This book wasn't for me. I wanted to like it, I just couldn't get into it. I'm sure others will enjoy this it just wasn't for me.

as someone who loves the holiday season (and will find any reason to start celebrating) i was extremely excited for this novel and the cover played a big role in drawing me in! i love how the authors created their own twist on christmas plots by bringing the cozy feelings of winter to the hot and sunny movie set. i went into this assuming it’d be a cheery, light romance but it unpacks much more than what i thought it would as a small-town romance…

there is a lot going on in this storyline and it definitely keep you on your toes. i would consider this a multiple point of view novel because the chapters certainly jump around from character to character. but you never really figure out whose pov it is until a couple sentences in. this set-up was a bit confusing to me and i think i couldn’t connected to the main characters more if it were limited to one or two povs. in a way, the plot reminded me of a telenovela because of all the surprises that popped up throughout the novel. i wish i was able to connect more with all the characters, but i struggled to do so.

Title: The Summer of Christmas
Author: Juliet Giglio and Keith Giglio
Narrated by: Elizabeth Cottle
Publisher: Dreamscape Media
Length: 10 hours and 23 Minutes
Source: Sourcebooks, Dreamscape Media & Netgalley. Thank-you!

Do you read any Christmas books in the summer or watch any Christmas movies? When I was growing up, I watched It’s a Wonderful Life all summer long. I love that movie.

I really enjoyed The Summer of Christmas. If you are a fan of a good romance, Christmas movies, and Hallmark Christmas movies – this is the book for you. Ivy Green lives in California and her dreams are coming true as she works to become a screenwriter. Her boyfriend Nick Shepard is visiting her for Christmas when she expresses her dream that he leave his family vineyard back in their small hometown in the State of New York and move to California with her. While they sit with Santa, Nick tells Ivy that his dream is to break up with her and that he has been cheating on her. Devasted, the newly single Ivy writes a riveting screen play about their romance from childhood through adults with a tragic ending where the Nick character dies in a snowmobile accident. Years later, her screen play is getting made into a movie. She is back in her hometown to film the movie with her new producer boyfriend Drew when she meets Nick again for the first time since the breakup. Will she be able to figure out what exactly went wrong and what she wants out of life?

I really enjoyed this lighthearted romantic comedy. It’s just what I needed right now. I loved the behind the scenes look at making movies. I laughed out loud when it came up in the story that Nick’s top selling wine was Poison Ivy. It was a joke that kept on giving throughout the story. I loved all of the secondary characters. I especially enjoyed the movie star Griffin and how he bonded with Ivy’s family. He just wanted a normal life and to be loved. I also enjoyed how Nick’s mother had a romance of her own. The town was also a star of the novel and sounded beautiful. The movie had a dream sequence towards the end that was reminiscent of It’s a Wonderful Life.

Narrator Elizabeth Cottle did a great job and was fun to listen to. I thought of her as the voice of Ivy.

I absolutely loved this book! The quirky characters and the drama! This is a must read! I recommend this book! You will not be disappointed!!

Let me say I jumped at the first chance to read a Christmas book that also included summer because why not? I love me some Hallmark Christmas movies. Even though this did not feel like watching a Christmas movie it did give me that 2nd chance at love feel. Ivy Greene returned to her hometown after Hollywood decided to make her book into a film. Usually writers are not allowed on set however, this was not true for Ivy Green. She was able to tag along on the trip home where sparks began between her and her old fling. Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to listen to The Summer of Christmas by Juliet & Keith Giglio in exchange for my honest feedback.

This was such a fun story … I really enjoyed all the characters. Ivy writes a script of her love life with Nick and as a way to get over the heart ache, his character dies at the end of her tale. Her now boyfriend is a movie producer who helps get her story turned into a movie and that’s when all the fun starts! What better location to film? Her hometown, of course!

This review is for the audiobook. The narrators were very good, and I thought that they fit the characters well.
Story Review:
I liked the book. If you understand that this book is messy and that there are a lot of love triangles/squares, then I think you will enjoy it. This book was funny at times, but other times it was a bit cringy. This book has a dual POV, which was interesting because you got to see how both characters carried on after their breakup. Mind you, I thought both characters were a bit spiteful and immature, but that made the book entertaining. I think that should make THIS book into a movie.

This was my very first audiobook, so my experience may not reflect the majority, but I had a hard time getting into this one! I liked the concept of the story, and loved the romance, but the narration was difficult to stay interested in. It did not keep my interest for long periods of time.

A cute Christmas-y (Christmas adjacent is the verbiage maybe - I am not sure) second chance romance.

A woman on the cusp of giving up on her dream and her high school (turn college) sweetheart have a chance to reconnect as her big break takes her back to her hometown in the retelling of their love story. Talk about a premise! Imagine reliving all these monuments moments in your love story with your ex right there with you. All taking place during summer but set in Christmas time - your favorite holiday.

This was a quick paced, a bit derivative but if you want a Christmas setting to a rom-com this is the book for you. I found the story to be fun and flirty and liked some of the side characters as well. Was is the most developed book? No. Did I expect it to be? No. It brought what I wanted it to bring and was a great book to fly through in-between reading other more dense books. I rounded up and rate it a 3.5 stars.

Overall, if you are looking for some quick Christmas romance pick this book up. Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book!

I am honestly not sure where to start when reviewing this book. I guess we will start with the fact that I love the cover and the narrator of the audiobook was good, but that’s about all the good I have to say. The description of The Summer of Christmas sounded hood and like something I would love to read, but this book fell really short for me. This would have easily been a DNF for me, but I liked the narrator enough to keep going.

