Member Reviews

Nory is torn between her working-class, small town family and the privileged classmates from the private boarding school she attended on the hill. Spending a week in the castle that shares her old school grounds leading up to her friend’s wedding doesn’t make things easier.

You can’t control who you love and Nory falls for her brother’s mate and resident hunky gardener, Isaac. Nory runs a secondhand bookstore in London and Isaac is deeply rooted (get it) in their quaint hometown. Can they make it work?

Yes. It should have been a lot easier too. Let’s put miscommunication tropes aside. There was way too much going on in this one. Cut back about half the characters and secondary storylines and you got yourself a winner.

CW/TW: suicide, depression, mental health, infidelity, fraud, alcoholism

Thank you NetGalley and Putnam for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

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I adored this book!!! It really put me in the mood for the holiday season as well!

Things I loved:

•The main character is a bookstore owner in London. (This hooked me straight away!)
•The bulk of the story takes place during a wedding week at a castle during Christmas! Absolutely, approve! It was magical!
•A group of old school friends reconnecting and finding their way back to each other after the tragic loss of one of the group. (This was one of the parts I enjoyed the most. How they had regrets and they made the effort to right those regrets with each other.)
•Isaac and Nory’s mutual love of books. (I’m really a sucker for a love story that contains readers, writers, and book store owners.)
•Guy’s growth throughout the story. So happy with how that ended.
•The humor…the spray tan scene alone had me laughing out loud.

Absolutely giving this one 5 🌟.

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Snowball croquet, secondhand bookstores, mulled wine, tree lightings in the square. If Elin Hilderbrand reigns over summer, then Jenny Bayliss is the queen of winter.

I was pulled in from the moment we meet Elinor Noel in her secondhand bookshop, Serendipitous Seconds, Nory, as she is known affectionately throughout the book, has been putting off RSVP’ing to her childhood best friends wedding because of an unfortunate tryst with Guy, another friend in their circle, years ago. This hookup (did I mention that said friend was married — unbeknownst to Nory!) happened after the funeral of another member of their friend group. Eesh!

After prodding from her best friend Ameerah, Nory reluctantly agrees to spend the wedding and the week leading up to it holed up with her friend group at the castle on the grounds of their posh private school. After Guy hits on Nory on the first night (with his wife in the next room!) she escapes to the castle gardens and has a run-in with Isaac, a nemisis from her childhood, and head gardener at the castle. What follows is a most beautiful, heartwarming — and heart tugging! — story.

4.5 rounded up to 5 — there was one piece of the ending that was frustrating for me, and thats why it’s not a perfect 5.

Trigger warning: suicide grieving

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When Nory, a bookstore owner, is reunited for a week-long wedding event at a castle with her oldest friends she is just hoping to make it through the week. Her friends, classmates from a posh private school she attended on scholarship, all came from well-off families. Nory grew up in a working-class family and was forever feeling torn between her two worlds trying to fit in somewhere. When she runs into the head gardener, Issac, and starts spending time with him, she begins to realize that she might have feelings for her old enemy from her school days.

At first glance, this book may seem like a fun Christmas romance but it was much more than that. While it does have romance, it also deals with some very heavy topics (like the aftermath of the loss of a friend). It wasn't the light romcom type read I was expecting but I enjoyed following the group of friends and all of the life lessons they learn along the way.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for the ARC!

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Jenny Bayliss is an author I come to when I am looking for a cozy, wintery, sweet, British countryside romance. She is great at depicting that specific atmosphere and it is a place I crave as soon as it starts to get cooler. I also generally enjoy her romantic relationships and like the characters both individually and as a couple. Outside of the romantic relationship, she always has a strong sense of friendship between her group of characters, and those seem to be just as important to her as the romance. We see a lot of friend love.

Now looking at Meet Me Under the Mistletoe specifically, this wasn’t my favorite of her novels, but I did still enjoy it. The premise is Nory is the owner of a second hand book store in London who specializes in antique books and she is headed back to her private school/hometown (she was a scholarship kid with the rich elite) for her two friend’s wedding. Prior to the wedding their friend group is doing a week at a castle and soon after arriving she runs into Isacc, the son of the gardener when they were in school. Now he’s the head gardener and Nory must figure out how to navigate her growing feelings.

So to start right off the bat, I loved the location of this novel and the idea of it being the setting where a group of old school mates come together. It is a troupe I love in books. Big trigger warning, there is a lot of talk about one of their friends committing suicide before the book starts, and is a part of all of their relationships that is tightly entwined. I think it’s handled well, but could be tough for some readers. Anyways, I liked all the characters and how Bayliss showed all their shades of grays. The dynamic of their friend group was some of my favorite parts.

We have our main relationship between Nory and Isaac. They knew one another as children and had a sort of rivalry with her being at a private school and him at public/his dad working on the grounds. Isaac is also one of Nory’s brothers friends, which adds another complication to their relationship. Outside of their main relationship, the secondary characters also are having romantic relationships that I found myself invested in. So essentially what I continue to say is I like how Bayliss does characters.

