Ok, THIS book is what I'm looking for in a Jenny Bayliss Christmas novel! So much to love here - 40s female and male MCs, a bit of a twist on a classic A Christmas Carol story, a small town community that works together to help others, finding yourself in a post-empty nest, and on and on. This book will totally warm your heart!

Bottom line: So, so sweet! Highly recommend!

Quick and Dirty
-small English village
-one night stand/forced proximity trope
-community of quirky characters
-older FMC facing empty nest

From the publisher👇🏻
White Christmas meets Nora Ephron in Jenny Bayliss’ latest wholehearted, ensemble-cast holiday extravaganza.

My thoughts👇🏻
Y’all, I will read anything this woman writes. Not only is she my favorite Christmas book author, but she’s also one of my favorite romance authors. Hear me out: I don’t read a ton of romance, so for me to say that is something. I’ve read enough over the years that a straight-up romance is NOT my thing. I need something more substantial, more plot, more characters, more at stake. And Bayliss brings it every single time! Harriet is caught up in her emotions, fear of what life will be like next year when her daughter leaves for college, and has a wine-soaked evening that ends in some stranger’s bed. No big deal…at least not until she ends up at the police station on charges of breaking. Now she’s face to face with her one-night stand, who happens to be the property owner’s lawyer. Her punishment was resurrecting the once-opulent playhouse and performing a holiday play featuring the rag-tag bunch of students she was covering for. Over the next several weeks, Harriet helps create a safe space for those kids to explore their talents, connect with their community, and build something greater than themselves. And in the meantime, she’s learning something about herself, too. Life is more than just working until you drop.

I enjoyed this one from Bayliss! It’s a terrific read for anyone needing a sense of community and eager to escape into a well-rounded romance that’s not just 🍆. Plus, for us 40+ gals, I saw myself in this character (even though I don’t have kids), which means a lot.

I highly recommend all of Bayliss’ books if you want a holiday book that’s more than Hallmark!

This book was just okay to me. The plot was cute and whimsy but I struggled to get through it. I liked the character development throughout the book and one subplot made me cry. It was great at adding in that feel of Christmas!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy to honestly review.

This was a fun heart warming Christmas love story and it 1000% put me in the festive spirit! I loved Harriet and how much she cares for her students. Every kid deserves to have someone like her in their life and she was such an enjoyable character. I loved how awkward she was at times and how she reacted around James. This book definitely had some funny moments (my favorite was “The Lonely Farts Club”) and I’m glad I chose this one to kick off my Christmas season.

Kiss Me at Christmas was a warm hearted hug of a book with the only down side being it was a little long and drawn out. I really loved the community and found family of the book, the happy endings all around for multiple people and it did have a love story. I think the romance was perhaps the weaker part of the book and everything else was better, i liked the different community groups, the teens, the families, etc. I do recommend it and enjoyed reading it.

This book was the sweetest, coziest, most heartwarming delight! This was the Christmas spirit bottled up in book form. Sure, it was a bit overly sentimental at times but it left me feeling so happy.

I love that our female main character, Harriet, is a single mom in her 40s. She is fiercely independent, a little stubborn, and fights for those she loves. The male main character is a man who is constantly trying to be the best version of himself. These two have disagreements and misunderstandings but they both apologize and repair when needed. It was so refreshing!

The ensemble cast of quirky misfits was what really made this story a winner. I loved Eveline’s
Scrooge character arc. This is full of wonderful, flawed characters and it’s set in a small English village (my favorite setting!).

This was such an enjoyable read. I love Jenny Bayliss’s books. She manages to make them cozy but keeps them from being overly cute.

This is my second Jenny Bayliss book. Unfortunately it was not my favorite book of hers. I enjoyed the story but it was very drawn out and it was difficult for me to get into the book, but I did finish it! The storyline was cute of how Harriet is teaching the students about doing a play and what it entails to rehearse and audition for the play. It was a cute story and I loved the cover!

Jenny Bayliss is one of my favorite holiday rom-com authors. Her books always deliver fun holiday cheer with a cute romance and delightful side characters, and Kiss Me at Christmas is no exception. I enjoyed reading the story of Harriet, a pastoral care leader who finds herself responsible for pulling together a ragtag team of individuals to stage a performance of A Christmas Carol. The romance that develops between Harriet and seemingly uptight lawyer James is fine albeit a bit juvenile for characters in their 40s. But what shines in this book is the found family that develops between Harriet, her students, the community theater players and others that become involved in the project.

