"A Heartfelt Christmas Promise" includes relatable characters, a small town setting, huge horses, cute kids, and adorable dogs. What else could a person ask for in a romantic Christmas novel? Throw in a handsome horse trainer and a workaholic woman, and you have the basics for this novel. 

Businesswoman Vanessa arrives at Fraser Hills along with her cousin Ann, with the task of shutting down the "unprofitable" local fruitcake operation in favor of a sporting goods warehouse--right before the Christmas holidays. However, she gets a big surprise when the business is actually quite profitable, and the warehouses can be acquired by the sporting goods company without any local job loss. As she becomes part of the town, Vanessa meets handsome widower Mike, a local trainer of huge Percheron horses, along with his teenage daughter Misty, who happens to be a business genius. Together they work out a plan to save the business, including a bit of romance and holiday spirit thrown in for good measure. And don't forget the daring little dog Scooter who helps bring the couple together. I loved the small town flavor--I wanted to move to Fraser Hills! This book would be perfect for a Hallmark special!

This is a clean Christmas romance novel, without strong language, violence, or intimacy. Readers who enjoy sweet, clean romance novels will want to add this to their holiday reading list. 

I received this novel from the publisher and from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

I absolutely loved this book. The book has so much heart and soul in it. The characters are beautifully written and they make me wanna go to Fraser Hills, NC and visit their adorable town. This was a great small town book where everyone had each others backs and everyone stood up for each other. It even had the old man who makes me think of Santa with his wisdom. This was definitely a comfort Christmas read for anyone who wants something lovely like a good cup of hot chocolate.

I really enjoyed this cute holiday romance Story. It was my first time reading a Nancy Naigle book and I'm going to have to check out her others. A Heartfelt Christmas Promise was really a wonderful story of how a city lover learned to appreciate the little things and a small community. The story put an emphasis on community and really showed how important friends and family are when they stick together and have one another's best interests at heart.  Growing up in a small town I feel like Naigle was really able to capture this aspect of the story. 

A career driven woman named Vanessa is anticipating her work trip to Paris where she was going to spend some vacation time over the holidays. Work got reassigned and that landed Vanessa in a little town in North Carolina to deal with a factory there. Vanessa was hoping she can finish her work assignments to still be able to fly to Paris to celebrate the holiday. Vanessa while completing her work obligations realizes what a tight knit community this town is and begins to find it rather chaming the more time she spends getting to know the community.  As Vanessa is finishing up with work she realizes that this quaint little town is the kind of place she would love to spend the holidays. Vanessa is rushing back into the city  for an important meeting when her flight is delayed and meeting rescheduled. Where she finds herself driving back to the town  in a snow storm instead of flying back to the city. Top it off with a cute puppy, a farmer that rescues Vanessa and just maybe  she will be spending more than just the holidays in North Carolina.

A Heartfelt Christmas Promise by Nancy Naigle

A small town celebrates the holidays.  There is a rumor about their fruitcake factory being closed down.

I enjoyed this book.  The characters, the small-town background, and the romance was just super.  It left me with a wonderful holiday Spirit.  I loved Nancy Naigle’s books and I recommend this one.

Thanks to Net Galley for sending me an advanced reader’s copy for review.

4.5 stars

Nancy Naigle's A Heartfelt Christmas Promise was the perfect book to launch me into Lifetime and Hallmark holiday movie season!!

Vanessa has always put work first. She’s hoping that her long hours will pay off with a plum assignment that will allow her to spend Christmas in Paris, but her boss has other ideas. He sends her to the small town of Fraser Hills, NC, and tasks her with closing Porter’s, makers of the country’s best fruitcake, and converting all the property into warehouse space.

This is a job she’s done countless times. Get in, make assessments, lay people off, and go home. But she quickly realizes Fraser Hills and Porter’s aren’t like every other job she’s done. Shouldn’t she and her company care that Porter’s is the very heart of the city? Shouldn't they take a closer look at the numbers?

Mike’s family built Porter’s, but he’s never forgiven his grandfather for selling the company. Widowed for quite some time, he spends his days raising his teenage daughter and caring for his Percheron horses. When he meets Vanessa, he is completely intrigued—until he realizes why she has come to town.

