Absolutely loved this story. Such a cute read. I was pulling for Dan and Evie. It was also really night to read a Christmas story before Christmas. This was a quick paced read.

***I received a copy of this ARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review***

When I saw the summary of this book I was instantly drawn in. Best friends brother, secret pining, marriage pact, waking up married in Vegas, and Christmas...all those tropes generally speak to me. Sadly, within a few chapters, I wasn't a fan of either character and considered DNF-ing the book. I decided to push through though hoping overall I was going to enjoy the book by the time I got to the end. Sadly, that wasn't the case.

This story takes us back and forth between the current time and past occasions that all show us how much both Evie and Dan like each other. We see so many occasions where the sparks were flying but there was always a reason, to them, for not pursuing each other.

When the summary mentioned Ross and Rachel it should have been a red flag. I mean how many years of back and forth of Ross and Rachel did we all watch? Honestly, I was so irritated with both Evie and Dan throughout this book.

Evie, who grew up not knowing her dad, raised by a young mom who continued to pursue men that couldn't commit made Evie desperately want to find someone who would just be stable and committed to her. I found Evie to be not only a hypocrite but very selfish. She said she wanted commitment and stability yet each time a man had those qualities she found him boring or quirky and never attempted to fully invest herself in the relationship. It really just felt like she was biding her time with other men in hopes that Dan would someday be hers. She judged her mother for pursuing uncommitted/detached men and yet was an uncommitted/detached person in most of her relationships.

Then we have Dan who's never wanted anything serious because he saw the devastation his mom went through as his father cheated on her countless times and then left her for a younger woman. Dan also has blamed himself, for years, for something that wasn't his fault. Essentially Dan has a lot of unresolved pain/trauma that he's avoided facing for years.

I understood the hesitation to pursue a relationship between these two due to their families being so close for so many years. Even their negative views around relationships I could understand but this book threw so many ridiculous hurdles and reasons for them not to be together. Honestly, by the end, all the negative reasons they shouldn't be together seemed bigger than the reasons they should be together.

Overall, I really wanted to like this book I was hoping to get a Christmas love story like a Hallmark film but instead, it was really a downer, and though technically an HEA I didn't really feel either character deserved it.

I was immediately attracted by the blurb!
The book started off really well esp the first 2 chapters. But then it kinda felt flat. I was hoping it will pick up but unfortunately it didn't for me.
I thought it would hv more christmassy feel to it but not so!!
It was a slow burn romance and they took a really long time to get together!!!
Loved side characters esp Max and Sasha's character!

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an early review copy.

A pact was made between Evie and Dan, to marry if they are both single when she’s thirty. The pact becomes true as they drunkenly get married in Vegas. Evie is best friends with Evie is Dan's sister.

The story then goes through the past and present of their lives.

I loved the idea of the story but it was a bit slow anf felt that sometimes it was going again and again.

It was well- written with both sides perspectives, along with cute, adorable moments.

*Thank you NetGalley for an arc of this book in return of a honest review*

The Mistletoe Pact has an interesting concept that had me on a chokehold from the beginning. I devoured it in two days. It felt slow at times, but overall extremely enjoyable. It was by no means life changing but not every book has to be so.

I loved learning about the main characters from both of their point of view. I also quite liked the double timeline; it was insightful for the character's relationship. The miscommunication from both parts was a big turn off. But at the end, everything worked nicely for both parties.

This book was filled with tooth-rotting sweet moments that will definitely get you into the Holiday spirit.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Bookouture for allowing me to read THE MISTLETOE PACT. This nice friends-to-lovers story gave me a bit of Christmas spirit in September.

I love any kind of pacts that lead to romance. Evie and Dan make a Christmas Eve pact (also on Evie's birthday) to marry each other if they are not already married when they turn 30. The problem is Dan is Evie's best friend's brother. I didn't really get why that was a problem, because her best friend WANTED her to date Dan.

Nonetheless, both characters have issues with their parents - I think most readers will be able to relate to that aspect of their stories. Dan also feels a lot of guilt for his involvement in an accident that changed his brother's life forever while Evie finds herself in pointless relationships knowing the entire time she should be with Dan.

At times the story was frustrating because all that needed to happen was some good communication between the two, particularly after an accidental Vegas wedding (and divorce). The chapters alternate Evie and Dan's viewpoints over the years, as well as telling us what was happening in the present.

It's a British story having the two characters being incredibly polite to each other. I'm American, so maybe we are too informal with our partners, but there was a lot of superficial conversations, which lead to the plot slowing down at times.

