When Lyla's father retired as CEO of the toy company which has been in their family for generations, she was meant to receive his shares. Instead, she discovers the company is bankrupt and her father has given her shares to Mason Klaus, an investor known in the corporate world for his cold and callous nature. Much to Lyla's frustration, her only option is to run the company with him, despite their evident loathing for one another.
When Mason cancels the annual Christmas party, Lyla throws it anyway - only for the event of the season to result in a terrible fire. With the offices and Lyla's credibility ruined, Mason offers her a deal: he'll forget her part in the disaster, but she must join his family for the twelve days of their Christmas holidays.
Taken to a fantastical winter wonderland, Lyla hopes that she might discover some of the secrets Mr Klaus is hiding, and maybe even a way to get her company back. However, when Mason introduces her to the secret village as his fiancée, she is horrified to realise she has no choice but to go along with the pretence - because the cost of bringing an outsider to their magical land is far too high.
Can Lyla resist the devilishly handsome Mr Klaus and the enchanting village to win back her company, or will she give into temptation?





This was a fun, quick Holiday read! I enjoyed all the Christmasy feels this gave me, but I wish it was a bit longer! I finished this pretty quickly, and the ending felt very rushed. While this was technically a romance, I sadly didn’t feel as much of connection between Mason and Lyla as I wanted to. There is one semi- spicy scene that showed me a bit of chemistry between the two, but it was over as quickly as it started.



Thank you to netgalley and the author for my copy in exchange for my honest review!

The good: this was a near perfect enemies to lovers Christmas romance. I didn’t know what to expect from the book description but the it surpassed all my hopes and created a cute and magical holiday story.

The not so good: there were some plot holes you could drive a truck through. Why did Mason kidnap Lyla? Why was Mason at this company? Does anyone think Natalie can be rehabilitated?

But if you think of the book as a fun beachy read (yes I know it’s fall) it makes the problem areas fade away and the book is a fairytale for adults. Totally enjoyed!

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC.

Alright, I hate rating a book so low, but this story did not jive with me at all. The writing isn’t bad but the characters are *so* aggressively annoying.

First, I did not expect this to be a contemporary romance in an alternative universe*. In this story, we have two work rivals who find themselves home for the holidays under the guise of a fake relationship. At face value this book has many of my favorite tropes: relationship of convenience, fake dating, grumpy/sunshine, rivals to lovers, to name a few. However, many of these tropes are underdeveloped, if not poorly executed. Throughout the story I found myself skimming the dialogue because everything else was losing my interest. But the dialogue could not keep me engaged, because I ultimately had to stop reading at 33%.

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

*universe, for lack of a better word, but really this is the North Pole hidden from everyone else due to magic

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5051798412

This was a cute Christmas book about two people who owned a company and cannot get along during the holidays. Lyla decided to go against Mason Mr Klaus and throw a Christmas party despite his wishes. She ends up needing the help Mason and ends up on an adventure in a magical wonderful winter Christmas wonderland. I truly enjoyed how creative the author was in creating this Christmas wonderland and taking the traditional idea of Santa clause and making it into something new and different. I rate this 4 stars as it was a good read. I don’t prefer enemies to lovers as much.

A perfect Christmas romance. The characters are great; a really well thought out romance. Lyla and Mason's relationship progresses in a really natural way, and its a delight to follow it. I loved the ending as well, not quite how I thought it would end, but I'm glad it did end that way! I hope that we see more of Lyla and Mason!!

This book was a lovely, short Winter-read. It made me quite excited for the Christmas season. I wanted to read this book because it sounded quite like a Hallmark-esque Christmas movie, which are my favorites. And that's what this book was.
At times certain things felt predictable, like who Masons family was, but to me that's fine with this type of book. I want predictable (to an extent, obviously not everything was predictable nor did it have to be) with this type of feelgood story.
I highly recommend this book to others who also enjoy feelgood stories!

I received an eARC from NetGalley and Kate Gallaghan in exchange for an honest review.

