On the outside, actress Jules Silver seems to have it all—Rom-com sweetheart, a career on the rise, and the longtime love of Hollywood’s leading man.

But after a disastrous red-carpet event sends her life reeling, all Jules wants is an escape into her favorite season—Christmas—and space to figure out what she really wants. The perfect place to make both happen?

Dearing Creek, the magical Minnesota lakeside town where she spent every summer growing up—where the place and people brought her back to life long ago. And where one man has always been there for her.

Ethan Blake has loved Jules since the beginning. She was sunshine and laughter in his world of campfires and starry nights, the girl he’s never been able to forget. So when the stars align—bringing them together for a holiday road trip from Los Angeles back to where they started—Ethan can’t help believing that Fate is tossing him one last chance to prove he is worthy of her.

When a snowstorm strands them in Noel—a Christmas-obsessed mountain town filled with legend, twinkle lights and holiday magic—the two suddenly find their carefully drawn lines between lifelong friendship and love become blurred. And when Jules’s past comes calling, they both must decide if love is worth the risk—or if happily-ever-after will remain something that exists only in the movies.

It Had To Be Yule, the second book in the Dearing Creek series, is a slow-burn, low-steam, angsty friends-to-lovers small-town Christmas romance filled with witty banter, quirky relatable moments, and heartwarming relationships between the main characters, family & ride-or-die friends—certain to overflow your holiday cup with love, joy, and a hint of laughter this Christmas season.