Kiss Her Once For Me was absolutely adorable! I saw this described as While You Were Sleeping, but with a twist and I think that’s very accurate.

Ellie moved to Portland for her dream job in animation, but things aren’t going as planned. She’s in desperate need of money and agrees to a fake short term marriage with her landlord so he can get his inheritance and will cut Ellie a piece. But when she shows up to meet Andrew’s family, she discovers his sister is none other than Jack, the woman Ellie had a incredible night with and never heard from again.

Ellie is now forced to spend a week of family fun faking happiness with Andrew and working out her feelings for Jack. Is the money worth it if she’s truly in love with Jack? Is it worth risking the financial freedom?

The characters were all so charming; especially the two grandmothers. Jack and Ellie have a genuine connection and their chemistry sizzles as they end up in situations that just happen to put them together. Overall, this was just perfect and just the right amount of humor and Christmas spirit.

Thank you so much to @bookclubfavorites @atriabooks and @alisoncochrun for my gifted copy. Kiss Her Once For Me is out now!

I adored this book! It was the perfect combination of great characters and a cozy setting with a story that mostly was set in December 2022 but flashed back to one year earlier. I loved the ace spectrum representation with the main character Ellie being demisexual. The chemistry between Ellie and Jack was spectacular and getting to know Andrew and Jack's family added to the story. This was a great read!

This was a very, very cute sapphic romance!! I love when gay people are happy, and I love Christmas 😭!! This is an instant classic for me. When I first heard the plot, I thought… no way this will be realistic. But I never should’ve doubted Alison Cohrun because as soon as I got into it, I was with it…..naturally, Ellie’s wealthy landlord will ask her to marry him as a scheme and then take her home for Christmas, where she discovers his sister is her ex-lover from Christmas past!!!!

It gives all the hallmark mushiness with just so much heart! There was such an intimacy conveyed between Jack and Ellie, and their romance was both delicate and passionate. I loved this book’s portrayal of neurodivergence and anxiety; each character was so endearing! The discussion of mental health struggles was so rooted in reality and straight white men spoke about 3% of the novel…. we love to see this.

Ellie is a Taylor Swift stan, which is not the only reason she’s an incredible main character. She’s messy, she’s strong, and she’s magnetic. The portrayal of her complicated family relationships was genuine with lovely themes of found family, especially for queer characters.

Overall, such a fun Christmas book! Cochrun did not disappoint with her sophomore novel, and I looved The Charm Offensive. I read this as an ARC, so thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for the chance to read this in exchange for my honest review! I will be picking this one up for my physical library because I plan to reread this one for holiday seasons to come!

2.5 stars. I wanted to love this so badly! And I did have a good time while reading - the plot is well-paced and the story itself has the perfect amount of coziness I would expect from a holiday romance. However, characterization and the romance itself left me with dissatisfaction.

Spoilers below -

I'm not against the miscommunication trope at all, but in this story it just didn't work for me. I found Jack to be a wonderful character and I loved her entirely. Her motivations made sense, and her faults were realistic and made me appreciate her growth. I also appreciated the representation of anxiety in Ellie's character. What missed for me what the representation of demisexuality - while all of the descriptions made sense and felt relatable (Ellie's explanations of needing emotional connection to fall in love) the insta-love storyline immediately contradicted all of those statements.

By the end of the story I didn't feel happy with the way the relationship tied together, and I lost the desire to root for them as a couple. While the miscommunication trope can work in many cases, this one felt a little unreasonable, and the guilt and blame placed on characters did not feel deserved. Overall, I think it's still a cozy story with really great messages about the idea of failure and finding comfort despite anxiety. It's just not one that I would return to.

I loved this! Like I don't know I was in some sort of reading funk and this just dragged me right out of it into all the queer holiday romance books. It is messy. MESSY. Like just when you think that it's a little bit messy it gets even more messy and I lived for it. I love the demisexual representation and the interspersed snow day flashbacks.

I also don't really have anything negative to say. I would have loved like an extra chapter at the end but I'm not mad about it.