DNF - I found the FMC (female main character) to be hard to relate to - she first presents herself as a strong, confident leader, but then allows herself to be second-guessed, bullied, and disregarded at work, while also not really displaying any strong leadership skills at her actual job. Mason (MMC) was completely unlikable. He was a bully, controlling, and drags Lyla away with absolutely no explanation? I found the whole love-story to be hard to believe (even understanding that the premise of the plot was a fantasy-type setting). They seemed to have a terrible relationship prior to the books beginning, but then after one night of drinking, he shows up at Lyla’s place and takes her to the North Pole and they fall in love? I think the issue is there’s no emotion behind the words. The book reads too factual, almost like a screenplay, with no cues on anything, so it just felt flat and I was unable to finish it.

Lyla can't stand Mason-- the guy her father sold all his shares of their family company to. But when he gets some bad news one night and ends up drunk at the office party, she sees another side to him-- and when he whisks her away to his hometown the next morning, it's like he's a whole different person. Mason's hometown Yule is a Christmas lover's dream come true, and while she poses as his fiancee, Lyla starts to fall for the town-- and Mason.

The Naught of Nice Clause was fun-- I really liked the concept a lot. Mason's family was great as well, and I loved their dynamic.
There were a few times Lyla seemed confused or surprised by something that she shouldn't have been (conversations that happened nearby that she seemed to hear and process, but then completely forget, for example). The ending also felt a bit rushed-- I wish the last couple chapters had been drawn out a little more.

Overall, this book is a lovely, kind of ridiculous (but also very sweet) Christmas story, and I had a lot of fun reading it.

It does deal with parental loss and estrangement that are pretty central to the story.

🎄 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙽𝚊𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚢 𝚘𝚛 𝙽𝚒𝚌𝚎 𝙲𝚕𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎, 𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚘𝚗 𝙽𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛 𝟾, 𝟸𝟶𝟸𝟸 🎄

"𝙏𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙈𝙖𝙨𝙤𝙣 𝙄 𝙬𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬—𝙩𝙤 𝙗𝙚 𝙘𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙚 𝙩𝙤.”
“𝙄𝙩’𝙨 𝙤𝙣𝙡𝙮 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙄 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙤𝙬 𝙜𝙚𝙩 𝙨𝙤 𝙘𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙚.”

❆

𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴:
5/5⭐️
1.5🌶

𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲𝘀 & 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺𝗲𝘀:
🎁 low-fantasy romance
🎁 workplace, enemies to lovers
🎁 fake engagement
🎁 forced proximity
🎁 cozy, christmas feels <3

𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆 & 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄:
this book follows 𝐋𝐲𝐥𝐚 and 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐊𝐥𝐚𝐮𝐬 who run a toy company. a fire in the office erupts after a Christmas party that was secretly thrown, but Mason agrees to keep it under wraps if Lyla agrees to join him and his family’s 12 days of Christmas celebrations.

Lyla finds herself in a magical place that she didn’t think actually existed; there, she tries to uncover Mason’s secrets, and later they both have to make decisions that would affect the company and their relationship.

❆

i haven’t read many holiday themed books and this one was so much fun! it was an easy, light read that was filled with adventure, romance, a bit of spice, and a sprinkle of gold dust to put you in the holiday spirit ❤️🎅🎄🎁🎊

❆

𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘎𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘒𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘊𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘨𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘈𝘳𝘤 𝘪𝘯 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸 :)
𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 & 𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘦!

I found this book disturbing. The male lead, Mason, was controlling and a bully. Essentially, he kidnapped Lyla and placed her in an impossible position, all the while telling her that it was her fault. Usually romance heroes like this grow and change, admitting their faults and failings. But not here. By the end of the book I was just as disturbed.

Starting off the Christmas reads with a bang!

I loved the premises of this book, the interesting blend of a special magical wonderland & a fake fiancee.

I thought the banter between the two MCs was funny and I enjoyed reading about what happened.

The plot was somewhat rushed and a tad bit predictable but I'm a sucker and enjoyed it anyway.

Overall its a cute book!

The Naughty or Nice Clause was a cute Hallmark-esque book to get you into the Christmas spirit.
Layla Smurfit and Mason Klaus are company rivals, having spent the last year trying their best to keep Layla’s toy company afloat. When Mason steals her away to his hometown for two weeks for Christmas pretending to be engaged, Layla soon discovers “Klaus” is his last name for a reason.
I enjoyed this book. It was a cute take on Santa Clause and the North Pole, with a little spice thrown in, too!
•Enemies to Lovers
•Fake engagement
•Workplace Romance

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishing team for this ARC!