I loved all of the Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve timelines and parties. I think THE MISTLETOE PACT is a great start to a long list of holiday books I aim to read for the 2021 season.

I rate THE MISTLETOE PACT four out of five stars.

I liked this story! It was cute and I enjoyed the main characters. I think I would've liked it better without the flashbacks. They also took too long to get together for my liking. Thanks for the ARC, Netgalley.

hallmark movie alert!! okay maybe it’s not, but I feel like it should be!!

(if it was a hallmark movie though, I would definitely watch it because it would be one of the least corny cheesy ones out there.)

evie and dan are the “will they, won’t they” couple of the decade. seriously, this book spans 8 years. when they were 22, they made a pact to marry each other on christmas eve if they were still single by the age of 30. well, look at the time! evie and dan are both now 30 … and wake up in vegas, hungover and married. but were they actually serious about the pact?

I had the absolute best time reading this one!! it was fun, easy to catch up with after setting it down, and the christmas setting? say less!!

I absolutely loved the chemistry between all of the characters. evie and dan made me want to scream the first 2/3rds of the book because they kept finding the STUPIDEST reasons not to be together - like for real, there was really no reason. dan’s sister and evie’s best friend, sasha, totally stole the show, and I wished there was a whole side story on her.

I’m definitely going to read this one on publication day again with a glass of zinfandel to warm my soul.

thank you to netgalley and bookouture publishing for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

4/5 stars :’)

I'm sorry to say I struggled with this one and it really fell short as a Christmas romance for me. I did finish the story but I just couldn't get into it and wasn't very keen on either of the main characters.

I love any kind of holiday romance and this was a cute read, although not as Christmas-y as I had been expecting! The dual POV really worked well in this story.

I did get a little frustrated at times by the lack of communication between the main characters - it felt like there was a lot of internal repetition about how they felt but not much was done about it. Some of the dialogue felt a little unnatural and sometimes the abrupt change of scene made reading feel a little choppy. This was a cute read but fell a little short for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

thank you netgalley and bookouture for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Okay so, I almost DNF’ed this so many times, but decided to power through it
I really really wanted to love this book, because I thought it has so much potential.
I didn’t connect to any of the characters at all, and I found myself skipping a lot of the story.
There really isn’t any plot to this story, whatsoever. I enjoyed the beginning and the end, but everything in between was just two characters being obsessed with each other, meeting each other and spending time with each other. It was the same over and over again.

I dont really have much else to say, other than I didn’t enjoy this book.

As a huge fan of Christmas books and Friends, this sounded like something I would eat up.

It started off good... But I immediately got turned off by the way the her mom was portrayed. And then a bit later on, his dad. It kept being pointed out that her mom was ''adorable'', ''a great mom'', and that Evie sort of unreasonably felt awkward about her mom's behavior...as if it wasn't super weird that the guy she was trying to snog, went off with her mom and then got her mom pregnant. I mean...what. I was really and honestly revolted with both her mom and his dad. But I read on, enjoying the parts that didn't revolve around their parents.

However, the more time went on, I found the writing repetitive. Constant repetition of 'oh, well I like him, but I am crazy, no I can't like him, it's just a fantasy''... It got old pretty fast, and we have to sit through basically 8 years of this!!! Then we could see things repeated when he described her as someone who took everyone's breath away, and she behaved like she wasn't even aware of this. A couple of chapters later, she would describe him in that same exact way.

Them not communicating at all, basically seeing each other only once a year... I wish there were more details about them as characters, about their relationships so I would really understand this 8-year-long romance. The characters themselves felt very vague, and their relationships with everyone around them just didn't really feel real. The characters sort of felt like robots, like... But still, I was eager to find how they would get together.

But then 80% in the book, I felt like the writing became so boring, so dull, so empty. The dialogues weren't even corny, they were lacking emotions. Some of the dialogues prior to this were fun AND funny, but it felt like in the end, the writer wanted to get the writing over with. When they finally went on a date, it felt so anti-climactic. It was so plain, so boring, there was no intensity, no anticipation... I just felt deflated after it.

Overall, I think I was expecting this to be a story about how they deal with the marriage in Vegas, but it really wasn't that. As it had dual timelines and dual POVs we went back and forth trying to piece the puzzle together, and it was sometimes confusing. For example, there was a chapter where Evie said that a situation reminded her of the time she hurt her ex-fiance, and I was like she had a fiance?! And then afterwards we go back and find out how that happened. In general, all of the back and forth felt somehow clumsy.

