This story was honestly a little boring. I wasn’t particularly attached to either MC which I think was part of why I struggled to get into the story. I like the general IDEA of the story, and that the MCs were kind of hit over the head with their feelings for one another, but I just couldn’t get into the story.

I did enjoy the author’s description of the fictional kingdom of Eldovia. The location was developed and described in such a lovely and thorough way that it made me want to visit!

I was given an ARC by NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager. All opinions are my own.

3 Stars I loved the first two books in this series by Jenny Holiday (also, perfect name for the author of a Christmas book series) and was pleasantly surprised that the third book was about the serious and stuffy Mr. Benz, the king’s equerry from the first two books. This was a classic enemies to lovers romance that was partially inspired by Pride and Prejudice, which is mentioned by the characters in the book. New Yorker Cara Delaney has come to the small kingdom of Eldovia at Christmastime to help their main export, Morneau Watches, turn the company around. The king’s equerry, Matteo Benz, thinks of Cara as the “angel of doom,” bringing in unwanted change and layoffs. The characters begin to like each other as they realize their first impressions of the other were wrong. This was cute read and I hope the author continues the story (fingers crossed for Imogen and Kai’s story next!)

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for sharing this ARC with me in exchange for an honest review.
Unfortunately, I just didn't like So This Is Christmas but others may find this slow-burn, enemies to lovers romance appealing but I found it to be a bit uncomfortable. The main characters have no chemistry, their banter feels forced, they don't like each other and, as a reader, I didn't like them either. The character development just wasn't there for me, in the end.
Some positives, I loved the Christmas village and the fun adventures/activities that the main characters had throughout the story-- sign me up for a soak in a hot spring!
This one just wasn't for me.

Cara meets a local, Matteo while out of the country for work. They start off as enemies and once Matteo sees Cara isnt here to ruin the country and that Matteo is not as bad as she once thought, they two begin to hit it off. How will this work out with them living on opposite sides of the world?

It was a cute christmas romance, but i found a lot of the business and back story was.

Thank you Netgalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I love the Princess for Christmas series. Duke, Actually was probably my favorite Christmas book last year. So I was so excited about this third book in the series. Unfortunately, I think my expectations were too high. This was an enemies to lovers trope (my favorite!) but I just didn’t feel any chemistry with the two main characters. The plot also wasn’t too exciting. Since it’s been 100 degrees here, I did appreciate the snowy country and can’t wait to go skiing again.

Cara is hired by the country if Eldovia to help the country out of financial ruin. She meets with Matteo, who is the King’s right hand man to help figure things out.

This book would be fine as a stand-alone. I don’t think a lot of the characters from the first two books played much of a role.

*Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an advanced copy. Opinions are my own.

Jenny Holiday is an amazing writer. It’s very descriptive and easy to read. This book is the third book in the A Princess for Christmas series, but can be read as a stand-alone.

I actually really enjoyed this book. While it did feel a bit slow and kind of dragged on, the chemistry was there and I loved it. The Christmas vibes were definitely there, especially with the description of Eldovia. I especially loved the banter between Cara and Matteo.

I adored Holiday’s Duke, Actually, so I was kind of sad that this one wasn’t equally as good, but this was still an enjoyable holiday romance. Just heavy with backstory and plot, which can make it slow at times.

Thank you NetGalley and publishers for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I received this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was a slow read for me. The others in the series might bet a chance but I probably won't come back to this one.

This felt like a hallmark movie!!! There were times where I felt like the backstory was very irrelevant and dragged on. Ultimately a quick easy read though.

Thank you NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review

A Hallmark movie with a dash of spice.

Cara is a management consultant from New York. Matteo is an equerry for the King of Eldovia (a small kingdom in Europe). Cara is all about business and no play. Matteo is all about organization and Christmas spirit (not to mention he loves his family and his country). At first they both hate one another, for no reason at all really. Cara is there to help turn the country's watch business around in order to save the kingdom from collapse. Matteo is essentially like her tour guide. These two start off as enemies (of course!). As they spend more time together, they start to see the other sides of one another. They go on a trip to a natural hotspring, Matteo teaches her how to ski, they go on a sleigh ride, and of course they geek out about Star Wars and Star Trek. As they spend time together Matteo begins to see that Cara is not just here to fire people and ruin the country, as well as Cara begins to see that Matteo is not as uptight and controlling as she thought. Of course, sparks begin to fly as they learn about one another and spend time with each other. Both of them are scared of commitment, so will it ever work out. They also live on completely different sides of the world...how will this ever work???

There were many things that I enjoyed about this book, but also many things I couldn't stand. It took me way too long to finish this book because it was so dragged out and slow.

Pros:
-Quaint kingdom setting really gives you all of the Christmas feels
-The side characters are very lovable
-The ending was great (no spoilers) but it took a LONG time to get there

Cons:
-The backstory -- it was just too much and much of it felt irrelevant or like it could've been put in shorter stints
-Too much time was spent discussing the actual business and it jsut felt like it had no place in what was supposed to be a fun Christmas romance
-How there was literally no chemistry between the characters, they were so cold toward one another, and then suddenly they are in love (?)
-The arcs of the characters were essentially nonexistent

Overall, I think it was a cute Christmas romance, but it took me so long to read because of how boring some of the business talk and back stories were.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for a honest review.

Thank you Avon and Harper Voyager, NetGalley, and Jenny Holiday for an early copy of So This is Christmas in exchange for an honest review.