Thoroughly enjoyable and had lovely "The Holiday" vibes! Unfortunately I feel like it easily could and should have been 100 pages shorter, but overall this is a wonderful, cozy holiday romance to curl up with next to the fire. I'm looking forward to exploring more of Bayliss' backlist!

Thank you NetGalley, Bayliss, and Penguin Publishing for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Kiss Me at Christmas is a heartwarming endearing read filled with humor and romance. It’s a wonderful happy ending holiday read. It’s sure to give readers a healthy dose of warm fuzzies.

Harriet is overworked and not in the holiday mood. Her daughter as made other plans for the holidays instead of spending time with her. However, after taking the fall for a couple students after they break into the local theater, she finds herself directing the Christmas performance.

The characters are pretty developed and solid. I liked the banter and the overall story. It’s a great cozy Christmas read.

While I’m Glad I read it but wasn’t completely into it! It was a cutesy Christmas read! 3 stars!

Thanks NetGalley!

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (0-5)
Steam: 🔥☄️ (0-5) Closed door/fade-to-black, but not many details of the before.

What I’m Starry-Eyed Over:
🤩 I never go in blind, but I guess I do with Jenny Bayliss.
🤩 The captivating commiserbration (drunken one-night-stand).
🤩 I’m a sucker for a re-meet cute/ugly.
🤩 Great enemies-to-lovers vibes.
🤩 Cute, fun, and funny with amazing characterization but also deep, intimate, and heartwarming. I looooove Harriet, the FMC. She and the other characters are laugh-out-loud hilarious.
🤩 The famous five and all they represent for those of us who champion kids/youth.
🤩 The feels of loneliness at the holidays/empty nest syndrome.
🤩 The epitome of community center—I love the community theater and community HEA.
🤩 Single POV and one narrator totally works—she’s an amazing storyteller. It’s such a treat to listen to this narrator’s beautiful voice in my ears.

What I’m Wishing/Dizzy About:
💫 I’m not sure I felt the connection between the MCs or their HEA as much as I would have liked.

This was very cute, atmospheric and fun!

Harriet is a single mom of a high school senior who is on a study abroad trip over Christmas. Harriet is feeling cynical about the approaching holiday along with being generally burned out in her work and everyday life. A series of fortuitous events lead Harriet into a new volunteer effort coordinating a ragtag renovation of a dilapidated theater as they rally to restore community spirit in time for a production of A Christmas Carol. Meanwhile, Harriet is exploring what it means to truly care for herself approaching a new season of empty-nest motherhood while opening her heart to love as well.

Come for the Christmas romance but stay for the found family! This rowdy group of folks assembled in the name of theater and community made this book for me. It reminded me of the power of looking out for a neighbor and finding unity in a shared goal. It was also delightfully cozy and featured a female main character who was in her 40s. I really liked it! Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital copy.

(Only caveat, if you can’t tolerate a good amount of cheesiness here and there, I’d skip this one.)

**Thank you to Putnam books for this free digital review copy.**

This was such a heartwarming novel that spoke to my Dickens'-"A Christmas Carol"-loving soul! It was fun to read a romance about more mature characters and see their relationship develop from a rocky beginning to being forced to work together toward a common goal to building a true friendship and romance. The cast of supporting characters was vast and, while lovely, they weren't especially well developed, but that was okay with me. It was a fun, modern take on the Scrooge-type character and the magic of Christmas, full of community and sweet found family.

3.5 stars. Charming holiday story about a teacher determined to save her students, and the infuriating but handsome lawyer who keeps showing up. It takes an English village to restore the town’s decrepit theater for an impromptu production of A Christmas Carol. And there’s Evaline, the Scroogelike theater owner. It’ll take a holiday miracle to pull it all off.

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for the ARC to review. All opinions are my own.

