This isn't the type of romance I'd normally enjoy. For one; it's long. This took me ages to read, and that's normally not my thing with romances. Usually, I want to read them fast and enjoy them, not devote days to them. This one also spent almost the entire book without the main two as a couple. Instead, we spent a good portion of the book with them dating other people. I still enjoyed this, but it's definitely not my romance of choice.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review!

Thank you so much to #Netgalley for the ARC, however I may not have been the target audience for this book. I lost interest about 25% in.

All This Time follows Samantha who left her hometown in Maryland to live in New York. She comes home when her sister is giving birth only to learn that her mother is also sick. She no longer wants comfort from her high school boyfriend and that's when Garrett comes into the picture. They have a rocky frenemies relationship but it seems things are different after so many years have passed. This was a fun and a bit more hard-hitting Christmas-y romance. The character growth is a big part of this story and the writing flowed really well. Overall, I really enjoyed this one I just feel like the ending was rushed.

Could be a case of right book, wrong time for this one. I had a hard time keeping up with the characters and whose history was whose for the first quarter or so of the book and lost interest.

Gorgeous cute cover…. It's a beautiful story and I love the mother-daughter relationship, the complicated friendships and the struggles that Sam deals with every day in this book. Recommend you read it!

Sam is back in the town she couldn't wait to leave. She reconnects with Garrett - he is her best friends ex fiance, so they are in an awkward secret keeping position. I liked how it is told from both points of view.

Oh how fate comes into play! Four best friends, 2 romantic relationships while being in love with the friend. I really enjoyed this! I read it pretty quickly and the steam in the book was *chefs kiss*. I loved the fact they went for it knowing the circumstances surrounding them being together.

All This Time is a story of heart, of home, of reckoning, and of passion. Sam Redding finds herself back home in Maryland after the birth of her baby niece, and soon after, a jarring medical diagnosis of her mother. Sam has made a life for herself in New York City, far from her painful childhood memories. Once at home, things she thought she left in the past soon come rushing back into her life at alarming speed. In this enemies-to friends-to-lovers story, Garrett and Sam must not only overcome complicated friendships, but their own inner demons, as well. Annabelle McCormack's debut contemporary romance novel is fiery, fast-paced, and heart-wrenching. It's a tale of deeply hurt and messy individuals finding grace in one another and forgiveness in themselves. And figuring out what it means to truly be at home

All This Time

I thought this book was a pretty interesting romance, having both people be in pretty awkward best friend's exes situations. I did think that some of the plot was a bit hurried or not super fleshed out in this romance, and wasn't super into how quickly the romance went from solely sexual tension to now they're engaged and married within a chapter. The pacing did feel a bit off, but all in all I think the story itself was a good one. I liked that the characters each had something that they were battling, and that there were some good life lessons in the book.

I will say that as a native Spanish speaker, I did find some of the grammatical and spelling errors in the author's Spanish dialogue to be off-putting.

I had to wait h tim I had a Christmas tree in my apartment to cozy up and read this book! I love a small town romance and Samantha was a great main character! I loved Garrett and the holiday romance that we see. I liked how it wasn’t just all holly and jolly in here and we did see some bigger issues here. I’m excited to read more of Annabelle’s books!

I loved this book.
It’s so cute.
I laughed and cried. It’s a great charisma’s romance.

Highly recommend!!!

She dated his best friend. He left hers at the altar. But this holiday season, the sparks between these frenemies are heating up in this sexy and heartfelt romance about coming home and facing the past.


Almost ten years ago, Samantha Redding swore off her hometown of Brandywood, Maryland. Sure, she misses her family, but she's over the gossip and drama that came with small-town living. Besides, she has the photography career she always dreamed of now.

Then her mom gets sick. Faced with a long stay at home, Sam is forced to relocate a holiday photoshoot to Brandywood to meet a tight work deadline. Only problem is, she needs help from the townspeople she's spent years distancing herself from. Strangely, Sam finds an ally in someone who kept her at arm's length all his life: brooding and sarcastic Garrett Doyle-the guy that dumped her best friend at the altar years before.

But Sam never knew Garrett tried to keep his distance because he was really in love with her. And he's just come back to town after trying to get his life together. Garrett knows he ought to stay away-but the sight of her brings back all those old feelings. Anyway, she's leaving Brandywood soon enough, and then he can go back to trying to forget her.

. . . except, Sam's about to discover that everything she thought she knew about home--and Garrett--was wrong.

A contemporary romance with steamy, open door romance and tear-jerking moments about facing the past and finding forgiveness, All This Time is the first book in the Brandywood Small Town Romance Series. CW: alcoholism, abuse, cancer, strong language
This was such a cute book. I devoured it and it left me wanting to read it all over again!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own

All this time is a holiday romance with deceptive depth and emotional range that still pulls off the cozy Christmas small town trope readers love. The many layers and characters the story had, as well as their connections to each other, made this memorable and enjoyable to read. The writing was great and the female main character was refreshingly real and competent in leading the reader through the emotional journey she takes. Definitely an underrated gem.

