A Lot Like Christmas (Blue Moon Bay #2)

by Jennifer Snow

Blurb:

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?

Themes: Contemporary, Holiday

Rating: 4 stars

Heat Rating:

Review:

Jennifer Snow’s new series set in Blue Moon Bay continues with the second of three best friends as she finds love in the most unexpected of men at the most beautiful time of the year. Snow has become one of my favorite contemporary romance authors in recent years as I read more of her series and I was surprised when this new series slipped under my radar and grabbed my heart without me knowing it was coming well in advance. That said I am thrilled I have had the chance to get to know these three crazy ladies and the small town they call home. Jessica Connolly is the perpetual girl left behind and though she loves her small bakery in her hometown she is starting to question if she needs to move on to find her own little slice of true happiness. Dr. Mitch Jameson is forced home to the town he ran from years ago, despite his wishes, at the most wonderful time of the year, and he is miserable. Then he walks into the bakery to meet the most intriguing and beautiful woman to cross his path in ages. Neither of these two are looking for a deep connection and they both realize their time together comes with an end date, but the connection is undeniable and the more time they spend together the harder it is to deny the draw between them. In the end sometimes it comes down to simply choosing to give yourself to love …or not. I found myself totally enthralled by this story, despite the simple and obvious holiday trope, mainly because Jessica and Mitch were both hilarious characters and they brought levity and sweetness to a story that was filled with tears at many moments. Yes I cried a lot, and the tears were rarely happy, but in the end they brought each other a happiness that overcame the hardships they both had to deal with. Jessica was witty, sweet, and loving to those who deserved her care, but she had a depth that so many had overlooked which Mitch dug into and fell in love with. Her fears and hang-ups about being left out and alone were easy to relate to and made you root for her to find her HEA in a big way. Dr. Mitch was dealing with some very serious trauma from his travels and it was obvious he had a form of PTSD that left him unable to connect with those he loved until Jessica showed him a way out of the darkness. I loved seeing him find the fun and lightness in the holiday events they shared and the moments they shared just the two of them as well. The depth of passion they share only seemed to grow the more time they spent together and I could see they were made for one another from the beginning. I am dying to find out what comes next in this series for sure and to see more of the crazy characters in this small town. As always Jennifer Snow’s small town atmosphere and lightness come through despite several heavy subjects and the challenge of two people falling in love against their better judgments. Worth every page-turning moment.