This was a quick and entertaining romance story. The first thing that had caught my eye as I was reading was the fact that there was a Charles Dickens Festival. I thought that was really cool and was actually jealous that I can't attend it in real life. The setting was really good and I loved the small quaint village setting. Moving on to the characters, I actually liked Laura quite a lot. Even though she knows that she's falling for two men whom both are nemesis with one another, she remains honest and genuine with each of them. This plot was basically a recipe for disaster but the drama kept me interested the whole time and I anticipated the moment when everything was going to blow up. Overall, this was an enjoyable read but the one thing that irked me was the Christmas-looking cover. As someone who hugely devours Christmas novels, I was disappointed that this didn't take place during Christmas. I felt that it was misleading albeit a pretty cover.

If you like your Christmas romance stories with a healthy dose of steam, this is the story for you. Laura finds herself trying to save her hometown right before Christmas. She is charmed by two men and she must choose one. Entertaining and sweet, I was rooting for Laura and who she would choose. I was surprised by the ending.

A cute and STEAMY romance! Man, this book was steamy! I fell in love with the writing and the storyline so quickly which I knew meant I was in for a good read.
Laura lives in a small town that is experiencing some financial woes and hires a marketing team to help out. Here she meets David and instantly falls in love. Soon though, she spends more time with Spence and things start to get complicated for Laura.
I was expecting this to be a cute funny romance love triangle like a Hallmark movie but boy was I wrong!! It was all of those things but it was also full of steamy scenes which ultimately made the plot a little less interesting to me. I thought this was going to be a Holiday book based on the cover but it takes place mostly in the summer. Not a dealbreaker but definitely confusing. 100% worth the read it was a GREAT romance! Huge thank you to NetGalley, the publishers, and Augusta Reilly for allowing me to read this ARC!

Such a cute read. Thank you netgalley for the arc!! I was searching for something like this and received it at just the right time.

This book honestly has me really conflicted. I’m not usually a fan of “insta love” and I usually love a good “love triangle”. I liked Laura. She seems like a well rounded woman with good intentions for her small town. I didn’t like David. He seems pretentious and I just wasn’t a fan! I loved Spence. He is hardworking, selfless, and so cute. I wasn’t a huge fan of the insta love between Laura and David. I think it was just because I wasn’t a huge fan of him but some of the things he said and did just bothered me. I loved how steamy this book was. It was surprisingly super steamy and I really loved it! I didn’t like the cheating. Love triangles are tricky but the minute you get cheating involved, I just don’t love it. Something else I loved was the tourism marketing. It was done well and I love reading books about tourism marketing!!

Overall, this was a good read. I read it in about 2 days and I loved how the title ties into the end of the book. I think if you like love triangles and like a steamy romance you’ll enjoy this!

Thank you to NetGalley and Get Red PR for the arc in exchange for an honest review!

Why I Held Your Hand tells the story of Laura, who lives in the quaint town of North Powell. Laura loves her town, but it is unable to compete with some of the surrounding tourist towns. The town of North Powell is in desperate need of a makeover, or at the very least, something to attract more tourists. She enlists the help of a big time marketing team, which is composed of three main members: James, David, and Spence. All three guys are very different, yet they work well together. Over the course of the novel, Laura falls in love with David, but she also falls in love with Spence. Laura is likeable, and this book deals with the question of what if you meet your soulmate when you're already with someone? I enjoyed following along on Laura's journey, and North Powell's journey as well. One of the things that Spence suggests to revitalize the town and attract tourists is a Charles Dickens Festival. Of course, this made my literary heart so happy. What book lover wouldn't love to attend a Charles Dickens Festival?! This was a quick and entertaining romance story. It took me a little over an hour to read it, so it was definitely a quick read. I appreciated that Laura was genuine; even though she fell in love with two guys, she was honest with both of them, and actually cared about their feelings, making her a decent human being. I was rooting for her and I am glad the book ended the way it did. I don't want to give too much away, but it was an enjoyable read. I thought the cover and label was a little misleading; from the outset, it looks like this is going to be a holiday romance. However, I didn't really get that vibe at all, other than the fact it ended with two of the characters going on a date on New Year's Eve. That would be the only thing I would "change" as far as this book goes. Thank you to the author and Get Red PR for the chance to read a digital copy of this book. My tour date for this book is scheduled in November, so I will post my full review on my Instagram page @readingmama_reviews at that time.