If you love small towns where everyone knows everyone’s business, meet-cutes at high school football games, the spirit of small-town Christmas, adorable puppies, and romances that flourish despite obstacles, A Heartfelt Christmas Promise is totally for you. Just add hot cocoa and a cozy blanket.

I was so lucky to be part of the blog tour for this book. Kate Rock Book Tours, Nancy Naigle, NetGalley, and St. Martin's Griffin provided me with a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!!

Vanessa is a workaholic, working for the next great assignment. But she's passed over again for the great assignment which would mean spending the holidays in Paris and instead sent to close down a factory in a small town. The factory turns out to be the heart of the town, so she figures out a way to make the new warehouse work and save the factory. What she doesn't count on is falling for the small town and one of it's beloved members. Mike is raising his daughter alone after his wife passed away years ago. He is a hard worker that loves his daughter, his horses, the town and it's people. Vanessa is drawn to Mike's daughter and see a bit of her younger self in the girl. She's drawn to Mike too but she's worked so hard to get where she is, can she really be happy in a small town? This is my first book by Ms. Naigle but it truly gave me all the feelings! I had to just keep flipping pages to see what would happen next! I received an ARC from Netgalley and am voluntarily leaving my review.

Reading A Heartfelt Christmas Promise is like watching a Hallmark movie.  It is sweet, a bit predictable, and totally satisfying.  An all-business woman is sent to close down a factory her conglomerate owns.  Of course it's Christmas time.  Warm, welcoming people win her over and she...... but that would be telling. There's a nice romance, percheron horses and the obligatory fluffy puppy. This book was addictive! I would put it down to go do something else and would find myself drifting back to it and settling in for a few more chapters.  Can't wait to read more by Nancy Naigle.

Vanessa is sure she would be spending Christmas in Paris but an unexpected assignment in a small town is where she lands.  Not the assignment of her dreams, she is sure she will be in and out in record time but the people and charm of the small town soften her heart and make her realize just what she has been missing!  A great story with all the Christmas magic!  A Heartfelt Christmas Promise is a must read!!

This is a charming story that’s perfect reading during the holiday season.  Although Vanessa’s been assigned to shut down Porter’s fruitcake factory, she comes to love the town of Fraser Hills, North Carolina, and decides to find a way to keep the company open.  The people in this small southern town will work their way into your heart, and you’ll be cheering Vanessa on to not only save the factory and the town, but to be willing to risk it all and find the love she’s always longed for.  Mike and Vanessa make a great couple, and Mike’s daughter Misty adds to the sweetness of the story.  This story is heartwarming, and I’ll look forward to reading it again.  And I have to add this:  Hallmark needs to make this book into a Christmas movie.  As always, I’m looking forward to Nancy Naigle’s next book.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher.  All opinions are my own.

Vanessa Larkin was a bit – all right, a lot – resentful that she had not been awarded the project in Paris, but instead, she was being sent to Fraser Hills, North Carolina, to look into the logistics of closing a fruitcake factory in preparation for a sporting goods warehouse to take over. As Vanessa looked more deeply into the project, and met the townspeople, she believed she could manage to combine both projects, keep Porter’s Fruitcakes running, and still find space for the warehouse and distribution center. As she may have expected, the townspeople met Vanessa with suspicion, but soon they recognized she was trying to find a workable solution and please everyone concerned. 

Mike Marshall distrusted Vanessa from the start, once he learned why she was in town. Being from the family that had originally owned Porter’s, he was protective of his legacy and wanted things to continue for the good of the town. Soon Vanessa and Mike realized their attraction to one another, but Mike’s stubbornness and Vanessa’s habit of constantly working kept them apart. It took Mike’s daughter Misty, an employee of Porter’s with great ideas for expansion, to bridge the gap between them.

The holiday season in Fraser Hills is a magical time, as it is in many small towns across the country. High school football games, chicken stew cook-offs, parades, and the Christmas tree lighting ceremony kept the townspeople close, and their pride in Porter’s fruitcakes was evident by the way they supported each other, working together to keep the factory successful. I loved being a part of their celebration, and enjoyed meeting the residents, especially Mike, Misty, Buck, and Lilene. This story has all the feels, perfectly balanced between work and play, and of course, the expected HEA – and one that wasn’t expected. Nancy Naigle has written a delightful holiday story, one that was a great pleasure to read.