This is such a heart-warming, funny Christmas book that was full of cosy vibes and a little bit of romance. Harriet is an over-worked high school guidance counselor and recent empty-nester, since her daughter left England to spend Christmas in New York. When a group of her students breaks into an abandoned theater, Harriet gets stuck supervising their community service. Together she and her students are responsible for cleaning up the old theater, as well as staging a performance of A Christmas Carol in a matter of weeks. To top things off, the lawyer in charge of overseeing this operation turns out to be Harriet's ill-advised one-night stand, James. I enjoyed Harriet's sense of humor, and the large cast of characters in this slow-burn ensemble story that ends happily. Thanks to Netgalley, Putnam, and author Jenny Bayliss for the librarian preview copy!

Review will be posted on 11/8/2024

Harriet Smith's Christmas is not off to a great start. She finds herself alone since her college-age daughter will be spending the holidays in New York City. She doesn't even feel like decorating for Christmas, even though she loves the holiday. Feeling depressed, she heads to her local pub to enjoy one too many mulled wines and finds herself engaging in a memorable one-night stand. She knows there is no future in this relationship, so she moves on by throwing herself into her work at the school. While trying to advise a group of students, she ends up trespassing into the town's old theater and ends up taking the fall for her students. As her punishment, the theater's owner has requested that Harriet clean up the theater, which is in a state of disarray, and organize one last holiday performance at the Winter Theater. If not, the theater's owner has threatened her with the law. Harriet works at a school with a lot of budding actors, so this won't be too bad, right? Insert the lawyer..... it's her one-night stand. Cue the awkwardness! Jenny Bayliss's Kiss Me at Christmas is a charming and heartfelt novel that gave me a lot of White Christmas vibes.

I really enjoyed Harriet from the start of Kiss Me at Christmas. I love that Bayliss focused on a mature woman as her protagonist with a grown child; I really appreciated that. Her interactions with her students at work were very relatable and if you have ever worked at a school, you will appreciate her experience of organizing and directing a holiday play. I also have directed my former students in A Christmas Carol, so this plot line was right up my alley. The subplot of her relationship with the lawyer, James, was also done well, although I did feel myself gravitating to some of the other subplots, especially with the students.

If you are looking for a holiday read that is reminiscent of White Christmas in that an entire group of people are putting together a holiday extravaganza one last time, you'll appreciate Kiss Me at Christmas. It was just what I needed -- a feel good holiday romance. So, let me know in the comments if you are a fan of Jenny Bayliss and if Kiss Me at Christmas is on your holiday TBR list.

I’m not sure this one was for me. I really just felt quite bored to be honest. I needed a little more depth and plot advancement

For fans of Jenny Bayliss, or really any Christmas story, you do not want to miss out on Kiss Me at Christmas! I think this story is her best yet and it's all due to an exquisite compilation of romance, strong main characters, a yearning for Christmas pasts, and invoking the spirit of community.

Kiss Me at Christmas takes place on a small English town, Little Beck Foss, which seems to be crumbling away each year, with the oldest theater in town looking to be torn down. Harriet just found out that her daughter will not be home for Christmas and begins to crumble without the weight of parenthood holding her together. In an uncharacteristic manner, she meets James one night thinking she will never see him again only to have him be the solicitor of Evaline, the owner of the old theater in town, which she is charged with fixing and putting on a play as punishment for her students breaking in. Of course, the play is A Christmas Carol! Harriet invokes the spirit of Christmas and gathers community members far and wide to help put on the play just in time for Christmas. Her students, known troublemakers at her school, are those that have unsteady family dynamics, which come to a head as a pair suddenly go missing one night. Harriet has to pull together all her new connections and well as herself up to keep good on her promises - not only to the theater owner, but to the entire community she has brought together in the process of restoring the theater.

This book was filled with good tidings and so much happiness! I love Bayliss's writing. She gives so much detail and depth to each character making you feel as if they were one of your closest friends. Definitely pick up Kiss Me at Christmas if you are looking for a holiday story that isn't just romance, but you still want a dash of spice.

While the blurb about this book was something that seemed right up my Christmas loving alley, this book fell very short from hitting the mark.

The plot was very slow, the characters were all over the place (and I really really did not like Harriet), and then just all the off topic banter/fluff really made this longer than it needed to be (not to mention it was really really repetitive).

I feel like this could have been something really awesome, cheesy but it would have hit the mark, but for me this fell short.

Thank you NetGalley and G.P. Putnam's Sons for my DRC.