What I didn’t like as much is I think there were a few too many topics trying to be tackled. Class, race, suicide, adultery, toxic masculinity, mental health - all of which are very important, but it was maybe just one or two too many. I think trying to tackle all of these topics made the book a bit too long. I wished it had been 50-70 pages shorter because 450 is a bit long for a romance. I also was a bit meh about the 3rd act conflict. It stemmed from miscommunication and was a bit clunky for me. I also was missing a bit of the humor that I loved in her other novels. It’s likely because she tackled some heavier topics, but I wish there had been a bit more humor.

Even with these criticisms I had a really good time with this novel. If you’ve enjoyed her other novels I think you’ll like this one too. If you like novels with childhood friends coming back together I think you’ll also like this. And if you want a bit of drama mixed into a cozy read you’ll also probably like this. I’m sad I won’t have another new novel for a year, so I’ll just have to reread some of them.

Thank you to Netgalley and G.P. Putnam's Sons for the advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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A lovely holiday rom-com. The characters were believable and the circumstances were actually original. The writing was lovely. This book is a warm cup of tea on a cold holiday evening.

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I loved Nora’s used bookstore. I loved her magic touch to place the right book with each new owner and reader.
The book liters,my quiver at her touch and then go off to good homes.
Staying at a castle with old classmates sounds ideal but I understand Nora’s reservations.
I didn’t care for most of her friends.
It’s a quick read, but some of the prose was a bit stultifying.

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Hallmark movie in the making - this right here is the stuff Hallmark movies are made of. Sweet, cute, and full of romance. I always look forward to reading Jenny Bayliss' holiday novel. While I read this book in just one day, it takes Nory a weekend of memories to find her true love. (Enemies to lovers is one of my favorite troupes).

If you're a fan of holiday romances, this is definitely a book you'll want to read.

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Thank you @netgalley @putnambooks and @jennibayliss for my copy of this eARC in exchange of my honest review.

Nory runs a secondhand bookshop in London, and loves it. But when she’s invited to her private school friend’s wedding week at the school castle, she realizes that she may be lonelier than she was even aware. That is when she runs into the castle’s head gardener, Isaac, and winds up hiding away with him for most of the week.

Isaac can’t stand being surrounded by rich prep school kids, but he’s always known Nory was different. She grew up working class like him, which is why he doesn’t understand why she likes to spend time with those types of people. Will her friends stand in the way of the romance brewing between them?

This was a pretty cute book. I will say, it was a bit drawn out for my taste. But the chemistry between the main characters was very well written, as was the friendships and tension amongst the others.

This one gets 3.5⭐️‘s from me.

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This was such a cute romantic comedy for the upcoming holiday season, and I loved the cover. The main characters also felt so real.

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Charming and delightful with really strong characters and a fascinating plot about a long neglected artist. Bayliss made me laugh out loud more than once -- and that almost never happens. #FanForEver

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This was a sweet, British slow burn holiday romance that covered a lot of difficult topics- adultery, suicide, racism, and misogyny just to name a few. ⁣

Eleanor (Nori) owns a vintage book shop and has a grumpy old cat and has struggled finding love for years. She has to attend one of her old friends weddings back in her home town, which brings on beautiful friendships, but also some deep seated pain from the loss of their friend and a guy she does not want to see again.⁣

When she runs into her brother’s friend Isaac who handles all of the greenery for the castle and grows beautiful flowers in his gardens. She forgets how much she always adored Isaac and this two become quite close over a week span while she helps her friend get ready for the wedding.⁣

This was a sweet story, that did have a lot going on, but I enjoyed it.⁣
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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Unfortunately, this was a miss for me. I loved Bayliss first book, didn't read the second, and couldn't get myself to finish this one. I think it has a lot of potential, but it's incredibly slow to start. I was finding it hard to keep reading, and I picked up a few times before deciding it isn't for me.

I will say something a few things I did appreciate in this book, and that I appreciated in her other books is that she writes somewhat relatable female MCs, who are in their 30s and navigating their world as everyone around them is changing. I can tell the friend group in this story is interesting, and I'd love to see how their story unfolds (maybe I'll come back to it). I also really liked the setting, her bookstore in London, a gorgeous castle with beautiful gardens in the countryside *chefs kiss*

The few things I didn't like right off the bat is she used the term "servants' quarters" I get this takes place in the UK, but that didn't mesh well with me. There's also a bit of classism with Issac and her friends which I didn't really like.

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I read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This book was not what I imagined. It was better. It had everything; a dynamic group of friends, different family situations, suicide of a close friend, different facets of love, and a little mystery thrown in.
It was honest but not too heavy, and the characters are wonderful. The author didn't dwell on unnecessary drama and all issues were sorted.
A simple, easy to read, closed door romance that didn't focus too much on the romance.

