No One Cancels Christmas by Zara Stoneley. She had to go on an adventure to find out how much her mother loved her.

My first escape into the world of Zara Stoneley's writing began with The Wedding Date, which captured my heart as far as stories go and No One Cancels Christmas is no different. With a stunning Canadian backdrop sprinkled with shimmering snow, how could a story fail to capture the magic of this festive time of year.

Everything, apart from the kitchen sink is thrown into this story. We have snow, Scrooge, smouldering hot brothers, snowboarding, snow mobiles, a mountain resort in need of a festive facelift and a gutsy gal hell bent on saving the day to name but a few. This smorgasbord of plot treats all add up to create an exceptionally entertaining story that had me hooked from page one.

Each character played their part to perfection with style and charisma. I've found that Zara has the knack for creating instantly likeable characters. Our leading lady Sarah, is fearless and edgy but uses this facade to hide away from past rejections. I was swept up in her journey of self discovery and championed her on every step of the way as she blossomed into the confident and emotionally free young woman we see in the concluding pages. The brooding hero Will reminded me of a cross between Mr Darcy and Mr Rochester so I had no option but to swoon. The chemistry between the two was electric and I was on the edge of my seat in a reading frenzy, silently demanding that sought after happy ending. Sam was an unexpected treat I must say, having met her previously in The Wedding Date it felt like I was having a catch up with an old friend.

This Christmas rom-com is everything that you could possibly want and more. I loved every moment of my time spent at the Shooting Star Mountain Resort and couldn't recommend this book highly enough. If you haven't read it yet then what are you waiting for. This is a festive treat not to be missed.

A good Christmas romance read. It was nice to see the characters develop and get more back ground information the further into the book you got. Great for curling up in front of the fire with a hot drink.

Funny, festive and fabulous, everything you want in a Christmas holiday read.

Sarah is such an authentic, believable character, her sense of responsibility makes her confront Will, co-owner of a holiday resort that is threatening the reputation of her aunt's travel agency. The emails soon turn from caustic to cosy and when she decides to visit the resort the fun really starts.

Will has secrets and hides them well under a Mr Scrooge persona. The romance is slow to build but so worth waiting for and really threatens to melt the snow. There are plenty of poignant moments as Sarah lets go of past hurts and finds out things are not always right or wrong but somewhere in between.

All the supporting characters are vivacious and add to the story's imagery. The setting is well-described and breathtaking and the plot is full of twists, turmoil and tenderness.

I received a copy of this book from Harper Impulse via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

MOMOBOOKDIARY REVIEW

I do love to jump inside a good Christmas romance. I especially love this time of year with the endless Christmas Cover reveals on twitter!

The cover of this festive read is so cute with the star sprinkles and candy cane heart and the story within is just perfect. It is a wonderful tale, set in the gorgeous Canadian wilderness.

The author describes the setting so it really does make you feel you are right there - which was just perfect as I was reading curled up inside my big Christmas blanket with many hot cups of tea!

No One Cancels Christmas is a festive novel of love and loss, fun, family secrets and of course a sprinkle of romance.  A brilliant read!  I will certainly be reading more Zara Stoneley.

Thank you to NetGalley, Harper Impulse and Zara Stoneley for the opportunity to read and review this novel.

This is a lovely, lively, funny and very enjoyable Christmassy novel.
Sarah is in a bit of a rut. She has her job in her aunt’s travel agency business with co-worker and friend Sam, but it’s becoming more stressful with ever more complaints and mutterings about legan action. She has a vague sort-of boyfriend in Callum, and she’s rather trapped by routine. So when Aunt Lucy announces she’s going to Australia rather than spending the usual Christmas with Sarah, she’s thrown. However, this proves to be the slap in the face that she needed and it makes her pull herself together.
She’d been toying with going to Canada to visit the disastrous Shooting Star Mountain Resort herself and tell the miserable Will Armstrong a few home truths. So off she goes and finds that things are every bit as bad as people have been making out. So she sets out to bring the Christmas sparkle back to Shooting Star Mountain Resort, but it’s not going to be as straightforward as she thought. Will has a few issues to straighten out.
Added to that, the skeletons in Sarah’s closet are rattling louder and louder. She hasn’t spoken to her father in years because of an incident one Christmas…
The quiet yet resolute Aunt Lynn, who brought Sarah up, proves to be the catalyst in this wonderful story. Through her kind actions she brings about a transformation in our heroine and helps everything work out the way we want them to.
The perfect book to read curled up by the fire with a mug of hot chocolate (with marshmallows, of course!) and a Christmas music CD on in the background, whatever time of year it actually is!

This was a cute and light hearted Christmas love story, perfect to get anyone in the festive spirit! There were plenty of sweet and likeable characters and a decent storyline to go with it. I would have given it 4 stars but I found the ending slightly disappointing as it felt so rushed, particularly the part with her dad! I did enjoy it and look forward to reading something else by Zara

A textbook Christmas romance with a bit of a beauty and beast theme and lots of funny dispersed throughout to keep you wanting to read more.

A funny, sweet Christmas rom-com. Loved it!
Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author. All opinions are my own.

This was a great book. Who doesn't love a snowy resort or being stranded in a rescue cabin awaiting rescue? This Christmas tale is about overcoming their pasts to live for the future and for love.

Sarah is a free spirit, blue haired travel agent for her aunts travel agency. Will is a brooding scrooge who runs his brothers resort. Both Sarah and Will have heartbreak, in one way or another, in their pasts that shape them into who they are today.