This is was a pretty fast read and I enjoyed most of it. I loved the small town atmosphere and Laura made you really love the area. However,
I feel like Laura’s decisions made me cringe a little too much. For me it was hard to see her cross the lines with her relationship with Spence when David was such a great guy too. I think I would have felt more okay if he was a jerk, but since he wasn’t it was uncomfortable. Overall though if you could get past that the storyline and writing is really good.

Why I Held Your Hand is a novel centered around a woman and her determination to save her town’s tourism market and bring more revenue overall. She gets caught in a love triangle while working with the marketing team at KPS Marketing.

Laura Delaney enlists herself to save her small village hometown, North Powell. Not only is she is the volunteer Director of Economic Development for her town, but she also owns her own store called Creations by Laura. She is a determined 27 year old woman to increase revenue for North Powell and make it a vacation destination without sacrificing what makes it special. Not only is she working on improving tourism, she also is working on trying to restore one of the prominent Victorian historical houses in town, Powell House. She’s an interesting character who has a lot of passion to make her fun to read about. One aspect that puzzled me about her is that she is a five foot one smaller frame individual with a size 34D chest. To me, I had a hard time understanding how she hasn’t developed some back pain at this point (haha). It didn’t affect the story and instead just made me very curious.

Her marketing team at KPS consists of three men – two of which are eligible. First, there is the VP of Strategy, James Murphy. Then, there is the Project Manager, David Harper. Finally, there is Spencer Markham, the Director of Creative Services. Each member of her marketing team works together with Laura to improve North Powell.

Laura begins a secret romance with one of the members of her marketing team (secret to KPS at least) and soon finds herself having feelings for another member. Torn between the one she’s already with and the one she begins thinking about, she finds herself in a surprise love triangle. You’ll need to read the novel though to figure out who she chooses.

The love triangle was a fun and interesting storyline and the writing keeps you interested to see if your initial guess of her final choice is going to be the correct one. There were some moments that definitely crossed the line while she is exploring her feelings for both men, but enough moments that were more meaningful helped to outweigh the negative.

Overall, this novel was a fun and quick read. Love triangles are always difficult because you always end up clearly favoring one choice over another. In this case, I could see positives and negatives for why they were the right choice for Laura. The story starts in June and ends towards New Year’s Day and the author does well navigating the timeline while keeping a good pace. The characters are interesting and I enjoyed reading their story. I would definitely recommend this novel to others!

**Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my ARC. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are completely my own.**

Why I Held Your Hand is a romance set in a small town, a town that is in desperate need of a marketing campaign to get tourists. Our main character Laura loves her town and is desperate to help it survive which is why the mayor on her recommendation, hires a marketing team to save it.

Little did Laura know that she would fall in love with one of the three men on the marketing team and she and he kick-off a romance without disclosing it to the marketing company. In the meantime, Laura finds herself working closely with another member of the team and while she tries to ignore them, starts to have feelings for him too.

When a chain of events leaves both men to find out about one another Laura is left with what seems like an impossible choice.

This is an open-door romance and over-all I enjoyed it but I feel like Laura crossed some lines. It's one thing for someone to cheat (or nearly cheat) with someone, but it's totally different if the person you are almost cheating with honestly thinks you're single and available to date. I don't know, that sort of rubbed me the wrong way, but otherwise I liked it.

I received an advance copy of, Why I held your Hand, by Augusta Reilly. This was not a good book, the characters were ridiculous. I could not get in to this book.