You know in The Holiday when Cameron Diaz swaps houses with Kate Winslet and she’s in this adorable cottage in this adorable village and then meets adorable Jude Law and they go the pub and it snows and it’s so cozy? Jenny Bayliss books are exactly like that.
If you're looking for exactly this vibe, the book for you is Twelve Dates of Christmas, which is so good that it's being made into a Hallmark TV series (yes, series!) that’s airing in December. But I have a soft spot for Kiss Me at Christmas, where delinquent teens and their guidance counselor involve the whole town in saving the community center. There is a romance element but I would say this one is more straight fiction than romance.
Romance in the '80s and '90s was a very different beast from today. The Western was popular and one of the most popular plots was mail order bride. Some cowboy or rancher would send for a woman from Back East to do his cooking and cleaning and she’d show up sight unseen to marry him and they’d fall in love.
Sarah Morgenthaler’s The Christmas You Found Me very much gives that vibe but somehow makes it feel of the moment. The rancher is a woman whose no-good ex-husband took everything but her family’s ranch in their contentious divorce. Her best friend jokingly places an ad in the local paper for a husband for hire as soon as the divorce is final to rub her friend’s newfound freedom in her ex’s face, and our heroine is surprised when someone shows up to apply. He's a single dad who needs money for his dying daughter’s medical treatment. They agree to enter into a marriage of convenience so his daughter can have health insurance and get the kidney transplant she needs.
This sounds so cheesy but I swear it is somehow not. It has the plot trappings of an inspirational romance but it makes you feel the spirit of Christmas with zero preachiness or religion, just sincerity and sweetness.
Portia MacIntosh writes romcoms in the Bridget Jones/Shopaholic vein. She’s incredibly prolific but Stuck on You is my favorite by a mile. Sadie is personal assistant to an eccentric artist who invites himself to her family Christmas on an island in Yorkshire. Big family, Christmas traditions both wacky and sweet, a clueless boss who has noticed more than she’s realized. It’s festive and lots of fun.
The O’Neil Brothers series is about three brothers who work at their family’s ski resort in Vermont. The first is my favorite. A marketing executive who hates Christmas has to spend the season at a gorgeous resort where she's drawn into the Christmas spirit as she falls in love with one of the owners. As soon as I finished the last page, I was googling to see if the resort was based on a real place (it’s not, as far as I can tell).
What I remember most vividly is that I liked the romance but I LOVED the glass-walled cabin the heroine stays in. Great atmosphere. Book two is set in summer but book three is another Christmas one with the hero falling in love with his longtime best friend, who’s been in love with him her whole life.
I am not a big mystery person and the concept of a Christmas mystery romance (by a YA author I had read and not been that into) was mystifying to me, but actually it’s a perfect book. Two feuding mystery writers are invited to the home of a living legend in their field (think Agatha Christie or Stephen King) who then disappears in the middle of a snowstorm from her own locked study.
Also they hate each other.
Perfectly paced and plotted and great chemistry. The logline compares it to Knives Out and it’s a fair comparison but only if you picture Knives Out with a bickering pair of investigators who are falling in love.
This would have gone on my movie list except Bookshop doesn’t carry this 2016 Christmas romance about a housesitter who ends up snowed in at a Manhattan penthouse with its hot but Christmas-hating owner. Morgan has tons of Christmas romances, but this is my favorite. The city doesn't get enough credit as an excellent setting for a Christmas love story.
Julie Murphy wrote YA, one of which was made into a Netflix movie starring Jennifer Aniston; Sierra Simone wrote taboo erotica starring priests and presidential threesomes; together they write...Christmas romance?
The Christmas Notch series is centered around a porn producer getting a contract to make what are essentially Hallmark movies. The books are sweet, funny, and sex-positive. Start the first one A Merry Little Meet Cute and enjoy.
I generally find the Shopaholic books annoying so tell me why I cried at this one?? Becky is just trying to make sure everyone has a good Christmas! But no one else in her life seems interested! I think generally watching Becky choose to constantly ruin her own life and the lives of those around her is stressful and that makes the series not enjoyable for me, but who hasn't been stressed out at the holidays? It makes any bad choices more relatable. I also think her friends and family were awful in this one while she was making sense, so if you don't enjoy this series, you may still enjoy this particular book like I did.
Historical romance is out of fashion right now, but I've spent a lot of the year rereading old favorites, which reminded me how much I used to love a Christmas anthology. I haven't gotten to reread any of these (...yet) but some I've enjoyed in the past include A Holiday of Love (1994), Mistletoe Christmas (2021, all stories set at a house party in the country), and How the Dukes Stole Christmas (2018).
This romance, about a woman returning to her Irish hometown where she’s reviled for dumping the town golden boy, is technically a sequel but I read it before the original and suffered no consequences. Just some good old-fashioned fake dating and getting snowed in together. What context is really needed?
This December release is both the author’s second book of the year (after the cozy mystery Detective Aunty) and her second winter holiday book (after Three Holidays and a Wedding).
Tom and Sameera agree to fake date for career reasons, not foreseeing that the lie would end with Sameera’s Muslim parents joining Tom’s family in rural Alaska for Christmas. This sounds like a multicultural version of The Proposal.
(If you pick this up, make sure it's the one by Jalaluddin. There are infinity Christmas books titled Yours for the Season.)
There are a decent number of queer Christmas romances now but this is the first I’ve seen with a trans protagonist. A second chance romance that takes place “against the backdrop of one weird Floridian Christmas.”
NOT fake dating for once, but a Christmas-loving woman agrees to help a Christmas grump make the holiday special for his nieces in exchange for helping her with her dreams of opening her own inn.
A novella sequel to the queer YA She Gets the Girl has the original couple scheming to set up a friend while avoiding problems in their own relationship.
A woman runs into her ex Nick at a Christmas market and then meets a new man, also named Nick, who catches her eye. That’s one way to justify the title! The description promises a lighthearted romcom.
You can find a list of non-Christmas winter holiday books (Diwali! Thanksgiving! Hanukkah!) at my Bookshop.