First off, I want to say that Jenny Holiday is a very good, descriptive, detailed writer. But some of the backstory, the detail, was just straight up long and boring. I wasn't fully invested in the story, in the characters, and there was a lack of chemistry between our two main characters that I was dying for. Ridiculously so slow-burn that there was hardly a spark for me. It's not that she is not a good writer, it's that I was expecting this book to make me smile, laugh my socks off, and to warm my heart. But it bored me instead.

So sorry that I had to DNF this one. But it was just not for me.

I am a HUGE fan of Jenny Holiday and tI enjoyed this book! It was a little slower for me than others, but I enjoyed Britt and Matteo's dynamic. It had some funny banter, slow burn chemistry, and overall cute Christmas read!

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon, and Harper Voyager for sharing this ARC with me in exchange for an honest review.

I am normally such a big fan of Jenny holiday, but this book was too slow of a burn, with very little pay off. I found cara to be annoying and Matteo boring. I wanted more heat, and the resolution in the end was patently unbelievable, going from palace aide to ambassador.

I LOOOOVED Duke, Actually and jumped at the chance to read another book by Jenny Holiday, but unfortunately So This Is Christmas just didn’t work for me. The pacing was abysmally slow, like snails pace slow and I enjoy a good slow bun romance. I also didn’t really like or connect with either Cara or Matteo—both of them needed more depth and substance to their characters, and their chemistry is pretty nonexistent. While there were some funny and sweet moments between the two, it wasn’t enough to carry the book and left me underwhelmed. .

I love this series from Jenny Holiday and So This Is Christmas is no exception! If you were wondering if Matteo Benz could continue to shed his stuff personality, then pick this book up and see how Cara Delaney, financial consult extraordinaire drives him crazy in the best way possible. Must read!

Firstly, I want to thank NetGalley and Avon, and Harper Voyager for sharing this ARC with me in exchange for an honest review.

This slow-burn romance was full of great dialogue, wonderfully rich characters, and so many sweet and comical moments. Cara is this strong, independent hard working badass businesswoman, and Mateo is a serious, tradition-minded, deeply sweet, loyal, and romantic royal appointee to the crown of Eldovia. They end up being pitted against each other because Cara is hired to help Eldovia’s main export company navigate a dying industry and Mateo is deeply concerned she is just going to come in and wreak havoc on all the good people of Eldovia and ultimately ruin its rich history and tradition.

How these two end up working together and getting together is quite interesting and sweet in the end.

I did feel that the pace of the slow burn got a little long for me, but the dialogue and character development really helped mitigate some of that.

Overall, I enjoyed So this is Christmas and would recommend it to anyone looking for a light and easy Christmas romance.

This book overall was good, I liked the characters and the book was pretty funny, but it did fall a little bit flat in some areas.

This read features Cara, a hard working American consultant looking to bring Eldovia and their failing luxury watch market back up to par, and Matteo the ultra straight laced equerry to the King. It definitely starts as an almost hostile on Matteo's part enemies to lovers but as they both work around each other more they can't seem to stay apart. Id recommend this one to anyone who loves a good Hallmark holiday movie.

As a fan of Jenny Holiday in general, and this series in particular, this was an eagerly anticipated read. It was so nice to return to the Christmas wonderland setting, the type of December holiday destination I would love to find myself in complete with sleigh rides, an ice slide, and hot cocoa seemingly on every corner. Everything about the setting, the plot, and the writing of this installment includes all of the usual charms. What bogs it down is its glacial pace. I got to the half way point and nothing had happened. Everything stretched on for so long I started to wonder if this wouldn’t have made a better short story.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

In So This Is Christmas by Jenny Holiday, Cara travels to a foreign country (a kingdom) to help make their national business profitable again. She’s a hard-hitting consultant, emotionally distant and unaware of how her presence in the country affects the citizens. Her enemies-to-lovers adversary is Matteo, the king’s equerry (basically a chief of staff/confidant). He’s equally hard-hitting, overly formal and suspicious of her motives.

Theoretically, they both have hidden depths. She’s passionate about helping the kingdom stabilize financially and good at establishing rapport with the community. He secretly resolves a variety of community problems, such as housing, food and job insecurity.

All this makes for a thin but okay storyline that might have been improved by good character development. Unfortunately, the characters are flat and remarkably unlikable.

I suspect that Cara is supposed to be the equivalent of a stereotypical business woman … from the 1980s. If she’s really a highly skilled consultant, why doesn’t she realize she shouldn’t wear stilettos in the winter? (Let’s not talk about her stupid, inappropriate handshake.) Why doesn’t she know that consultants never stay at the home of their client? Why doesn’t she know that she cannot have casual hook-ups with people potentially impacted by her job?

Matteo has a similarly weak arc. He is consistently rude to Cara and then tells himself to do better. He’s pompous, snide, and presumptuous. I’m only mentioning the airport scene because it was the first time this character annoyed me. He goes to the airport to meet Cara (why?) and immediately has to save all the children waiting there. Where are the parents? Are there that many loose/unsupervised children needing help at the Eldovian airport?

Moving on because I have a lot more books to read before Christmas: For a holiday story, this book is shockingly close to a root canal, a fender bender on the way to your calc test, a torrential downpour that lasts exactly until the end of your birthday picnic – and then the ants arrive.

I received a digital ARC through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

This was a really slow burn. And not in a good Mariana Zapata way. It was funny and parts but otherwise I was just not into this at all.

So This Is Christmas by Jenny Holiday is the last book in the contemporary romance A Princess for Christmas series. Since the characters will be changing each book of this series can be read as a standalone if choosing to do so. I thought this was a cute read. I liked the characters and romance, there were some funny parts and just thought the overall story was fun. Would recommend for anyone looking for a fun Christmas romance.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for sharing this ARC with me in exchange for an honest review.