My first Christmas book of the season. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review. While I didn't love this one as much as Windswept, this was a fast paced, drama filled, Christmas love story. The book version of a Hallmark story with dual POVs and the charming small town setting.

What a charming book, and I highly recommend if you are reading this to stop and go to your local bookstore and pick up this book - because it is so perfect for the holidays! I believe that It is a truth universally acknowledged that anyone who reads this book will find it absolutely unputdownable! Annabelle McCormack is a new author to me, but I now will read everything she writes, and I will continue to do so. Forever. What a wonderful, fun romance! I think everyone would enjoy the sweetness, funniness, the fun and spectacles of this book, while appreciating all the while the simplicity of true love and of this well-plotted love story. Wonderful, captivating writing gives this novel the depth and ability to pull in any reader. Vivid, descriptive story-telling, with interesting characters that have depth to them, and are skillfully rendered. At the end of the book, they seemed more like friends than book characters to me. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough because I JUST HAD TO KNOW how it ended. I highly recommend this author and I can't wait to own this novel in print.

I really enjoyed this book, but I did feel like it had a lot going on. Sam returns to her hometown to see her newborn niece and ends up staying to be with her dying mother. She starts spending a lot of time with her best friend’s ex/her ex’s best friend. things get complicated and she has to make choices she never thought she would have to.

All This Time is a contemporary romance wrapped in a holiday package. All too often, holiday books lack depth and relatability. This is not the case here. McCormack chose to tackle some of life’s biggest challenges (addiction, affairs, verbal and physical abuse, asking for and granting forgiveness) while still leaving her reader with hope.

Sam and Garett were two of the most complex characters I have read lately. Some of their choices and actions could have been seen as unforgivable. However, McCormack managed to humanize them. She rounded out their characters allowing them to be seen as flawed and relatable.

McCormack is a master writer. She made the town of Brandywood come to life effortlessly. It didn’t feel like I was jumping into their world, but rather had always been apart of it. I fell in love with so many of the side characters.

Needless to say, I am so sad that this book is over! It was a book I didn’t know I needed to read! Being introduced to Annabelle McCormack’s writing is one of the highlights of 2022 for me. She managed to write my idea of a perfect book. Thankfully, this is not the end, as it is the first book in the Brandywood Small Town Romance Series. I will be a loyal reader of this series if every book is as good as this one!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Victory Editng for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

All this Time by Annabelle McCormack is a small-town romance between Samantha “Sam” Redding and Garrett Doyle. Garrett is both Sam’s best friend Katie’s ex-fiancé (who left her at the alter) and her on-and-off-again boyfriend Eli’s best friend. Messy, right? Sam returned to her hometown from NYC to visit her sister who just gave birth, and ends up staying when she finds out her mother is sick and dying. She’s always felt ostracized from the small town community in which she grew up, but she needs their help to film a food segment for her job. But the further she falls back into the one place she fled, the deeper she falls into Garrett’s orbit. With secrets long buried coming to light, no one is safe from heartache.

I was not expecting this book. This is at Emily Stone level of emotional manipulation (and that’s high praise, as I love her books… just hate the crying that comes along with reading them) All This Time is a holiday season romance that will make you cry and smile and “aww” and cry again, and make you love every minute of it, because that happily-ever-after is well ended and a touch bittersweet.

4 1/2 stars

This book really resonated with me. The main character goes home for the holidays to find out her mother is quite ill. Home is not a happy place for Samantha (Sam). Her father did something when she and her sister were younger and then he was never in the picture after that, leaving her mother to raise them alone and allowing the town to gossip about them whenever possible. She's run from the memories as fast as she could but now she can't run anymore because her mother needs her.

Along with trying to find a way to blend in with people that she hasn't hardly seen or spoken with in years, Samantha has personal changes going on as well. Her job is feeling unstable as is her love life. Her relationship with her sister is on the rocks and she doesn't know who she can rely on in this small town that is supposed to feel welcoming. Yet, somehow along the way she will find herself falling in love with the town and its people....it just takes a little while and a lot of effort.

I simply loved this book. It felt real and raw at times. Life is messy and things were definitely messy for Samantha. Yet once she realizes she can't do everything alone and starts to rely on others, she finds that it actually works better after all.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC. I voluntarily chose to read and review it and the opinions contained within are my own.

Holiday cookies, check. Sam and Garrett having been friends since kindergarten, but also the long unrequited pining. Check. Eli's ask to keep an eye on my ex ask leading to Sam and Garrett falling in love? Also check. The emotional roller coaster that is their family backgrounds in this small town? WHOA. Amidst it all, this was a positively cute fast moving story. Normally with the small towns you see the meddling family members and the supportive friend groups and both Sam and Garrett where severely missing the supportive friend group aspect. Which honestly gave the reader even more hope for them to fight for each other. Although the other small town story aspect, the gossip train was running full steam ahead and let's just say that part did not disappoint.

Throw in a batch of your favorite Christmas cookies and curl up with this holiday romcom!

Thank you Netgalley and Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op for the ARC in exchange for my review!