Holly and Nick Hate Christmas had a fun premise and some light, festive moments, but ultimately it wasn’t for me. I wasn’t aware going in that this was a Christian novel, and that aspect became more prominent than expected. While readers who enjoy faith-based stories may appreciate the message, it didn’t align with what I was looking for in a holiday rom-com. The characters had potential, but the tone and direction didn’t quite hit the mark for me personally.

Christmas romance books will always tug at my heart. This novel had such a cute Christmas story and the town, characters and storyline were quite charming.

Book Title: Holly and Nick Hate Christmas
Author: Isabelle Drake
Tropes: Brothers Best Friend, Enemies to Lovers, Friends to Lovers, Matchmaking Scheme, Fake Dating, Holiday Romance, Found Family
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️½
Spice Level: 💋 (Closed door / minimal spice)
Format: ARC via NetGalley

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🤩The Vibe:
This one is full of holiday hijinks, emotional growth, and a sprinkle of mischief. The family dynamics were fun and layered, and I loved watching Nick and Holly connect over their mutual dislike for Christmas—only to rediscover the heart of the holiday together. There’s a great blend of festive cheer and genuine emotional development as both characters learn to let go of old grudges and open up to love and connection.

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👩‍❤️‍👨Main Characters:
Holly: Outspoken, dramatic, and determined to hate Christmas - her antics bring the chaos, though at times they can feel a little immature.

Nick: Her brother’s best friend with a past that has brought him hate Christmas and vow to always spend it alone eating ramen noodles. Somehow he becomes the Holiday hero we’re all rooting for.

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What We Loved:
• The mix of so many good tropes—it’s like a holiday romance bingo card come to life.
• The family chaos and warmth—they brought great comedic timing and heart.
• Watching Nick and Holly bond over their shared Grinch-like tendencies and slowly transform into something more.

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What Didn’t Work For Me:
• Holly’s grudge felt a little overblown, and her schemes went a bit too far for an adult character.
• Her complaint about being “invisible” didn’t fully land when she was the one avoiding deeper connection.
• I didn’t feel as connected to her emotional arc as I wanted to.

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Favorite Quote:
“Maybe hating Christmas together was the most Christmassy thing they’d ever done.”
(It perfectly sums up their unexpected bond!)

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Final Thoughts:
This isn’t a perfect holiday romance, but it’s full of feel-good family moments, satisfying tropes, and emotional redemption. If you’re a sucker for fake dating, big families with big personalities, and enemies who slowly realize they were never really enemies at all—this one will put you in the holiday mood.

Thank you NetGalley for the Arc! Did I read a Christmas book in April? Yes I did and I loved this book so much! This story follows Holly and Nick who both hate Christmas because of past trauma around Christmas time. When holly finds out Nick made a agreement with her brother to be her pretend date for a Christmas party she decides to get revenge on Nick in the form of basically becoming buddy the elf and annoying Nick until he can't take it. I truly loved this story. I felt like it had a lot of depth for a Christmas story. I loved all the characters and felt all the Christmas vibes! I highly recommend checking this one out when it publishes in September.

This was a great book! It had a wonderful aspect of faith in it that was done very well. I loved the sweet romance in this book.

I enjoy a good holiday read any time of the year and have enjoyed Betsy St. Amant's previous books in the past, so I was definitely excited for this one... and it didn't disappoint. This was a super cute holiday read which, as the title suggests, is about two characters who each have their own reasons to hate Christmas. But when Holly learns that Nick was brought along as a 'pity date' after losing her job and needing a pick me up, she's not thrilled and decides to make him pay... but going all in with all things Christmas to make him pay. This story was the perfect blend of holiday festivities and movie references (both holiday and non-alike) with scheming and complicated family dynamics to keep things entertaining throughout. This is one that definitely had some Hallmark vibes--- in the very best ways possible. It kept me smiling throughout and is a fun read for the holiday... or whenever the holiday mood strikes you throughout the year! If you enjoy Christian holiday romance, this is certainly one to add to your TBR.

