This is a great entry into the sub-sub-genre of 'The Holiday' Christmas rom-coms. The characters are fun and fairly deep, though I could've done with less of a positive spin on Teslas in the first chapter. Overall, though, a great Christmas diversion, highly recommended.

Absolutely LOVEDDDDDD this book! Once I got all the characters together it came together beautifully. I love angsty slow burns and this did the trick. I just came back from San Francisco and I felt transported there with Bee and Clover!

Cute, very "The Holiday"esque, where two women switch houses for the holiday season, from Ohio to SanFran and vice versa. It was very Christmassy, so that was good, but I didn't think the characters were super developed. There were two "main" couples, and I didn't feel much when they eventually got together (79% of the way thru 😭).

Thanks Netgalley for the ARC!

I needed a little cozy Christmassy book to read so this was just in time. If you like Hallmark type holiday movies I'd say this is perfect. Easy read if you need a palette cleanse.

A delightful and heartwarming holiday story about two different women - each whom find love and acceptance when they swap places (literally). This is a perfect read for those feeling restless and misplaced this season.

Premise like The Holiday in which 2 women switch residences for December and have their own love stories.

Clover goes from her farm in Ohio to SF, wanting to try something new after a year of difficulty- her mom dying and breaking up with her childhood love turned fiance. Highlights include: looking up someone from her past and meeting someone new.. rediscovering her queerness and making new friends, and wondering how to keep your ex who was/is also your best friend in your life in a way that won’t hurt either of you.

Bee is in the high pressure tech world nearing burnout and escapes to farm country. Highlights include: rediscovering her creativity, finding balance in caring for yourself but still being taken care of, overhearing gossip at the coffee shop and going to caroling and tree lighting etc, healing high power family dysfunction, and Clover’s ex who is still the on site farm manager and around all the time… he chops wood at one point 🙃

I just really loved this. It’s a slow burn that works for me (eventual fade to black where you don’t miss out on any of the relationship building), not so much insta love which is nice for these kinds of temporary vacation premises sometimes, more like a HFN, the rest is still beginning kind of vibes but I believe in these relationships ❤️💚

Thank you to Avon for the eARC!

This is my first read from Georgia K. Boone and I enjoyed it. The Holiday is one of my favorite movies so when I read the synopsis I was all in. I do have to say this felt more like a women’s fiction with romantic aspects as opposed to a romance book. I loved the dual timelines and seeing both Bee and Clover truly come into themselves. I ate Clover and Beth up and watching Clover get the opportunity to truly be herself after feeling stifled at home was great and a reminder of how important representation is in all things. Now Bee and Knox, idk, they were cute but it still felt like Knox was trying to get over Clover so I can’t say I was as invested and I was with Clover and Beth. This definitely gave me cozy vibes though and while I’d never leave San Francisco for an Ohio farm I’m glad everyone got their HEA. Thank you to Avon and NetGalley for the ARC.

This was just such a fun, and quick read. I absolutely flew through it. I love a house swapping story, and this one was just really well done. I thought Bee and Clover were great main characters, and I loved how this book was more focussed on their personal journeys. They both had very different issues going on in their lives but both of them just weren't happy with where they were at, and just needed a change to be able to properly find themselves. I just really enjoyed the way that was done throughout the book.
I also quite liked the romances. They are a bit insta-love, but also weirdly slow burn. I don't know how to explain it. This book just fits into both categories for me. Anyway, I thought the matches were quite well done, and I truly thought there were a lot of cute moments between our two couples. I also liked how each of their love interest ended up being cheerleaders for our main characters as well.
Every good, cozy Christmas read has a great cast of side characters, and this was no exception. In both locations we had such a great cast. In San Francisco we had such a fun cast of a queer second family friend group. I love how loudly themselves those characters were. It was such a fun group, while also just overall being a great supportive friends for Clover as she's struggling through some things. In Salem we had our typical small town "eveyone is family" dynamic. I loved how everyone just easily let Bee into their hearts, and she found her place there so well. I especially loved Clover's dad. He was just such a fun side character, with so much love. There are 2 scenes in this book that made me cry, and both of them had him at the center of it. He truly feels like the big heart of this book.
My big complaint of this book though was the ending. It felt so incredibly rushed, and abrupt. I feel like this book could have benefited with like 50 or so extra pages just to flesh that ending out a bit more. There are many things that just felt dropped by the end. There also were some things that we didn't get a proper resolution for, and some logistics that don't make the most sense. Because the romances were a bit of a slower burn, their endings just were extremely rushed, and I don't know if I fully believe in the epilogue. It just all felt extremely rushed, and just a couple of added pages would have easily solved that, and that's why it is so frustrating to me. But yeah, up until that ending this honestly was nearly perfect.