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Meet Me Under the Mistletoe follows Elinor Noel, also known as Nory, as she reunites with her friends for a wedding weekend with her friends from school. So when I got this book, I thought it would be a Christmas romance. Instead, it was more of a romance set at Christmas, so be aware of that. I enjoyed how most of the main characters were written, especially Nory. I liked how you saw Nory tackle some heavier issues from her past and come to terms with some issues that had been haunting her for a while. You could also see that this friend group was very committed to each other and genuinely cared. This book gets darker at some point; so check the trigger warnings before you start. My biggest issue with this book was that I struggled to get into it, and then there were moments where I felt like the story was dragging, and it was hard to keep my attention. I enjoyed the characters so much that I wanted to finish to see what happened.

Read if you like:
- Brother's Best Friend
- Holiday Weddings
- Second Chances
- Strong female friendship

Thank you to Penguin Group Putnam and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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“Meet Me Under the Mistletoe” is a British holiday romance that really has nothing to do with Christmas except that its resolution happens on Christmas. The whole of the story really takes place before the holidays during a wedding weekend. Elinor Noel, also known as Nory, is the owner of a vintage book store in London and returns back home in the country with her best friend to attend her a schoolmate’s wedding. When she attended the local private school on scholarship, Nory’s life was a balance of two worlds between being the scholarship daughter of hard-working family who own the local greenhouse and that of trying to fit in among her closest friends who were all from wealthy backgrounds. And yet, both were her “family” that she loved. Her schoolfriends haven’t really gotten together since the death of one in their group, 5 years previous. And while that was a life changing weekend for them all, it was especially so for Elinor, who left devastated and embarrassed after hooking up with Guy, an old friend who turned out to be married. Let’s be honest here, Guy was and is still a jerk 5 years later when he shows up for the wedding weekend with his wife. Elinor tries to do everything to avoid him. At the mansion, she runs in to Issac, the gardener’s son, now the Head Gardener, whom she had a mad crush on while a teenager. A bit of misunderstandings on both sides about the haves and have-nots, this is a story of friends who cherish each other as they reminisce about their school days but celebrate their futures. It is about love rekindled and second chances. While it may have taken a bit for the story to get going, I liked the characters. I loved that Elinor was a passionate bookseller who hated to let books go but saw her mission as to re-home books. She states, “The written word is the key to the secrets of this world and all the worlds that live in our minds.” Elinor is a pleaser who has the best intentions although she is somewhat impulsive. Additionally, she is a loyal friend, even when they don’t deserve it. I also loved her parents, who showed that opposites attract and they had such heart in their home. It did confuse me however that the mistletoe didn’t come into play until much later in the story which then leads to the resolution. But overall, this story wraps itself up like a package to put under the tree in its epilogue that is happy and cozy and sweet. I enjoyed it.

Many thanks to #netgalley #meetmeunderthemistletoe #putnambooks for the opportunity to read and review this book.

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Meet Me Under the Mistletoe by Jenny Bayliss started getting me in the holiday spirit. This second chance read is a feel-good British holiday romance revolving around the reunion of a group of college friends as they come together for a week of wedding festivities right around Christmas. There are a lot of adult topics in this book but didn't take away from the basis of the story and the holiday feel. Another wonderful book from an outstanding author!

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Read if you like: Brother's friend, holiday weddings, secrets, second chances

Elinor Noel AKA Nory for short is quite content running her second-hand bookshop in London. She had a working-class upbringing but attended a fancy private school with a scholarship. Her classmates had extravagant lifestyles. Her oldest friends invite their school gang to spend the days leading up to their wedding together at the school castle, Nory must prepare herself for an emotionally complicated few days.

The reunion brings back fond memories, but also requires Nory to dodge an ill-advised former fling. When she falls quite literally into the arms of Isaac, the head gardener with nothing but contempt for the ‘snobby prep school kids’, the attraction between them is undeniable. Nory spends more time with Isaac over the wedding festivities, she finds herself falling hard for the boy who used to throw mud at her and her posh friends.

This book was pretty good. The writing flowed very well. I do feel like the characters could have been developed a little better. Maybe I feel like that because many were unlikable and they didn't really become likable. There was a big cast. I didn't get a big Christmas feel from the book, in general. It felt like it was thrown in there to be put out with holiday reads. It need more cheery feel. It was funny and sweet. I enjoyed Isaac and Nory together and their characters. This was overall a cute story and I do recommend it.

Big thank you to NetGalley, the author, and Putnam Books for the gifted ebook!

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I have tried to read this book a few times but I can never get past the first few pages. The writing is over the top - almost as if this author was writing with a thesaurus next to them in fear of using a “basic” or mediocre word. It just had to much of an heir for me to read as something I’m reading for pleasure.

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Thank you for the opportunity to review this new novel.

I read The Twelve Dates of Christmas last year and really enjoyed it. I thought it was a perfect holiday romance. This new book is not that. I expected something light and cozy but this was heavy with serious subjects. I feel a bit mislead also regarding the cover. I dnf:ed it.

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