**ARC received via Netgalley for consideration. All opinions are my own.

This book is the Hallmark movie rom-com mash-up you didn’t know you needed!

As someone who loves all things Christmas, the title alone had me hooked—but I wasn’t prepared for just how much I would adore this story. Even reading it in April, I felt the warmth, love, and spirit of Christmas radiate from every page.

One of my favorite aspects of this book is that it doesn’t shy away from faith or Christianity. Instead, it embraces them wholeheartedly, adding a depth of wholesomeness that made the Sinclair family all the more lovable.

The story oozes small-town Southern charm, relatable family dynamics, and a swoon-worthy slow burn romance. It’s packed with hilarious moments that had me laughing out loud, balanced perfectly with heartfelt scenes and just enough twists to keep me hooked from beginning to end.

The FMC, Holly, is the perfect blend of grumpy and sunshine. Her kindness, relatable anxiety, and overthinking 30-something personality make her incredibly endearing. And Nick? He brings all the charm you'd expect from a brown-eyed heartthrob (trust me—I married one!). But behind that swoon, he's hiding secrets of his own.

With fake dating, family drama, Christmas operations gone hilariously wrong, and a cast of lovable side characters, Holly and Nick Hate Christmas delivers the kind of joy everyone needs—no matter the season.

Release Date: September 16th
ARC kindly received from NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

It is very far from Christmas but is never too late reading something about Christmas time!
What a wonderful and cute read this was

I really wanted to like this book since I love Christmas related books but the couple fell flat and I was unprepared for the amount of religious references. I felt a bit blind sided by this since it wasn’t mentioned in the description and this book is listed under the romance category.

Although I did like the different approach to the brother’s best friend trope with the brother being the one to set them up, I just couldn’t buy into holly and nick being together. Their chemistry fell flat which made it difficult for me to root for these two to be together. I kept waiting for more to come from the attraction that these two had to eachother but nothing ever came.

I did like the use of mixed media. I always appreciate it when a text thread is shown. They’re fun and they let me get to know the personality of the characters more.

I also wish this book would have stuck to just one pov instead of bouncing back and forth between 1st person pov for Holly and 3rd person pov for Nick. The back and forth between these pov’s kept taking me out of the story.

This ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks to WaterBrook & Multnomah and Netgalley!

I love Christmas books and I really had high hopes for this one. The book was okay, however it did have a lot of religious references within the book. This may be okay for those who follow a certain faith however for others this could be an issue.
The story is told with a dual pov, however I felt that the plot wasn’t really executed properly and that there was a lot going on within the book.
The book was cute in parts however I felt that the characters lacked any chemistry between them and also there seem to be a lot of characters for the book.
I rated this book 2.5 stars.

Thank you for the chance to eARC Holly and Nick Hate Christmas!

I really wanted to love this one. Christmas romances are my favorite and I was hoping for an almost Hallmark Movie type of feeling, but it fell very flat for me.

I want to start by discussing the heavy references to religion. I understand this is a Christmas time based novel, but there were enough moments where Christianity, praying, and religious values were mentioned that I do think this should also be qualified as Christian fiction. Holly's big, "I don't want to feel this way any more" moment happens with the story of Jesus's being born in the manger in the background, the nativity is brought up a couple times, references to praying for answers, and even a moment between Thomas and Nick where Thomas is telling Nick about the importance of being a ministry to misguided teens and children happens. I was.. very unprepared for this and I do think it is something that needs to be considered for any readers picking it up. If you love books with religious idealogy, you'll like this. If you don't, you might want to stay away.

My second problem with this book is Nick's goal of opening a camp/ranch for troubled children and teens feels very out of touch with every thing coming out about this camps in real life. I could not shake that ick.