Sarah wants to get to the bottom of the bad reviews and fix the resort to its former status and Will justs wants out.

This story was a really good read.

I liked this story, there was a sort of seriousness to it that I wasn’t expecting. There were light hearted moments, touching moments and funny moments.

I liked Sarah. She was carefree and fun. Except for when it came to Will and his resort. I connected quite quickly with her, she certainly felt the same as me about Christmas. It’s a time for family and friends. A little thing that irritated me with her though was that she was very repetitive. She said that someone was cute numerous times within a couple of sentences, that Will’s eyes were intense or something similar god knows how many times in one paragraph.

I liked Will, even if he did come across a grump. He had his moments though. I was also sort of surprised by his background, as nothing was hinted at throughout the whole book. I sort of wish that we had his point of view in this book. I think it would have worked really well as we only ever got one side of the story and I felt there was a lot missing.

I didn’t really get the chemistry between Sarah and Will until late on in the book. It just wasn’t an instant thing for me. To be honest, I was sort of rooting for Ed (Will’s brother). There was more chemistry between him and Sarah than Will if I’m honest.

The serious notes to the story… Sarah’s past is tragic, yes, but it does hold her back when she could have quite easily been a fantastic character without that hovering about. I think this story could have been more… magical without the backstory it has. Obviously it does work for the book though, and we do get to know Sarah a lot better for it.

Zara Stoneley’s writing style is so easy to get into, and you do feel like you’re right in the middle of all the action, drama, romance. Her location choice is fantastic and her descriptive style is incredible.

A lovely easy to read chick-lit Christmas romance with great characters and plenty of funny moments throughout. The story is set in Canada at a mountain resort and with the author’s descriptions you can actually imagine yourself being on holiday there with all the snow and plenty of festive things that go on.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story and it definitely helps gets you in the mood for Christmas.

3.5 cups No One Cancels Christmas by Zara Stoneley offered humor, healing and a recapturing that magical feeling of Christmas. Grab a cup of hot cocoa and meet our zany, complicated heroine Sarah as she takes on Mr. Grinch himself, Will Armstrong. While not my favorite holiday take, I did enjoy the character growth, humor, chemistry and setting. Full review to post @ Caffeinated Reviewer on November 16th.

Amazing book. Loved it from beginning to end.
Well written which kept me captivated throughout.
I will definitely be reading other books by this author

Ah! this was s textbook holiday romance, lots of comedy and nice character moments not to mention lots of holiday spirit.

I knew as soon as this book came up that I had to read it. Especially after the explosion that was The Wedding Dathe.

To start with I found sarah to be a bit of an interferer, she liked to meddle in other people’s business, but she soon started to grow on me and I realised all she wanted to do was help.

I didn’t realise until more towards the end that Sarah’s best friend Sam is actually the very same Sam out of The Wedding Date! I’m very surprised this didn’t click earlier than it did. I loved the fact that sam dropped everything to make sure her best friend wasn’t on her own for Christmas.

Ed I wasn’t much a fan of, mainly because of his play boy, can’t be bothered attitude. He grated on me quite a bit actually and can often be found eye rolling at him.

Will, I liked his sense of humour actually. Especially in the emails that were sent back and forth in the beginning. He didn’t want to be there looking after the resort but eventually made it work for him.

I felt like I had a lot of expectations for this book and although I feel it wasn’t quite as good as The Wedding Date, it was still pretty awesome! I do feel it ended rather suddenly and rather than stopping where it did, we could of got an insight into their lives after Will turns up.

Anyway, I think that’s enough rambling on my part 😁 I have given this book a 4/5 rating. I love the author, the characters were fantastic and I think we now need Sam’s big wedding (hint hint)!

I really liked the idea of this book, was a great storyline and it gave me a warm fuzzy feeling, I just felt at times the dialogue between the characters went on a bit too much but that’s personal preference. All in all a good book

I enjoyed this book, it was a lot of fun! While I do read chick lit specifically to relax, there was a bit more meat to <i>No One Cancels Christmas</i> which I really appreciated. Stoneley has written complex characters that don't always fall into chick lit tropes, and she wove together a few truly touching story lines to create a wonderful story. I do love Christmas themed anything, but she thoughtfully used the holidays to frame the story without it falling into "Tree decorating! Cookies! Santa!", which gave it a lot of depth.

My one pet peeve is due to me being Canadian- none of the Canadian characters dialogue was written in a way that we would actually say. We "move" wood, we don't "shift" it, for example- I wish she had taken a little bit of time to flesh that out because it was slightly distracting. (I knew what she was saying throughout having lived in Ireland, but I could see some of it being slightly confusing for North Americans.)

I almost gave up on this book when I was a quarter of the way through and the main character, the travel agent Sarah, had still not left England to go to the Canadian resort she is looking to transform for Christmas. Once she arrives at the ‘winter wonderland’ she is met by a cliche of characters, the handsome, flirtatious younger brother and his mysterious, troubled Scrooge- like older brother.
Most of the rest of the story is fairly predictable, and although it is said to be humorous, it didn’t make me chuckle.
The ending of the book felt extremely rushed and I felt this could have been dealt with in more detail.
Sorry, this book really wasn’t for me.
Thanks to NetGalley for a Kindle copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Just middle of the road for me. Sarah was amusing in the beginning, but as the book wore on, she seemed a bit immature. Will was a grump in his letters, but he seemed a different person when she go there. I had a bit of a struggle really connecting withe the characters. I felt like there was too much going on and didn't really feel with the characters.