I feel like there was way too much going on in this book, like the authors had too many storylines they wanted to visit so they just shoved them all in. I also found the characters to be annoying and the whole thing to cheesy for me, and this is coming from a Hallmark Christmas movie fan! It also really bothered me how much the pandemic was mentioned. Yes, I know that’s a huge part of the world, but I read to escape and I don’t want to be reminded of the terrible things going on right now in every other chapter.

I really wish I could say I liked this book, but the only redeeming quality was the narrator. I can’t say that I would recommend this book, even though I wish I could. I hate coming across books that I can’t find a redeeming quality in because I know how hard the writer worked on this.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the audiobook, I’m sorry I didn’t like it.

This was almost a DNF for me. I really couldn’t get into it. I found the main character to be annoying and hard to root for. A disappointment.

I was very excited about this one. The cover is fabulous - gimme all that glamorous Christmas in the Summer life!! However, what lies beyond the cover fell completely flat for me and I chose to DNF between 15-20% through. I didn't have a connection to any of the characters and with the style of writing, I knew that wasn't going to change for me if I continued. Unfortunately, I just wasn't engaged enough and had to set this one aside for now.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for the early the early listen of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Thought I was going to love this book but I didn't. The narration was choppy. I wish that the characters could have been more mature about things.

There are some Hallmark movies that are cute and a little bit corny, there are some Hallmark movies that are so corny they become cringe, this book reminded me of the latter. It had a solid premise, but the writing just felt immature and very basic. If you don’t know every movie under the sun you probably won’t understand half the references in this book like me. It was a cute premise, it just wasn’t done very well in my opinion. It was an easy listen and a cute Christmas concept if that’s what you’re looking for though!

This review can be found on Barnes & Noble, Amazon, my goodreads and will be posted to my instagram (@busywithmybooks_) within the week!

The title and cover of the book had me so excited to read it, especially over summer. The characters did not get me so excited. They were kind of meh, in my opinion. The plot itself was a bit choppy, but fun to follow. Overall, I wish I loved the plot/characters as much as I loved the cover and title.

I listened to the audiobook and thought the narrator did a good job. Used voice fluctuation and different tones to make it easy to follow.

Thank you Dreamscape Media for the gifted audiobook.

This one didn't get a great score on Goodreads (2.92) but I'm a sucker for a meet cute romcom. Especially when it's an audiobook! It was very cliche, predictable, but it was still enjoyable. And what's better than Christmas in July!

This cute romcom is where Ivy Green finds her niche, her passion in life and trying her hardest to make her dream a reality. Ivy and Nick compromised so much, but still stayed together so they could both pursue their dreams, but the complication was location, Ivy in L.A., and Nick still in their hometown of Geneva, New York, it was only a matter of time before one of them finds a new partner that's closer to home.

Things only get a little more complicated when Ivy finally gets the big shot she has been waiting for, right at a time she was going to give up! You take a liking to Ivy and her personality, how much she is willing to put herself forward. It is difficult to keep putting yourself out there when you're constantly met with rejection. But the only problem is the location: Geneva, New York.

Go back home?
Where Nick still lives?
Will she face her past to help her future?

This book had me smiling, laughing out loud, guffawing and also falling in love with most of the characters.

This had the potential to being a fun story but, unfortunately, the writing didn't flow well and distracted me from the story. I enjoyed the premise of the plot itself but this really needed a lot of editing. The narrator was great though!

I liked the story and it was cool to read about something local to me. But I didn't love the main character. I wasn't drawn to reading the story like I normally am with books I'm super invested in.

Thank you Dreamscape Media for the ARC of this book!

Thank you NetGalley and dreamscape media for giving me an ARC copy of this book. I listened to the audiobook version of this.
Unfortunately, this read wasn’t it for me. Although the story line was so interesting and which led me to request this copy, I felt like the story was drawn at times. Some of the characters with the thick accent it somehow felt like the narrator was mocking them. But mostly I think I hated the character Drew. He did portray what emotional abuse truly is and every time, every action he took, the rage in me fueled. For Ivy to realize the person he was so late was alarming because the red flags kept popping out. There was miscommunication and being afraid to tell what they really feel between Ivy and Nick which could have been avoided considering they knew each other since they were kids.
What I liked about the book was as follows:
The ending, it was a sweet, happily ever after ending that most of us are looking for. As the story came to an end, I did have a smile on my face. I did like the insight into being a writer and how that changes when your story is being used for a movie. I definitively do see this one being converted into a movie and I could visualize the scenes accordingly.

This is a fun quick read that gives Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movie vibes. Similar to one of those Christmas movies the plot was fairly predictable though there were a few aspects I wasn’t expecting. I would have liked if a few of the side characters had more of a role and character development. I would have liked to see Griffin’s story especially a little more and would have liked to learn more about Ivy’s family and Nick's mom. I also would have liked a little more character development from the main characters as well.

The drama sometimes felt like it was going in circles and if people would have acted like adults and had conversation some of the drama could have been avoided.

Apparently the authors used to be screenwriters which surprised me because some of the movie stuff felt inaccurate such as location scouting the day before filming. They decided to film at the train station and then filmed there the next day. Maybe its different with small towns but I know in many places if you are filming in a public area you must pull a permit with the city which would most likely take longer than a day. I also felt like a few of the film terms that were explained didn’t need to be explained such as the midpoint of the plot. I feel like that term is fairly self-explanatory. Some I did think were necessary for people not familiar with the TV or movie industry.

Even with its faults this was still a fun quick read. I enjoyed the audiobook narrator. Overall, this was a 3.5 for me.

Thank you to NetGalley, Sourcebooks Casablanca, and Dreamscape media for an e-copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.