3.5
This was a very cute holiday romance. Nothing extraordinary, but it scratches that itch.

I love the move "The Holiday," so when I found out there was a version of it with diverse characters coming out, I had to read it! Both FMCs are black and one of the romances is sapphic. Clover Mills leaves her farmer and ex-fiancé in Ohio for San Fran while Bee takes a much needed break from work and family in Bee's Ohio home. Both end up in cute little romances with just a dash of spice (fade to black) and its heartwarming without being saccharine. There's also a pretty great wood-chopping scene...

3.5/5 stars ⋆˙⟡

My immediate reaction upon finishing this was pure delight. This was a wholesome Christmas story with wonderful side characters, both a small town and big city Christmas setting, and cutesy romances....but the more I sat with it, the more a few (not-so-great) things started to stick out to me more than the cuteness. The romances in this seem incredibly rushed and falls into the instalove category (IMO). Sometimes, this is fine but in general, it allowed us little room to see the chemistry between these two couples. If the story had been longer, I think we could've had more time with the main couples and although I loved the side characters, I almost felt like we spent more time getting to know all of them rather than our love interests.
*Spoilers Incoming (although it's very obvious from the get-go who ends up with who)*

Clover and Beth are more of a believable couple solely on the stereotype that lesbians move fast however, you can't tell me there's not a toooon of unpacking that Clover needs to do to have a healthy queer relationship since she kinda just came out to herself and the world??? Knox and Bee also felt a little off and I'm not quite sure what it was but I still enjoyed their banter and Knox getting to heal. Overall, instalove just never feels believable to me but if you don't mind it, this is a super cute super quick read that would be great to pick up at this time of year!

Mini Playlist:
Last Christmas - Chappel Roan & Sabrina Carpenter Cover (ofc)
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Pheobe Bridgers
Christmas Tree Farm - Taylor Swift

A huge thank you to NetGalley & Avon and Harper Voyager for the e-arc in exchange for a review.

thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC of I’ll Be Gone For Christmas in exchange for an honest review!

This was a sweet holiday romance read! I enjoyed the pacing of this novel and how the story moved along. The ending felt a bit rushed, but other than that it was well paced and moved along well. The romance was slower, but I enjoyed the other aspects of the story like each character finding who they are outside of their usual environment. I would have loved a few extra chapters at the end, but it was wrapped up nicely. The characters were all very likable and felt authentic!

This was such a cute sapphic reimagining of The Holiday! Our two fmc's are burnt out in their lives and need an escape. They use the Vacate app to house swap with each other, so one of them heads to rural Ohio while the other heads to San Francisco. Unexpectedly they of course, find romance. It's has dual povs and is a super slow burn. This book is a short, quick read with great character development and fun holiday romance.

Thank you, NetGalley and Avon/Harper Voyager, for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

This was the perfect book to kick off the holiday season. Such a cute sapphic romance. A little slow to at first.

this book had a cute premise and sapphics which i love and not to mention the cover, but i found the actual book to be too slow for me

I wish I liked this book more because the concept is a really fun one, but unfortunately it overall didn’t end up working for me.
I liked the characters, side characters included. I actually enjoyed spending more time with them than I did the main characters some of the time. I liked the entire novel in theory—experiencing something new and growing from it—but I think there was too much going on.
The biggest thing I think is that it felt like the plot went in circles for more than half of the novel. That made it really hard to make me want to pick it up, and the way too slow burns of the relationships didn’t help. I think that ironically the plot was too slow and too rushed at the same time. Because if they dallying at the beginning, there just wasn’t enough time for one, much less two, fully realized relationships, and it showed. The relationships seemed left with a finite amount of space to grow and never dealt with that. There were also family/personal subplots that felt similarly rushed just due to time and space constraints, and I wish those had more space to breathe.
I was also disappointed that one of the relationships, and the one that had the most development and time together, wasn’t sapphic, as queer romance was most of what drew me to this book. And I have to be honest I’m not sure I loved the writing. That’s just a personal preference, but I found it worth mentioning.
It’s not to say people should read this book because I know a lot of people have enjoyed it. But I think it deserved more space than it got.

