Thank you # NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for letting me listen to this audiobook in exchange for my honest review. The narration was completed by both a male and female as the two main characters of the story were male and female.I felt the narration and felt that it added to the overall warmth of the story.This is the perfect book to get you into the holiday spirit .

oh wow I really wanted to love this. but it was super slow and fell very flat for me. I kept wanting more and it never delivered. there are so many other Christmas books out there that I wouldn't recommend this one.

I don’t think that you can ever go wrong with a Christmas Hallmark book! Sophie and Cole were so sweet together at I was rooting for them the whole time! If you are looking for a lighthearted, sweet romance than this is definitely for you!

A fantastic holiday romance to listen to as you prepare for the holiday season.

The narrator did a great job of trying to change voices for the different characters in the book and I loved how she kept almost her regular voice for Sarah the main character. There were quite a few older lady characters and a few gentlemen and I felt as though she tried to create variety when she was reading lines from their own voices.

As for the story, I loved it. It was the right amount of sweet romance and Christmas cheer that any reader wants when it comes to a holiday romance read. I enjoyed that this book stayed sweet and PG and a kiss was all the author gave us.

I hope to read more by this narrator and more by this author this season and in the ones to come.

**NOTE While the synopsis seems like it is for a different book, the book I listened to in my app was Wrapped Up in Christmas with main characters of Sarah and Bodie.

Cole is a veteran, with PTSD, who has returned home. Sophie finds his PTSD journal in a box of books left for the church. They both volunteer a lot around town and keep seeing each other, decorating Christmas trees and working toy drives. The romance is a roller coaster ride of feelings, to the extreme. Her one project, Quilts For Valor, seems to connect them more than ever when he opens his very own quilt, along with his journal. The ending shows how true love feels when you finally let it inward.

First of all, I LOVE Janice Lynn's writing. I have read all of her books, so I was thrilled to get an ARC audiobook copy of this newest publication. Very Hallmark movie vibes as this book follows Sophie and Cole as they fall in love all around Christmastime. Will Cole's PTSD from a military career get in the way? Will Sophie overwhelm Cole? I am crossing my fingers I can see this story play out on Hallmark channel soon. Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media and Hallmark Publishing for a copy of this book for an honest review.

Wrapped Up in Christmas Joy was exactly what I expected. It's the typical Christmas Hallmark story. Opposites attract with Cole and Sophie and the dynamic between the two characters is tangible! From cold to warm to irresistible theses two are everything readers long for in a Hallmark book!

Thank you NetGalley for this audiobook for review!

Wrapped Up in Christmas Joy is pretty much the old reliable for Hallmark stories. My husband and I used to time the movies from how long till the kiss and how much wrapping up comes after. This is really no different. Now, that's not a bad thing, it's just a run of the mill thing. The story is entertaining and I always appreciate dual narration when possible, so that's a plus. The narrators also do a great job, so it's not hard to stay invested in the romance. All in all, this is an uplifting holiday romance that's great for a bit of escapism, especially if you're like me and prefer to stretch them out over the year.

Sweet romance. Cute story. Small-town feel with a big holiday presence.

Sophie is a girl who likes to do things for other people. One of her hobbies is sewing quilts for soldiers who have returned from active duty. Ok, I get that this sounds a little Pollyanna-ish, but think of it as a craft hobby. A labor of love. And she happens across a journal written by a soldier one day and realizes she needs to get it back to him, which leads to the meet-cute.

Cole is embarrassed that someone read his journal and already spends a lot of time pushing people away. He doesn't want to be pitied and he doesn't want to be fixed. He's also now a firefighter, and there's stuff they're both involved with this time of year that will keep throwing these two together.

There's a super cute scene where Cole the firefighter has to rescue Sophie who was saving the cat from the tree. Maybe a little cliché, but I liked it.

The audiobook, which was provided to me on Netgalley by the publisher (I didn't get to listen in time because I came down with Covid over the holidays this year, so I ended up buying my own copy after all) was well done. It's dual narration, and I thought both the male and female narrators did a good job of capturing the personalities of the characters. They both did well on ranges for different characters so you could tell when different people were talking in the story.

Overall, it's a cute and lighthearted story with a sweet, happy ending. If you enjoy Hallmark movies at Christmas time, you'll enjoy this read.

I adored reading Wrapped Up in Christmas Joy by Janice Lynn. It is a wonderful Holiday read. I am giving it four stars.

This is the second book I've read by Ms. Lynn. Her stories are very Hallmark-like with lots of snow and Christmas in them. This one is a little slow in parts, but I did end up liking it a lot more than her previous book (Wrapped Up in Christmas) which was also set in Pine Hill, Kentucky. Both books feature a group called Quilts of Valor who award homemade patriotic-themed quilts to military members. I really liked the quilting aspect of this story a lot. Quilting books are a lot of fun.

Audiobook Notes: I tried to listen to this book several times but it just didn't click. This time, I alternated segments of listening with segments of reading the story from my Kindle copy, which I purchased myself several months ago. I liked the story a lot better when I read it off of my Kindle, and I think that has to do with the audio narration. Both the male and female narrator (mostly the male, though) had a lot of enthusiasm when reading, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But the feelings of guilt and isolation that Cole is trying to work through after serving time overseas with the military felt like it was more serious then the audiobook made it sound. It isn't a bad audiobook by any means, but I couldn't really get into the story with the amount of perkiness and enthusiasm coming through the audiobook. I would recommend reading this one from a book rather than listening to the audio version.

