4 stars

A Christmas tree-farm run by Jews, in a town called Advent. What could be more interesting than that? Cass Carrigan was a larger-than-life eccentric figure whose passing has forced her niece, Miriam to return home after years of estrangement. Miriam has a cozy life in Charleston, with her fiancé Tara and her antique upcycling business. But, cozy doesn't mean fulfilled and their engagement is more of a business deal than a love match. The cracks in Miriam's life start to show when she returns to Carrigan's and finds out that she has inherited one-fourth of the place. Can she let the tree farm die and go back to her life in Charleston? Or is there more in store for her?

There is so much great representation in this book - Jewish tradition and a whole spectrum of LGBTQIA+ characters. I just felt that the book was longer than it needed to be, or I would have given it more stars.

Thank you Forever/Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for the digital ARC in return for an honest review.

Season of Love gives off Christmas amd holiday vibes also with some Jewish rep. It was a quick read but also focuses on some more serious topics (content warnings for past abuse, grief, parental estrangement, alcoholism, death of family member).
After the misunderstanding and miscommunication between Miriam and Noelle, I enjoyed seeing their relationship grow and seeing how they would save the Christmas Tree Farm.
Personally I prefer my holiday books to be more lighthearted, but Season of Love shows the reality that could be behind some families during the holidays with their past & current traumas.
Thank you Forever and NetGalley for my copy.

SEASON OF LOVE by Helena Greer was a heartfelt romance that I really enjoyed this holiday season. I was completely invested in the cast of characters and rooted for them all the way through to the end. What a delight!

A super sweet romance with a Jewish MC and a fat butch love interest - both of which are rarities in mainstream romance novels that I've seen! I loved so much of this novel - the B characters were engaging and funny, the storyline was well crafted, and the chemistry felt believable. The only thing that I was disappointed by was the fade to black scenes (personal preference) and the fact that Hanukkah was glossed over almost completely it seemed. I would have loved to see more of that in the work!

What a delight, full of holiday cheer and hard truths and love. So much love, and so many kinds of love, and forgiveness. I adored Miriam and Noelle, and I need Hannah and Levi's story ASAP!

Season of Love by Helena Greer was one of my very favorites. Miriam is forced to return to her family Christmas tree farm after her Aunt Cass dies. Aunt Cass leaves part of her Jewish-run tree farm to Miriam who steps in to help revive the struggling business.

I loved the small town Christmas setting of this f/f romance. The interwoven backgrounds of trauma and the effect on Miriam and Noelle’s romance made this so much deeper than a lot of romance.

I liked that Miriam found her passion again and gained support from her found family to move forward with her life.

Mark this one down for your holiday list next year! I am hoping we see Hannah and Levi’s story next.

Thank you to @netgalley and @readforeverpub for the e-arc.

This was another quick Christmas read!I really liked the romance between the characters and the plot! I look forward to trying another Helena Greer book in the future.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an arc for an honest review!

This is the perfect sapphic holiday romance to indulge in this winter. I laughed, I cried and I enjoyed myself so much. You get a lovely small town romance between two women that are complete opposites, but their chemistry and attraction to one another is inevitable. There’s nothing I love more than a slow burn romance between a sunshine and a grump. Especially in a holiday romance. I also loved & appreciated the Jewish rep. Aside from the romance, there is a lot of growth and healing with the MCs. There is mention on past trauma, emotional & financial abuse that was experienced and how it was overcome. Which makes this read that much more important & special. Seeing the pain they’ve suffered to how they healed, found love and a new found family, definitely touched my heart. I absolutely loved and recommend this book. At the beginning of the book there is a page dedicated to content guidance/trigger warnings, which I appreciated very much.

Season of Love is Helena Greer's debut novel, and I can't wait to see what she writes next. This was impossible to put down.

Miriam inherits part of a Christmas tree farm (Carrigan's) from her great aunt who just passed away. She has been to Carrigan's in years, a decision she made for her own mental health. In coming back for the first time in years she has a lot to work through. I thought this was really well done, sometimes Miriam made beautfiul progress, but there were also set backs.