This was meant as a sweet Christmas read and you definitely feel those vibes from this book! Mason and Lyla are work nemeses that exist to get on each other's nerves until an incident has them working together.

Unfortunately, the writing style wasn't for me. This was a story based on magical realism and the premise had so much promise! However, the execution wasn't well done and it felt like the story wasn't given enough time to build itself up. Everything happened too fast and what was supposed to be enemies to lovers was just...two seconds of enemies then they were into each other. I felt like you didn't really get to know the characters more than surface level and neither of them was memorable for anything other than being annoyed with each other. I definitely wasn't sold on the romance because they didn't really have chemistry. She was a doormat to an asshole.

Not my cup of tea but for those who enjoy the magical realism in holiday-themed fiction, this could be for you!

Who doesn’t love a good Christmas romance?

Lyla has a hard time reading her business partner Mason. When he threatens to change everything about her family’s company, she isn’t sure how much more she can deal with him. As it turns out, Mason needs Lyla’s help with his family business, the business of Christmas! When Mason brings Lyla to Yule and introduces her to his family, the Klauses, she begins to understand Mason more and more. This up and down love story will leave you in the holiday spirit!

This is one I couldn’t put down! I found myself being sucked into the story and feeling for each of these characters. This story has so much going for it but I do wish the ending gave just a little bit more to leave us with!

I thought I was in for a normal, sweet, holiday rom-com but I was pleasantly surprised with the magical element. I really enjoyed the world Callaghan created and the lore she brought in. While I do wish we got to see a bit more of the growing chemistry from the two MCs (rather than an Insta-hate-to-love; 50 extra pages would have been nice) I found myself really sad to be done with the book— I wanted more!

I’m giving this 3 stars only because of the premise. The execution was lacking and not enjoyable to read. While I am a sucker for enemies to lovers, and the synopsis of this novel was enthralling, when it came to reading the story, I was just thoroughly disappointed. Maybe my expectations were too high? But I felt the MC was portrayed as this bad ass who held her ground but I didn’t get that at all. It felt like the opposite. Yes, she had a little sass but that was about it for me.

What didn’t work for me, might work for others, so give this book a try.

thank you to the publisher and netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review

a cute, enjoyable story about workplace rivals and the romance that follows. A fun holiday read

This book gave me the Netflix/Hallmark Christmas movie vibes.
Mason & Lyla start out as pretty cunning enemies. Mason has been sold a controlling 51% in Lyla’s family company by her father. It kind of bothered me that her father kept his plans and reasons from her. This fact made her instantly view Mason as an enemy. Their constant bumping of heads is understandable due to the circumstances surrounding the 51/49 share split, but the way that they both were constantly going behind the others backs and being cunning and deceptive…it’s a wonder that the business survived at all.
But…where the Christmas movie vibes really took over was their arrival to Yule. The form of travel was a creative form of Christmas magic and the Christmas wonderland they emerged in seemed so surreal. I loved how his family just embraced Lyla and made her fall in love with them & the town so easily. The relationship between Mason & Lyla slowly and awkwardly progressed. Mason seemed like a completely different person in Yule than he was in Dublin. Their disdain for each other seemed to evaporate in Yule…it’s a Christmas miracle, ha. I did enjoy watching Mason slowly fall for Lyla & seeing his sweet gestures for her, even though they just seemed to confuse her. Ultimately, hard decisions were made and with much compromise the world these two live in will look much different in the future.

I was utterly charmed, captivated and enchanted by this Christmas romance. Lyla and Mason are like two sparks waiting to ignite, despite their constant fighting. When Mason whisks her away right before Christmas, Lyla discovers his big secret, as well as realizing what is under his gruff exterior. Along with the romance, this is also a poignant book about family and loss, sprinkled with wonderful Christmas magic.

By chapter 2 I was craving hot chocolate and Christmas movies! This books is really sweet and I believe I’m going to read it again when Christmas getting closer (it’s 15th October). Also I liked the writing style. All in all 5⭐️