Title: Wrapped Up in Christmas Joy by Janice Lynn
Narrators: Alexander Cendese and Rachel L. Jacobs
Length: 8 hours, 17 minutes, Unabridged
Publisher: Dreamscape Media, LLC


I received an audiobook for review from publisher via NetGalley. I had already purchased a digital copy of this book for my Kindle. Thank you, Hallmark Publishing for the audio copy!

Thank you to Negalley, Hallmark Publishing, and Dreamscape media for my ARC copy of "Wrapped Up in Christmas Joy" in exchange for an honest review.

I listened to the audiobook of this one this holiday season! Thankfully due to the two POV (each main character) they had two narrators, one male and one female. Both narrators did a great job, but hearing them imitate the other in their own take on a masculine/feminine voice was a bit hard to stomach at times.

I am a huge fan of all things holiday, and all Christmasy romances books, and movies. I was looking forward to this one, but unfortunately for me it felt flat. For such a recently published book, the characters were not modern whatsoever. The male main character was an ex-military man who was so concerned over his macho ego, and pride, that it got in his way constantly. The female main character was a classic caregiver who devoted all of her time to church, fundraising, and was ready to change her man to get him down the aisle.

I really wish I had more happy things to say about this one, but it was hard to get involved in their romance, to me it felt antiquated and toxic. I had wished the male MC had taken time to process his PTSD and make steps toward therapy etc., where also I'd hoped the female MC had been a stronger woman on her own, and had stood her ground more when around her love interest.

Loved this Hallmark Christmas story. Sweet Sophie is a quilt shop owner who accidentally reads the journal of a veteran who is the new hunky fireman in town. He is so embarrassed that she read his journal and get the idea that she doesn't feel bad for him.

He is convinced that he is not good enough for her and that he doesn't deserve any love. I loved how much Sophie is determined to show him that he is wrong and doesn't stand down or get scared of her feelings. Such a great Christmas story about finding forgiveness of yourself and letting people see the good in your heart and let them love you.

Such an uplifting small town romance. Reads like a Hallmark movie. Packed full of love and festive cheer. I just loved it.

I loved the readers of this book. There were 2 readers - one male and one female. Especially liked that when the story was told from the male point of view, the male was reading and the female read for the female points of view. This was a light Christmas read that I really enjoyed. The story was about a woman that owns a quilting store and a firefighter who is a former soldier. He continually views everything she does as being done out of sympathy for him and doesn't believe that he is deserving of anyone's love. The story is well developed and of course like any romance, you can predict the ending but getting there was still enjoyable.

A great christmas book to read when I couldn't be with family this year, It brought the spirit of christmas to me in another way. The perfect heartfelt book for the holidays.

Janice Lynn coins the term heartwhisperer. Wrapped in Christmas Joy aims for emotion and the rest just falls into place. From brokenly beautiful to willfully inspiring, Cole and Sophie cast a spell that refuses to be broken. Falling in love has never seemed so easy, even as your heart is falling apart.

I enjoyed the overall story, but the narration was not great with this audio version. Great topics covered, but a little longer than necessary.

I'd like to start by acknowledging some confusion. The book I listened to, and downloaded to the NetGalley app was not what was described on the page. This seems to be the case for others as well. Overall, the story was nice and pretty much on par with what I expect from Hallmark, and this comes from a girl who plants herself in front of the tv to watch holiday movies starting November 1 and doesn't move for two months. In other words, I love all things holiday and watch a lot of great and terrible movies / read a lot of great and terrible books. This book falls squarely between the categories. If you are a huge fan of the rural, country Christmas movies, this book is for you. I enjoyed "the butterflies" and their meddling ways and found the meet-cute pretty believable. The only holdback was just how repetitive the descriptions were. I don't know how many times I heard how innocent she was, but it was far too many times. At the end of the day, I probably won't add it to my rotation, but it's far from the worst I've ever heard.

Wrong Book, But Showcases Story Well

When I saw this audiobook at one of my favorite book review sites, I wanted to check it out because I love Christmas romances, and this one sounded intriguing from the book description. I had read the author's Christmas book last year and had mixed feelings about it but wanted to experience her writing through an audiobook to see if I liked it more. Unfortunately, when I downloaded the audiobook, it was not for the one described on the book review site. Rather, it was for the previous year’s book, the one that I had read and wasn't particularly wild about. I informed the reviewing site but decided to listen to the book anyway. I'm glad I did. I actually had a better experience of this story—Wrapped Up in Christmas, not Wrapped Up in Christmas Joy—as an audiobook compared to as a “reading” book. I liked the different voices the narrator used for the characters. It really set the book up as southern, something I hadn't heard in my own mind as I read the book. Because I was able to listen to this book rather quickly, I felt like I got a better sense of Bodie’s personal growth arc and the romantic arc as he became close to the heroine as he helped her out. In the audiobook, they both come across as so kind and decent, even if neither has a strong sense of self (especially our poor hero!). It sounds silly to say, but I certainly enjoyed this as an audiobook more than I did as a digital “reading” book. I still do wish, however, that I got the book I signed up for!

UPDATE: I was able to get a review copy of the actual book that the audiobook was supposed to be. Here's my review of the real book:

Lovely Christmas Romance

As a romance reader, I'm a total sucker for the wounded hero trope, so this series is right up my alley. In this book, both the hero and heroine are decent, relatable characters. I am a nurse who has seen some suffering from PTSD, and I think the author did an excellent job showing the inner thoughts and personal demons the man had to slay. The interaction between the couple was so awkward for so long, but completely understandable, and I could feel the pull between them—even when they were denying it. I love the idea of the Quilts of Valor. A lovely Christmas story that delivers the feels you want a holiday story to have.