It's difficult to rate this. It was enjoyable, but also frustrating and somehow a let down.

As for the Christmas vibes, if you want your holiday romance book to really have all the Christmassy feels, than this one won't cut it. Even though a lot of the major events took place around Christmas, it didn't feel like Christmas. There were no descriptions of the surroundings, no cosy atmosphere, no decorations, no festive activities... Nothing to really set the scene for us.

I feel like if we had characters that we got to know a bit more, a slightly less confusing back and forth, and DEFINITELY more romance involved, this would have been fantastic. Also, if the whole Vegas wedding wasn't put in the forefront of the synopsis, I might have felt different about this book.

First thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

Evvie and Dan have been friends forever, but they don't know thatch loves the other. Over they years they stay in each others lives and things get messy. In the end I had hoped for more. More depth, more love and better writing. I just wasn't drawn to the characters or the story. Sadly this just want for me,

For a Christmas romance, this was seriously lacking. The entire concept was toovdrawn out and both characters were so unlikeable. I did enjoy the atmosphere though which is why this is 2 stars.

I really loved The House Swap by Jo Lovett so was pleased to read this one. It fell a little short for me compared to The House Swap but was still an enjoyable read. The constant swapping from months & years for each chapter did get me a bit confused at times so I was glad that by the end it had caught up and was in one timeline. I did like the characters of Evie and Dan but they were also a bit frustrating as the whole will they won't they storyline was a but obvious.

Overall a fun, partly Christmassy story that was a nice easy read.

I’m afraid this didn’t live up to my expectations. I’m perfectly fine reading cheesy Christmas novels, but this one fell short. The characters were flat, and the story really dragged for me.

I really enjoyed The Mistletoe Pact. It was a light, easy read while the story isn't a typical Christmas type. I enjoyed the characters of Evie and Dan and would definitely recommend this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for my ARC.

Enjoyable comfy read, I did very much enjoy this book, the characters stood out like they should, the story line moved along at a lovely pace and you didn't get lost, sometime Christmas books are all the same this will stand out in a crowd that's for sure

“You know when we made our mistletoe pact,” he said. “I think I always knew, even then, that I wanted to be with you.”

Long-time friends, Evie and Dan, decided to make a pact that if they were both single at age 30, then they will marry each other. Fast forward to 8 years later, they both get married. Except, they were drunk. When they realized what happened, they quickly try to get an annulment. Throughout the story, we learn more about their relationship over the years (a decade!) especially the fact that they’re in love with each other but haven’t told one another.

To be completely honest, I thought this was going to be a cute Christmas romance and even though there were moments that I enjoyed, there was just a lot of things happening that I felt weren’t relevant: family issues, slightly confusing timelines, unnecessary storylines, miscommunication, not enough chemistry between the heroine & hero. But I did love Dan and how he was just the most adorable character ever.

🎄READ IF YOU LIKE🎄:
- dual POV
- British romance
- friends to lovers
- slow burn
- best friends brother
- marriage pacts
- secret mutual pining
- flashbacks & flashforwards
- drunk marriage in Vegas
- cw: family issues, affairs, mention of eating disorder

Thank you to Netgalley and Bookouture for the advanced copy! The Mistletoe Pact will be available on October 1, 2021!

Christmas-themed book cover about a story not so Christmassy.🤷🏻‍♀️

It is the second book I have read by this author, and I think my feelings about this one are very similar to those I had about The First Time We Met.

In this story, we follow Eve and her best friend's older brother Dan. Book starts with them getting married in Vegas and freaking out about it afterward. The story jumps back and forth between events in their past that slowly reveal how they ended up together in Vegas and "today" where they are trying to figure out their lives. The story is told from a dual POV. It definitely helped with figuring why characters acted the way they did.

This story gives strong "One Day" vibes, giving us a glimpse of what happened year after year during Christmas time and how they always ended up spending time together.

However, I have to say this is one of those stories built on a tale old as time - the inability to talk. A lot only happened because none could say what they thought and felt. Even worse, they started to sabotage their lives because of it. And unfortunately, there were some random plot twists that, in my opinion, did not give any value to the story.

And while parts of the story take place during Christmas time, and the cover is adorably wintery, this would not be a book I would define as Christmas-themed. The time jumps were not always during Christmas, and whenever there was Christmas, it was only to mention how cold is outside, how snow is snowing and that they are having a yearly Christmas party. It did not make me feel any elf spirit.

Thanks to NetGalley, Jo Lovett, and Bookouture for providing an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.🤗