First I would like to thank NetGalley and Avon books for the ARC of this novel.

I found the beginning a little confusing but once I got into it and got to know both Bee and Clover I found myself enjoying it a bit more. I still found that I did not love this book overall. It was a little too slow for my liking and I didn't feel that it gave all the characters the same amount of love throughout I really wanted to love it as it has a cute Christmasy cover.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon for an advance copy of this book!

I enjoyed the premise of this book - dual POV and separate worlds that are gently woven together but also given their distinct space to grow. However, I felt that I wasn't able to get a good read on Bee's story in comparison to Clover's story. It felt as if Clover's story was more compelling throughout the book, while Bee's story was quite secondary. Both Bee and Clover deserve a full book for each of their stories.

I would recommend this book for anyone who loves queer representation in romance! (So that should be EVERYONE!!!)

'I'll be gone for christmas' is a deeply enjoyable, fun, festive rom-com that gifts you the ability to stop thinking for a little while and just enjoy the prospect of falling in love. The dual perspectives were written perfectly, I loved them both, loved the MC's, loved the links of the house swap and the wrap up being a melting of the two. The romances could have done with more build up, more tension and more romantic scenes but as the book was short this was understandable. It was sweet, the atmosphere was so warm and so perfect for this time of year. I had a really good time.

If you go into this expecting it to be an ultimate classic you're probably setting your expectations too high, but if you go into this expecting to smile and laugh and enjoy a little holiday magic - well, that goal will certainly be met.

I thought this might become on of my favourite reads of the holiday season, with the Holiday inspired plot and the sapphic romance, and I did enjoy this, but it wasn't what I was hoping from it. I liked the writing, and I loved how the characters grew on me. I didn't like them much at first but everyone went through so much growth and I loved going through that with them. But I felt like it took ages for the book to actually get going. By 50% in, I felt like the book had barely started. At around 75%, I felt like things were finally starting to take off. I missed a lot of build-up in the romances, so I lacked a real connection with them.

What did it mean to feel content?

I'll Be Gone for Christmas was a story told in two alternating povs about can you be someone different in a different place. With some The Holiday movie feel, Bee and Clover switch homes for December. Bee lives in San Francisco and is feeling major burnout, she works with her high powered, feels like favored twin sister and has cost them two accounts over the last few months. She's a writer who can't seem to find any inspiration anymore for the copy edits she's supposed to write. Clover has had a rough year in her Ohio small-town, her mother died and she broke things off with her bestfriend since childhood, now, ex-fiance. Bee wants to slow things down and thinks a farm in small town America will do it and Clover wants to test some boundaries after feeling completely shut-down by her mother before she died.

This was more a women's fiction, finding yourself story to me than romance. While both women meet their eventual love interest as soon as they get to their destinations, that aspect kind of disappears as they do some soul searching about who they are and who they want to be. Bee is instantly attracted to Clover's ex-fiance, Knox, who works and lives on the farm but he seems to still be trying to get over Clover and Clover can't help but be attracted to Bee's twin sister Beth, but her mother's comment when Clover tried to come out to her, still rings loudly in her head. I liked how Clover's journey showed how representation matters, the environment and social circle she finds in San Francisco opens her eyes to possibilities and what is “normal”, helping her feel comfortable with her authentic self. There's a thread of Clover reuniting with an old friend and if you hadn't read the back synopsis, you'd be forgiven thinking that is going to be her love interest. It really wasn't until around 70% that Clover and Beth get romance genre going, leaving it to feel rushed and me not feeling a strong connection between them.

Bee and Knox have some cute moments (a chopping wood scene!) but their romance also doesn't really start going until around 60% and even then there was still the hangover of Know still not completely moved on from Clover. I wouldn't go into this for the romance (closed door and some kisses), more of a finding yourself with some holiday vibes and start of relationships.