Noelle has worked at Carrigan's for years, and also inherited part of the Christmas tree farm. She wants nothing to do with Miriam, but secretly is into her. She also has things to work through, before her and Miriam can get their happily ever after.

Miriam's whole family is Jewish, so there is a more heavy presence of Jewish practices, Christmas is really more of a background in the story. I loved the blend that was achieved here.

I loved the Jewish and queer rep in this Hallmark-esque holiday romance. How can you not adore a book with a Jewish heroine named Miriam who falls for a Christmas tree-loving lumberjill named Noelle?!

Season of Love has something for everyone - enemies-to-lovers, forced proximity, dysfunctional family dynamics, Christmas, Jewish traditions, a cat named Kringle and lots of drama with a chaser of humor. I really hope we get a sequel with Hannah and Levi's story....

Thanks to Forever for the copy to review.

What an absolute delight of a slow burn, found family sapphic romance. SEASON OF LOVE is set at Carrigan's Christmasland tree farm, a Jewish owned and operated small farm in upstate New York. Miriam and Noelle are such unique characters unpacking and healing from their own deep childhood traumas--Miriam an abusive and controlling father who mangled her painting career and Noelle alcoholic parents who never chose her first. While this book is a beautiful romance and mostly follows the romance plot arc, it is also deeply about Noelle and Miriam's own journeys of healing and their missteps along the way. It is about forgiveness and choosing to grow alongside and hold space for each other's faults.

Carrigan's was such a beautiful setting and honestly felt like a character in and of itself. I so wish it were a real place and will be chasing the feeling of togetherness and quirky inclusion that encapsulated Carrigan's each and every holiday season.

I absolutely loved seeing a sober main character in a mainstream queer romance.

‘Tis the season for holiday romances and I’ve been having so much fun reading all the rom coms that have come my way. This year, in particular, there have been a plethora of queer romances which has been great to see. Season of Love was so very enjoyable and a fairly impressive offering from first-time novelist Helena Greer.

Here’s the book’s description:
Miriam Blum has no choice but to face the past she thought she’d left behind when she inherits her great-aunt’s Christmas tree farm in this witty, glittering, heart-filled romcom.
Thanks to her thriving art career, Miriam Blum finally has her decoupaged glitter ducks in a row—until devastating news forces her to a very unwanted family reunion. Her beloved great-aunt Cass has passed and left Miriam part-owner of Carrigan’s, her (ironically) Jewish-run Christmas tree farm.
But Miriam’s plans to sit shiva, avoid her parents, then put Carrigan’s in her rearview mirror are spoiled when she learns the business is at risk of going under. To have any chance at turning things around, she’ll need to work with the farm’s grumpy manager—as long as the attraction sparking between them doesn’t set all their trees on fire first.
Noelle Northwood wants Miriam Blum gone—even if her ingenious ideas and sensitive soul keep showing Noelle there’s more to Cass’s niece than meets the eye. But saving Carrigan’s requires trust, love, and risking it all—for the chance to make their wildest dreams come true.
While this is a festive, holiday romance, there is a major content warning that readers should pay attention to. Miriam’s father was emotionally abusive, and Miriam was still dealing with (aka running away from) those issues when the book starts. I cannot speak about what it would be like to deal with such a traumatic upbringing, but I will speak about how it was written as a part of Miriam’s story and Season of Love overall. I think Greer should have revealed the abuse, and the one particular event that had Miriam cut off her family, much earlier than she did. I don’t think keeping it from any of the characters (or the reader) helped the story in any way. By the time it was all out in the open, I was no longer fully invested in the details. I just knew something major had happened to Miriam and wanted to move on to the rest of the story. That probably sounds callous, and I struggled with how to bring this up without seeming like a total asshole. Again, it’s not that I wish the trauma wasn’t included or that I didn’t believe Miriam had suffered or anything like that. It was just the choice of how the trauma was revealed in the story structure that I wish had been different.