Even if I had, the romance in this felt like a firework that never sets off and you have to live with being told what it was supposed to do instead of seeing it. The attraction between Holly and Nick is clearly there, but nothing comes from thay fizzle that we as readers genuinely get to hold on to to validate them ending up together in the end. I feel like we were told Holly and Nick were suddenly in love, not shown. And we don't even get to that until well into the book.

There were so many subplots (sick parents mystery, the ranch mystery, Holly's job, her sisters, her brother) that I feel the ability to truly set up a romance between Nick and Holly suffered. There were also far too many attempted twists and gotchas causing that final grand gesture to fall so flat.

There's just a lot going on here that really made this book not for me.

Holly and Nick Hate Christmas is a romance fictional novel. It has the romance and comedy, but it also has a lot of religious references in it. It starts off two weeks before Christmas and doesn’t get to Christmas day until about 90% into the book. I feel like the characters lacked depth and the ending was not well executed. I did not feel the chemistry between the two main characters. Even though this book was not what I was expecting, I still found it to be a reasonable read.

This is a Holiday romance book that centers around a woman named Holly. She doesn’t like Christmas because she was born a Christmas baby and her Parents named her Holly, out of all the names in the world. Holly’s Brother tries to set up Holly with his best friend named Nick. At first it starts to backfire on her brother, but then these two don’t stay enemies for long! As the story starts to unravel, they end up having feelings for one another. The story then jumps two years into the future, and we get to see how everything played out. This is a heartwarming Christmas novel filled with family secrets. Overall, I rate this a 3 out of 5 stars!

Thank you to NetGalley, author Betsy St. Amant and WaterBrook & Multnomah publishing for this digital advanced reader’s copy in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book is set to be published on September 16, 2025!

I thought the premise was cute, but there were too many things that made this book a dud for me:

1. There were weird moments of religion thrown in. I get it’s Christmas, but as someone who isn’t religious at all I would have wanted this somehow expressed in the synopsis. It threw me off a bit.
2. The pranks weren’t even that funny. I wanted a bit more action. Something that would make me laugh. It’s okay if it’s unbelievable since this is fiction, but the pranks were just eh.
3. There were too many characters! I don’t even know how many sisters, nephews, and boyfriends were floating around that house. It made it hard to concentrate on the plot since the whole time I was like “ok, now who is this again?”
4. The characters were flat. They literally had no life to them. I’m not sure if there was a book before this one that explained more, but I had so many questions: why does Nick want a therapy farm? How did he get in touch with the Sinclair about buying the land? Should we have a deeper connection with Ryan and Lydia? Even our main characters didn’t give me a reason to cheer for them because they were two dimensional.
5. The chemistry was severely lacking. I didn’t believe it, but character development could help.

I really wanted more from this book. As a December baby I know what it is like for family and friends to either forget my birthday or just lump it in with Christmas. Not fair. I also liked the synopsis and wanted the book to center on that rather than the current craziness.

I would say this is still an interesting Christmas read.

*_An ARC was received in exchange for an honest review.

Not yucking someone’s yum but I didn’t realize that this book was kinda religious focused. Don’t have an issue with it but I do wish that religion was tagged somewhere. Other than that, it was a good book but something in the story was missing.

Right off the bat I want to say that this book mentioned god/ministries/missionaries - it wasn’t a lot but it was in there and it threw me off and turned me off a bit. Nothing against it but just not for me - I wish this was mentioned in the description or somewhere. The story line was good but I felt like it wasn’t executed properly and there was lack of feelings and emotions involved. It was just an okay book for me, 2.5 rounded up to 3 for me.

It was a dual point of view story but I wish it was more clear when it switched. There’s just something missing from the book and it wasn’t for me.

I just finished such a fun book. Holly and Nick Hate Christmas by Betsy St. Amant comes out this fall. Don’t skip this one.

This should’ve been also listed under Christian fiction and if it was I honestly wouldn’t have requested it. There’s too much emphasis on praying for my liking.