After reading The Charm Offensive, I was excited to read Alison Cochrun’s next project. Kiss Her Once for Me is a very fun, light-hearted romantic comedy to get into the holiday spirit. The story is very honest and raw, especially with what the protagonist Ellie goes through. I love the genuine LGBTQ+ representation and displays of queer joy in this book; all of the characters put a smile to my face. The only thing that did not necessarily resonate with me was the dependence of tropes (fake dating, one bed, love triangle). It made the novel a little less realistic, but it was still a fun read overall. Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy!

Alison Cochrun’s writing is beautiful in this book. It was easy to fall in love with these characters and actually feel for them.

Normally, I hate books that feature flashbacks. This book changed that for me. It felt seamless and perfectly timed within the story. Dylan made me laugh so many times throughout this book. Their personality was perfect. Ellie was easy to sympathize with. Andrew was easy to love. Jack was probably my favorite character. She was very independent and tried to do everything without the help of her family, wanting to make something of herself.

Kiss Her Once for Me has a wonderful story filled with some of my favorite tropes. This book was the perfect queer holiday read.

Fun fact: I have never read a holiday romance before this one. Another fun fact: I ADORED this one. Maybe because it’s loosely inspired by While You Were Sleeping, my favorite Christmas romcom?? It made me want to curl up in front of a fireplace and get all cozy with some blankets – despite the fact that I read it in September when it felt like summer still.

Kiss Her Once for Me follows Ellie – a 20-something artist who has hit a major rut in her life. After losing her dream job, she’s struggling to make ends meet and is facing a lonely Christmas. Despair is real in her life. Then enters Andrew. He’s from a rich family, he’s the landlord to the coffeeshop she’s working at, and he has a crazy idea. In order to inherit the money left to him by his grandfather, he has to be married. Not ready to settle down, he proposes (pun not intended lol) that he and Ellie have a marriage of convenience. He’ll give her a chunk of the money and her problems will be solved – while he can inherit the rest and still see other people.

There’s juuuust one catch. Ellie has to spend Christmas with Andrew’s family, so they can meet his new fiancée. But when Ellie arrives at the family’s lodge, she is shocked to her core as she discovers that Andrew’s sister is the woman that Ellie hooked up with one year ago. Jack, who she fell in love with over the course of a day. Who she hasn’t been able to stop thinking about. And who she never thought she’d see again.

There’s so much love in this book. Ellie is in a hard place in her life, and is a bit of a disaster, especially as she gets lost in her fear of the future and of failure. Meanwhile, Jack was a great love interest. She was kind, thoughtful, and her character gave a lovely depiction of a woman caught between familial expectations, her own dreams, and self-doubt. Seeing them both grow and find and push themselves made my heart ache in the best way.

These two fit together so well – they had great chemistry and brought the best out of each other, even while on a collision course of holiday hijinks and burning ‘forbidden’ attraction. Speaking of, I really enjoyed the tension brought about by Ellie and Andrew’s fake dating scheme. Utterly ridiculous concept, but there was such great pining and angst which I WAS HERE FOR. And of course, I loved the sweet and spicy scenes between Ellie and Jack too. One thing I loved about this aspect was the way Ellie’s demisexuality was depicted. Alison Cochrun is doing so much for asexuality in adult romance and I am eating it up!! <3

And of course, I need to mention the found family. It was one of my favorite bits and brought SUCH warmth to my heart. This family was the heart of the story, in a way, and even now – months after finishing the book – when I think of the caring family Ellie was welcomed into, I have to smile.

In short: Alison Cochrun, I am at your doorstep with fresh baked cookies and a Christmas-y bouquet of flowers. I am ready to risk it all for your romcoms!!!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

this was a great holiday romance with some real depth! I loved that the characters flaws were at the forefront of the story and you got to see everyone grow.

I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book.

This year I had the delight of reading The Charm Offensive and it instantly became one of my favorite romances, I knew I it would be hard to wait for another book Alison Cochrun. When I found out out she was writing a sapphic Christmas rom-com I lost it!!! To say I was thrilled about this release would be a massive understatement. Even then, I was not ready for how this book would make my Christmas dreams come true for a sapphic Christmas rom-com!