I snuggled up and flew through this book. It’s a Hallmark Christmas movie in my hands.  The town of Fraser Hills is so beautifully described, I could feel myself walking to breakfast with Vanessa and Anna. While it’s obvious from the get go who the love interests are, it was still a fun and welcoming experience getting there. Highly recommend with a cup of hot cocoa.

Nancy Naigle does it once again in A Heartfelt Christmas Promise. I loved this delightful and entertaining Holiday read. It deserves getting five stars.

I enjoy this author’s work any time of the year, yet she has a special magical touch with Christmas (or holiday) Romances… and A Heartfelt Christmas Promise continues that tradition for me.

To be fair, most of what you’d want to know about this story before picking it up can be found in the cover description blurb. I’d like to talk about the emotional pull of Vanessa’s experience with a place far outside of her normal life, which is deeply rooted in the big city.

Fraser Hills is as small-town as you’ll ever find on the map. A close-knit community, a large factory/business that employs many of the townsfolk, traditions that run back generations, and an easy laid-back feel to life. Instead of Paris, France this year Vanessa has been tasked with shutting down the local fruitcake factory, Porter’s, right before Christmas to make room for another business’s warehouse needs. It’s nothing too outside of the ordinary for this career-driven woman and she expects to get in, get out, job done in no time at all.

What Vanessa didn’t expect to discover was how this town and its residents came to matter to her. How closing down the one business that is part of practically everyone’s lives isn’t the smart thing to do. Or how much one man, his teenage daughter, and a whole lot of strangers would come to matter more than any job she’s ever taken on – to the point where finding another viable solution becomes more important than pleasing her bosses with another shut-down factory.

A Heartfelt Christmas Promise came alive for me with believable characters, a real-life situation that affects so many, the charm and the craziness of small towns, and how just the right person can make such a difference in another’s life. Call it love or fate, doesn’t matter really but knowing that you’ve found exactly what you didn’t know you were searching for comes across so strongly in Vanessa’s and Mike’s story. Plus the antics of one adorable puppy and some very majestic horses… and I was hooked from beginning to end.

I easily got lost in this world, and if you love a really good romance centered around the one thing that makes a small town unique and the rush to save it… along with falling in love then have I got a great story for you. A Heartfelt Christmas Promise should be on your reading list this holiday season (or any time of the year, really). (This story really needs to be a Hallmark movie event.)

*I received an e-ARC of this novel from the publisher, St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley. That does not change what I think of this story. It is my choice to leave a review giving my personal opinion about this book.*

When Vanessa Larkin gets sent to Fraser Hills, North Carolina instead of Paris on a company project, she is pleasantly surprised at what she finds in the quaint small town. She is sent to shut down Porter's, the fruitcake factory founded by Mike Marshall's family, right at Christmas time. As she begins to get to know the employees and people of the town, will she be able to do her job or will she find another way to please both her boss and her new friends.  This is a great Christmas read that will give you all the feels of a Hallmark movie.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

My Review: I had the good fortune to meet Nancy a couple of years ago at a book convention and have fallen in love with her holiday books. This one hit so many of my buzz words and favorite tropes; small town, horses, dogs, forced proximity, single parent, busy city business person being forced to slow down during the holidays. We get all of that and so much more. I loved that the female lead is the busy business woman, making her way in the corporate world and making it work. I loved the side characters in this book, the overly helpful assistant and nosey older gentleman, the added so much to the story. Mike is so much of what I love wrapped up in a single character, strong, kind of gruff, works hard and loves harder. While some of this book is a bit hard hitting, especially in the current economical times, it is still so uplifting, exactly what we need in the holiday season.

Vanessa Larkin has been a mainstay at ACG in Chicago. It’s just about Christmas and she knows she is in line for one of two plum assignments, one in a beautiful Christmas-themed town in Washington (probably Leavenworth) and one, the one she really wants, in Paris, France. She manages to hide her shock when she finds out that instead she’s being sent to Fraser Hills, North Carolina to shut down Porter’s, an iconic fruitcake bakery, to convert their property into warehouse for a large sports merchandising client. She’ll do her job, even if her hearts not in it. And then she gets to know the people of Fraser Hills and Porter’s.  

