This was a fairly solid Christmas read, though it verges on women's fic more than romance some of the time, and it was a bit long for my preferences.

Given that I don’t usually read a book’s synopsis before I dive in I was expecting this to be a little more like her book The Twelve Dates of Christmas, which I thought was absolutely hilarious. This book is much more on the serious side, a little more in line with A Season for Second Chances.

Elinor Noel, Nory, runs a second-hand and rare bookstore in London, but she’s on her way to spend a week in the countryside in the lead up to one of her friend’s weddings. The wedding is taking place in a literal castle, and isn’t far from where they all went to school.

Nory doesn’t expect to run into Isaac, who’s father was the groundskeeper at the castle, when Nory was at school. Nory and Isaac had a tumultuous relationship growing up and things aren’t much better when they are reunited. Isaac is best friends with Nory’s brother, and they have a very poor opinion of Nory’s ‘snobby prep-school friends’. Nory finds herself in a position of having to defend the actions of her friends, while never really feeling like she fits in with either camp.

Isaac and Nory are thrown together a bit during the week and discover they have more in common than they realized. Nory breaks Isaac’s trust though, and whether or not she can win it back is the big question.

There were a lot of serious topics touched on in this story, maybe more than I expected in a holiday romance, but I did really enjoy it. It’s a closed-door romance, but there’s still lots of on-stage tension and snagging.

I spend the month of November and December solely reading Christmas books, and Meet Me under the Mistletoe was the perfect addition to my shelf. This British holiday romance revolved around the reunion of a group of high school friends as they come together for a week of wedding festivities before Christmas. This book was filled with not only romance between the main character Nory and the local estate gardener but also great stories of the friendships between the secondary characters as they all joined together to celebrate a wedding. Just the right amount of holiday romance sprinkled with friends and family! Thanks to Netgalley for providing me the ARC

This was my first holiday read of the year and I really loved it! It could of been a tad shorter just leaving out some repetitive lines but it was really well done. The romance was all fade to black so no spice but the chemistry was there. The characters were believable and their banter was great! I loved the friend group and their relationships. This book had me crying and laughing both. Can’t wait to read her again!

I really loved this book!! It was such a sweet story! I was hooked from the beginning to the very last page. I didn’t want to put it down
Thank you for letting me read this arc

This book had some great things and others that drove me a little batty.

Things I liked:
The depth of the characters and their interactions (no miscommunication here!)
Isaac and Nory's chemistry was perfectly sweet
The setting at the castle
The exploration of feeling like and outsider despite being an insider

Things I did not like:
Way too long (429 pages?!)
Too descriptive in parts (only added to its length)
A slow start
Instalove
The relationship between Nory and Thom felt unfinished

was fooled by this cover and title. I thought for sure this would be a sweet little Holiday romance. Even the Book Summary seemed to lean in that direction.

For me, this was actually a women's fiction that just happened to have a Holiday in it. The romance was way, way in the background so I can't even call this a romance.

The overall story is ok but everything was just so misleading about the book that it didn't satisfy really anything for me.

2.5 stars

A group of old friends from school reunite around the holiday season at a castle in the English countryside. That was pretty much it. I ended up deciding not to finish the book around 20%. There did not seem to be much of a plot to invest in and the characters ranged from awful to annoying. Other than the title, I didn't find this to be a great holiday/Christmas book recommendation. Disappointingly, this just was not a book for me.

I did not finish this book. I was 30% through and nothing had happened. I felt like the story could’ve been cute but the character and story development was dragging on. It could t keep my interest.

Our Sweet Jenny Bayliss has done it again! She has not only created a female protagonist who we can all see a bit of ourselves in, but has surrounded her with an authentically compelling cast of friends and family with a ton of heart and history. Add in a smidge of art provenance and a whole lot of Christmas and you have the ultimate recipe for a great holiday book! (Bonus points for a curmudgeonly cat!) Jenny Bayliss is a must-read for any holiday season, and is at the top of the contemporary British ensemble romcom!

I really enjoyed this one by Jenny Bayliss - possibly my favorite of hers yet! The characters felt fully developed and I quite enjoyed all the banter. The scenery was amazing and I felt like I could really put myself in all of the dreamy Christmas locations. The drama was different and interesting and I think wrapped up quite nicely.

Nory didn't plan on falling in love with anyone on her trip back home for her friend's wedding. All she wanted to do was avoid Guy, try to enjoy the week before the wedding without a mistake from her past coming back to bite her. Then an incident with a wheelbarrow full of manure in the freezing cold garden brings her face to face with Isaac, her teenage crush and brother's best friend. Could this week get any worse?

3.5 stars rounded up.