Adorable amazing sapphic holiday book: feature here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CkdoVyNrJ_p/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Everything I was hoping for and SOOOO much more!!!

The perfect mix of nostalgia and uniqueness for a retelling (While You Were Sleeping), and all the sweet coziness you want from a holiday romance!

This is one of my Staff Picks, this month! And I can't wait to see other readers love it as much as I did!

After reading Alison's debut novel and loving it, I knew I had to get my hands on this book. It did not disappoint. I really enjoyed this story and its characters. This queer, funny, holiday romcom was a fantastic mashup of different tropes and I really loved the nod to While You Were Sleeping and Last Christmas. I especially loved how all the characters grew, and worked towards their goals, individually and together. The grand gesture at the end was the best and the ending was so sweet.

This book was so super fun! Or now only had my favorite trope, fake dating, but had a sometimes funny and sometimes slightly awkward sometimes"love trapezoid" as one of the MCs described it.

Ellie fell in love with Jack one Christmas. Next Christmas, Ellie agrees to fake date/be engaged/marry Andrew so he can claim an inheritance and give Ellie some of it as she's financially struggling. They go to his family's cabin for Christmas and SURPRISE Jack is Andrew's sister!

I loved the mental health talk. I loved the different reps on the LGBTQ+ spectrum. I loved that fear was talked about. I LOVED Andrew/Jack's family (not the dad..jerk) especially his Grandma's. I just loved everything about this spectacular wintery read!

Let me tell you this book is filled with DRAMA. It is MESSY, it has so many plot lines, but not in a bad way! Wonderful for if you're looking for some drama in your Christmas stories.

I loved the demisexuality representation in this. I haven't read the author's first book the charm offensive, but if the internet has told me the truth, i believe there is some demisexuality representation which is really wonderful to see. It made me connect with the romance a lot more.

For a while in the beginning of the book I was rooting for the MC to get together with the man she is faking her engagement, but after getting all the information and seeing the MC and the love interest interact, I was rooting for those two so much more. And it was really nice to see that the guy also got his own love story.

Definitely recommend and I will be checking out the author's other book.

What a fantastic heart warming holiday novel! This brought together romance, found family, mental health, and full vulnerability in such a great story. I loved Ellie and her character growth as the story progressed and I really identified with her struggles to accept the fear of failure. The steam level was on point! Oftentimes, I find these holiday reads very similar however, this one is very memorable!

i think i can safely say alison cochrun is officially a favourite author of mine. the charm offensive meant so much to me and kiss her once for me managed to mean so much in a completely different way. the main character was LITERALLY me like?? i just love her writing so much and i will read literally anything she writes.

If you haven't read Alison's debut novel, The Charm Offensive, stop reading this review and go read that book. It was absolute perfection and I adored every moment of seeing Dev and Charlie fall in love. Now the only problem that a reader faces after a book like that is the potential let down caused by the next book that author releases, hoping beyond hope that it's as good as the first. Let me tell you what, with Alison, this fear was completely unfounded. This book is so very different from TCO, besides it being queer, but this one was just wonderful. Rather than finding love on a reality show, this is a fake dating but accidentally goes and falls in love with the sister instead. So many holiday books try to get a real grasp on the season and, I find, often fall short. This one made me feel the right amount of Christmas-y and just left me cheering for Ellie and Jack to find their happily ever after. So, so good. Now I'm left with the other problem a reader faces and that's desperately wanting Ms. Cochrun to hurry up and release a new one!!

If you're looking for a super cute and sweet holiday romcom that gives Serendipity vibes, you would greatly enjoy this book!

I loved a lot of the writing choices Alison Cochrun made here. I feel like she really established the parameters of this setup and how these characters would act. Like almost everything had solid backing. I also adored both the LGBTQIA+ and mental health representation in this. Also the emphasis on clear communication!

I think in order for this book to be successful, the reader has to believe that Ellie and Jack's one-night stand constituents them as a second chance romance for this book.

If you want a cozy, escapist read this holiday season I think this is a good option!

The perfect Christmas romance. Fake dating. Forbidden love. Missed chances. This really covers it all and is *chefs kiss*