodding simp. In a nutshell, this holiday romance charmed my pants off.