Now! Onto the festive cheer! Of which there was…a good amount but not really what I expected. I loved the Jewish rep in this novel (yes, Miriam’s aunt was Jewish and owned a Christmas tree farm – go figure) and the importance of holidays and other facets of the Jewish faith were included and explained in a way that felt natural. The fact that there has to be an explanation of these things and not, say, why Christmas trees are apparently important, is a whole other conversation. But I’m just here for the big guy in the red suit and all the gifts and treats. I don’t pay attention to any religious part of any holiday. Anywho. While this novel takes place at a Christmas tree farm and does occur over the holiday season, it lasts beyond Christmas and Hanukkah so know that going in if you’re looking for All Festive, All the Time.

Noelle and Miriam as a couple took me a little while to warm up to but I loved them both individually, somehow (they’re both super flawed but that’s part of their charm), so I was totally in for reading along as they moved past their prejudices (the first impressions in this one are not good. Think Darcy and Elizabeth levels of not good) and realized they definitely belonged together. I got frustrated with each of them but trusted they’d work out their issues enough to hook up and stay together forever.

Looking at Seasons of Love in separate parts, as one does when writing a review, isn’t quite fair to this romance. As a whole, though, Helena Greer’s debut novel was an absolute delight. Not perfect but engaging and entertaining enough that I was completely riveted and cannot wait to revisit the characters Greer has created.

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, Forever, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

I finally finished up reading/listening to Season of Love which came out in October. This is a quality read about a Christmas tree farm run by a Jewish woman in the NY mountains. The setting is well-established enough that I wanted to visit Carrigan's farm! Some serious topics are tackled in this read - don't let the bright, fun cover fool you into thinking it's light and easy. There is a note of Content Guidance - with a reminder to treat yourself with care if the topics are sensitive to you.
I really enjoyed this one - it kept making me smile! Thank you to NetGalley and Forever for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion - this is available everywhere now!

<review>Tis the season for holiday themed romance stories! I love a good slow burn and there’s a bit of that in Helen Greer’s Season of Love story. When Miriam’s beloved aunt dies and she returns home to sit shiva she immediately meets and clashes with Noelle, who was her late aunt’s chosen family. I didn’t really feel the build-up of feelings between Miriam and Noelle. It just sort of was, but once the sparks had been established, I was hooked by the romantic tension between the two. This story was unique in that both the Jewish holidays and Thanksgiving and Christmas are huge parts of the storyline, and I, personally, haven’t read many stories that do that, let alone do it well. Two thumbs up to Season of Love and I look forward to reading more from Helena Greer. bookstagram #queerrepresentationmatters #wlw #romance #literature #fiction #lgbtqfiction #queerlove #bookclub #sapphic #holidays #hanukkah #christmas #love

Season of Love was quirky and messy and thoughtful and joyful and full of rich characters and a setting I would also leave everything in my life to live in. The overarching plot was zany yet fully believable and I felt myself become attached to the entire Carrigan’s crew from the get go, and my attachment just kept growing and growing over the course of the book until I thought my heart might burst. The butch Jewish holiday book of my dreams.

Season of Love follows Miriam Blum who returns to her great aunt’s Christmas farm in upstate New York after learning of her great aunt’s passing. She hasn’t been back in several years though, so there’s a lot she has to deal with besides her grief. There’s her cousin Hannah, who she used to be thick as thieves with, but hasn’t seen since her last trip to Carrigan’s. And there’s Noelle, Hannah’s best friend who helps run the Christmas farm. What would be a short reunion ends up getting complicated when Noelle, Hannah, and Miriam each get a portion of Carrigan’s. Things get even more complicated once they learn about the financial trouble Carrigan’s is in, and how they need a plan in place to get back on its feet. And so our story takes off from there.

I think what’s most frustrating to me about this book is that everything was actually done really well. But each thing that was done so well had a caveat that kept me from loving it. I’m going to start with the thing that has me most conflicted, but that honestly probably doesn’t even register for most other people, and that is the Jewish rep. Now, this review can’t handle all my complicated feeling about Jewish representation in books, so I’ll be specific to this story.

