this was super cute. lovely little christmas book to read during the holidays. i hope you'll pick it up!!

When Jess makes the decision to sit in the wrong seat on the way back from a toy fair, she couldn’t have anticipated meeting a handsome Australian man. They have an instant connection when they realise they’ve both been to the same toy fair and are heading for the same destination.

As the pair take in the delights of London and the toy store where Jess works, she receives upsetting news. The care home that her grandma is residing in is set to close.  Jess is left trying to find the perfect new home for her grandma and is determined to throw the best farewell Christmas party she possibly can for the residents of Willow Court care home.

This was a delightful festive read with twists and turns to keep you hooked, desperate to find out what is going to happen next! The characters were brilliantly written and there’s a real sense of community throughout, which is heartwarming to read. This is an easy read, perfect for relaxing reading and a heartwarming escape!

Lovely feel good seasonal book. It was just lovely. Romantically charming book you dream about. Great plot and characters. Perfect for reading over the festive period. Or at any time if the year. Christmas books can be enjoyed anytime anywhere. Very well written and flowed well. Love this authors books they just get better and better

I was unable to review this book as i did not download in time which is a shame as i thought the premise sounded really interesting. I will definitely look to purchase this in the future.

Jess is travelling back from Germany when she meets Nik on a plane, they hit it off and he ends up spending a lot of his holiday hanging around her village. She has just found out that the residential care facility her gran lives in is shutting down and is panicking about finding somewhere new.
So begins a lovely tale of community and friendship. I loved the pensioners aspect, the community that had been built in the residential home was lovely to read about and the characters that resided there.
The romance aspect for me came a bit out of left field and threw me off my stride slightly. I enjoyed Nik as a character and we learnt more about him, but I didn't feel like we learnt enough about Jess and some of the other side characters, especially for me to be cheering the romance part on.
This was a fun and festive read, but it left me wanting a bit more.

Just as an aside - there was a bit of a continuity error half way through, which may have been adjusted since the ARC was created, which took me out of the book.

The Winter We Met by Samantha Tonge was a great festive read. Jess meets an Australian, Nik on her flight back to the UK from a toy fair in Germany who then helps her sort out the last hurrah party for her gran and the other residents of the care home her gran lives in as it is being closed down. A story of friendship, romance and a little Christmas spirit thrown in. A lovely read.

A lovely Christmassy book that has several layers, adding to the interest. It's a story about friendship, and connection all sprinkled with just a dusting of festive magic. I love how Ms Tonge has given depth and focus to a generation that can sometimes be forgotten. It's easy to forget that those who no longer have much of a voice had lives and loves and dreams too. It's especially poignant bearing in mind the last year. 

I've read quite a few of Ms Tonge's books now and they're always an enjoyable escape with depth and heartfelt emotion wound within the words. This one was yet another example and did not disappoint.

This book was cute but felt a little predictable and the writing was kind of saccharine. It’s essentially a Hallmark movie in book form but it’s a good holiday read!

I really, really wanted to love this book but I didn’t even enjoy it. I had to push myself to read it and started to skim the end. 

I went into this thinking it was a romance and while romance is present, it is more of a women’s literature book than anything else. 

It’s super slow paced, making it boring at times. It’s repetitive, especially with Jess, our main character, talking about how perfect Nik is. The ending is predictable and abrupt. The middle is just a bunch of words and it felt like the author was just putting in filler information to get to the ending, to make it a longer book because NOTHING was happening. 

I loved the winter vibes and how Jess and Nik work in toy stores. That was about all that I liked about them though. Seriously, there wasn’t a single character who was more than one-dimensional or even remotely likable.

A fun christmas read - I would have liked to have seen more of an epilogue to see what happened next for Jess and Oliver, but also the residents of the care home.

Eh. The dialogue seemed forced and the author focused on unimportant details in an exposition dump, rather than weaving together a picture of who the characters are and why we should care about them.

It started well, with a nice meet-cute and the toy shop business providing a welcome variation. But this soon became only a side note, and the main story shifted to the retirement home of Jess' gran. Which was still fine with me, I liked the characters and I find it important to focus on them in books as well - because we all get old and are maybe faced with the problems Alice and her fellow lodgers have.

But just as Oliver, I found Nik too good to be true, and not even any 'explanation' at the end could convice me that this whole thing could really happen. Him doing everything he did out of purely altruistic reasons. It was way too far-fetched. 
I also got a bit bored in the middle, with all the detailled planning but not much happening...

However, the business idea that Nik comes up with really sounds like something that is worth to be realised for real!

I really loved this one! I was surprised by how invested I got in it. It was so cute and entertaining!

A fresh take on a Christmas romance, this read was super fun, yet poignant, with a touch of magic realism. I loved the characters and their relationships which form the foundation of this story, and loved the surprise at the end!

I just could not get into this book.  Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this free ebook in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley for a arc copy for a honest review. Great Christmas book! I really loved the sweet love story, and characters. It definitely reminded me of Hallmark movies.

Santa was never really a thing when I was little, but I've got to admit: sometimes it's kind of nice to imagine he might actually exist. And if anything, The Winter We Met made me realise that,  maybe, in some ways, he kind of does? Nik certainly seems to be well on the way to embodying many of his most important characteristics - and it's been a while since I got to enjoy a male character being so unapologetically good.
It's Oliver, though, Jesus's best friend, who grabbed my attention from the get-go. What can I say, I'm just a sucker fir strong male-female friendships. Especially the ones that maybe have just a bit of an undercurrent to them - or, well, a lot of that. If nothing else, The Winter We Met certainly served me with a better love triangle than I've read in a while - and it never even really was one!
Now, I have to admit that I'm not generally that big of a fan of a first person narration - but for once, this story actually managed to make me ignore that. Must be the holiday atmosphere just  dripping off the pages!

I liked this book, but I can't honestly say that I loved it. It was good and heartwarming, but there wasn't nothing about it that would set it apart from all the other books in this genre. But, given that, it was still an enjoyable enough way to pay the time!

This book felt really long. It was an okay read. I loved Alf's conspiracy theory, because I had the same one! And I loved how Nik brought out the best in each of the residents at the care home. I didn't really love the ending, it just felt rushed and a little out of no where.

A fun, lighthearted Christmas read! I adored the residents of Willow Court, especially Alf. What a hoot! Settle in for some laughs, some love and some festive cheer.