Elinor Noel, aka, Nory, agrees to leave her second-hand bookstore to spend a week in a castle with old-school chums. She sees, Isaac, the gardener, a blast from the past, and sparks fly. But can they overcome their past to find happiness?

I enjoyed this book, although it lacked the whimsy and magic of Bayliss' first two Christmas novels. There were too many characters, and there are some trigger warnings (consent, suicide), that made the story a bit heavier than the previous two. But I did get my Christmas whimsy at the end.

Nory lives a quaint life owning and running a secondhand bookstore in London, enjoying the distance away from her hometown. so when her high school friends’ wedding weekend approaches, Nory is hesitant to leave the comfort of her everyday routine in exchange for a week of pre-wedding festivities back home.

while staying with the wedding party in a castle near their old school, Nory encounters a childhood nemesis, who now works as the head gardener at the castle. quickly putting their childhood differences aside, he and Nory realize that their feelings for each other have changed quite drastically as adults. as Nory pursues this new love interest, she finds herself dodging old flings, family tension, and status conflicts that still run deep.

❄️overall thoughts: cute, but not my favorite romance or Christmas story. loved the cozy setting of Nory’s bookshop, especially as it was set up for Christmastime. I also loved picturing the castle they all stayed in for the wedding, along with the various things they did as part of their homecoming. it made me nostalgic for my winter breaks in college, where everyone from high school would come home and get together to reminisce.

I found the random little conflicts & tiffs between Nory and her brother to be pretty unnecessary in terms of developing the plot. I’m sure most brothers may find it weird for their sister to date a friend of theirs, but there was also random tension between Nory going to private school and her brother choosing public? I just didn’t really find that to be a super realistic bone of contention, but I guess sibling relationships can be uniquely complicated.

overall, I enjoyed both the friendship reunion & the love interest in this story, but the book was pretty long and felt like it dragged on a bit towards the end.

thanks to @netgalley for my advanced reader’s copy!

There’s something to be said about some books needing to be read in certain moods. When I first picked this up months ago, I wasn’t feeling it, but this time, weeks before Christmas, I could barely put it down. Jenny Bayliss does cozy romances so well and this was no exception. Her romantic leads are often the people who would be supporting characters in other books, and I love that she gives the shy best friend character types their well deserved time in the spotlight. Beyond her characteristic luckless in love older romantic heroine, I appreciated how Bayliss incorporated race and class struggles into this novel. It was a bit heavy handed at times and didn't quite reach clear resolutions across the board but kudos to her for having at least some of the characters achieve breakthroughs and address their past prejudices in albeit halting ways that reflected the complicated reality of unraveling inherent biases.

I hate to say this but this book was incredibly boring for me. It reminded me of the Friends episode where they are all trying to get ready in the apartment, but the ENTIRE SHOW takes place in that one location… this entire book takes place in this one location and halfway through I was so bored! It was also too heavy for me for a holiday read. I was lighter and more fun this time of year.

I throughly enjoyed this book! I devoured it in a few hours. It was a great holiday read. I appreciated the interconnections between the characters. I liked the ending of the book immensely. Thank-you for this arc.

I really really wanted to like this book but I was pretty underwhelmed. nory is a likable enough lead, and Issac is a fantastic character and love interest. But oh man, most of the other characters were terrible people. Nory’s rich school friends are so entitled and snobby, and it was awful to see how they even occasionally looked down on her for not coming from money. A few of them were great, but for the majority, it felt like there was a rush to redeem their character in the end. It was too little too late for me, after a novel of Nory making apologies for them when they were truly heinous to Issac.

Also, this could have taken place at any time of year, aside from one mistletoe kiss. There’s very little Christmas in what I expected to be more of a holiday romance.

I stopped reading after 36%. It wasn’t bad but I was just bored. It felt like there was a lot of unnecessary details and I need more from the romance. Nothing really compelled me to continue moving forward

I love a good holiday romance, so when I saw this on NetGalley, I knew I had to request it. Nory runs a secondhand bookshop in London (hello, dream job!) and is invited to spend the week at a castle with her old friends preparing for the upcoming wedding of two of them. I'm going to be honest, it took me a while to get into this book. I'm talking a good 20-25% of the way through. I don't know if it was just because of the author setting the foundation, but I found the beginning to be a bit slow. However, once I hit that point, I didn't want to put the book down. I really enjoyed Nory and the dynamic she had with her friends and family. And Isaac was absolutely swoon-worthy. There was a pretty big cast of characters, but most added something interesting to the story. All in all, I found this to be an enjoyable holiday read. It touched on deep topics, but was still able to give that good holiday vibe.