Vanessa’s cousin joins her in Fraser Hills and together they connect with new friends and new loves. She thought she was there to save the town, but it becomes obvious that what her employer wants and what she knows is best don't match.  She needs another plan. Something she’s really good at.

Another Nancy Naigle story with heart, complex character and a happy, if unexpected, ending. I love how she manages to take what seems like a bleak situation and turn it around with logic and love.

I received a copy of the book from NetGalley. The opinion is my own.

There are some holiday reads that are just perfect for a great escape. This book was one of them! Vanessa is a very ambitious, driven, Chicago-based woman who thinks that her next work assignment will take her to Paris. Instead she is sent to Fraser Hills, NC in order to close down their fruitcake factory and turn it into warehouse space-during the Christmas holidays!
Mike's family used to own the fruitcake factory. Now his teenaged daughter works there and Mike runs the family business of raising Percheron horses. Mike's not fond of change as he's already lost his wife and part of his family. 
The story is somewhat familiar to those of us that watch Hallmark holiday movies-woman comes to small town and learns to appreciate small-town living and the holidays. Man who is raising daughter on his own finally finds love again. That being said, the story was heartwarming.
Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC in return for an honest review.

A Heartfelt Christmas Promise is another Nancy Naigle hit; I think if you're already a fan of hers, this is another one you'll enjoy and if you're new to her and in the mood for small town Christmas romance, this isn't a bad choice to start with.

In a nutshell: Vanessa is a city girl from Chicago whose company sends her to small town North Carolina for business which in the end could ruin the livelihood of the townspeople and surrounding townspeople. 

In true small town romance fashion, Vanessa begins to meet and befriend the townspeople and along with this learn about the town and how important this fruitcake company is to it. She also finds romance along the way with single dad Mike. This isn't easy though; Mike is apprehensive and not a fan of Vanessa's at first. Their romance is pretty slow building, I remember being over the halfway mark before the apprehensiveness began to lift a bit and the story started to move forward. This book had a strong familial aspect to it which I enjoyed and most importantly; it felt like Christmas. 2019 was not a good christmas romance year; there were a lot of titles marketed as such, and didn't feel like Christmas at all! I can't wait for more from Nancy Naigle, she is becoming a queen of Christmas romance for me.

Loved this book put me right in the Christmas spirit even if it’s months early.Warm storyline characters that come alive.Will be recommending to all my friends who will love this sweet read.#netgalley#st.martins

A Heartfelt Christmas Promise by Nancy Naigle is definitely heartwarming and romantic. The story opens with Vanessa, a real estate developer, looking at the home of her dreams, but is let down by her realtor because it's out of her price range. The realtor is hopeful but Vanessa is adamant about not going over her budgeted price range. To add to her down mood, Vanessa, speaking to her cousin Anna, admits that she really doesn't love the man she has been seeing for the past three years and will be breaking up the relationship. One more disappointment to come, Vanessa is given an assignment by her boss that is quite unexpected because it's not one of the two assignments she was expecting to get. Instead Vanessa is sent to North Carolina to shut down a business and make arrangements to put another business that needs the warehouse space for an expansion. Accepting her fate, Vanessa goes to Fraser Hills, North Carolina to shut down the town's fruitcake business and install a sporting goods business in the warehouse buildings. Now the fun begins as things aren't what they seem. The fruitcake business is established, prosperous and having consolidated operations is not using the buildings the sporting goods business needs. Vanessa makes a few decisions that she feels will benefit the older fruitcake personnel but ends up with resentful townspeople. Also Vanessa's boss won't listen to any suggestions to save the fruitcake business and set up the sporting goods warehousing without any adverse problems. All throughout these goings on Vanessa has developed feelings for a townsman and he's unhappy with her business dealings. Everything ends well as Vanessa finds the original agreement about the sale of the fruitcake business to the developer, the problems created by an associate and saving the fruitcake business and her romance. It's the holidays and the town and its people are truly in the Christmas spirit.