There was a lot of focus on Jewish holidays and customs and words in this book, and think that was important. However, none of it went further than that. There barely was explanation about what the holidays were and what they represented, the customs were laid out, but weren’t delved into in any emotional way. There were all the elements of Judaism, without any of the feeling behind it. Now, I’ve dealt with this before. As I said, that’s a whole nother post I probably won’t ever write. But what frustrated me in this book is the obvious love and connection that was made about Christmastime. Which is fine, of course, but then why was the Jewish counterpart not given that same time and love? Honestly, I don’t think most readers will notice the nuanced differences. But I did, and I’m the one writing this review. So I get to express my frustration. For a book marketed about a Jewish owned Christmas farm, I would have loved a deeper dive into the Jewish element.

Some other elements did get a deeper dive, especially the characters. We really get to see what makes both Miriam and Noelle tick. They both have pasts filled with traumas and difficulties, and it’s very interesting to see how those pasts shaped them and impact their current interactions. Emotional abuse and alcoholism are not simple topics to handle, but I felt that they were treated with care throughout the novel. There was only one instance where the characters and their interactions really bothered me, and that was during a scene where Miriam and Noelle’s traumas had them making choices that were fully understandable, even if they were stupid. However, I really disliked how their actions and words were directly hurting the other person. Even though I understood that these words and actions were coming from a place of pain, it made me feel like the two of them were incompatible if when things got hardest, they only hurt each other, even if they didn’t mean to.

That being said, there were elements of this story that I did enjoy and I am actually very much looking forward to the follow up story that was so heavily hinted at throughout the book. I just think that this particular story disappointed me in a few too many ways, when it had so much potential for me to enjoy it.

Honestly, if you’re looking for a sapphic holiday romance that has more complex characters, I would genuinely recommend this book. This book didn’t work for me given my expectations and wishes for it, but that doesn’t mean that others won’t enjoy it more than me!

This book is exactly what my Hallmark-loving, Christmas-adoring self needed during this season. The characters in this story are complex and broken by past circumstances of their lives, yet they grow together. Miriam lives in Charleston with her perfectly curated life, a fiancée, and an about to be open shop for her funky art. All of that is thrown into disarray when her North Star, Cass Carrigan passed away after years of not seeing her. So Miriam packs up and heads to the Christmas tree farm that her Jewish aunt ran. Grief and mourning happen, and then all is turned upside down when the will is read. Enter Noelle, the resident tree expert and grower. This sapphic love story isn’t as smooth as a Hallmark romance, it’s even better. It’s real; it has obstacles and it’s also sweet. I loved this story and I can’t wait to read more from this world.

Cozy, warm, and funny, while also dipping into heavier themes, Season of Love was a delightful read this holiday season! I adored all of the characters (except for one particularly terrible secondary one, who is off-page the whole time), and Miriam and Noelle’s love story was hard-fought and lovely to read about. And I can’t wait for the likely sequel after that epilogue!

Many thanks to author Helena Greer and Forever Publishing for the advanced reading copy, receipt of which did not impact my review.

This was a very cute debut.
Read this if you love:
*Small Town Christmas Vibes
*Amazing LGTBQ+ Rep
*Side Characters that you love!
*Accurate and Enlightening Jewish Rep
*Closed Door Romance
*Strong Friendships

I loved how the romance was not the star of this book. I enjoyed the side characters and I would love to read more about them. The setting was amazing and really brought the story to life. I would definitely read another by this author.

What a lovely and quirky queer holiday novel! I enjoyed this a great deal. The main and side characters are very engaging. I love that there's Jewish and fat rep in addition to the queer rep. I do have a bit of an issue though with it being marketed as a romcom. If this were a movie, I feel like we'd be calling it a dramedy. There are some lighthearted moments and things end on a hopeful note, but there's a lot of family trauma in this. Like a lot a lot. I'm very much looking forward to the next book!

**Received an eARC via NetGalley**