3.5 stars!

Thank you Netgalley and Forever Pub for this wonderful cozy Sapphic holiday romance that gave me all kinds of Hallmark vibes! I especially loved the idea of a Jewish family running a Christmas tree farm, the whole enemies-to-lovers relationship between Noelle and Miriam, and the all-around festiveness of the book. It did take me a minute to warm up to Noelle and Miriam together, the buildup of their relationship was a bit too slow for my liking. BUUUUTTTTT overall though, I did enjoy the book and its vibes! It is cute, fun, and wonderful for the holidays!

This book was everything I hoped it would be. This is a Jewish Christmas romance novel filled with quirky characters in a cozy Christmas-obsessed small-town setting. I mean, there's even caroling. Despite all of the cuteness, it does have a serious side, with content warnings for alcoholism, family trauma, and abuse.

My favorite part was that every character, from main characters Miriam and Noelle down to small-town lawyer Elijah, was a fully-formed individual, with their own quirks and personalities. And, this was not a small cast of characters. Also, you rarely see butch representation in a romance novel, but Noelle fills that role so well.

If the content warnings don't bother you, definitely read this book this holiday season (and probably next holiday season, too!)

I was so excited to read this book! I love the Sapphic romance and the concept of a Jewish family running a Christmas Tree Farm. Even though I overall enjoyed this book, it felt a bit too quiet for my tastes. It's closed door, and not a lot of chemistry. Both Miriam and Noelle are complex characters, but I found myself rooting more for the survival of Carrigan's then their romance.

Cass Carrigan, her Cass, had been sick and no one told her, so that she could say goodbye.

Miriam hasn't been back to the one place that she was happy in her childhood in ten years. When she gets the call that her mother's aunt Cass, and Miriam's North Star has died, she's devastated and anxious to finally go back to Cass' Christmas tree farm. Her childhood bestfriend Hannah is there along with Cass' mother and family drama that she ran away from. The plan was only sitting shiva and then leaving but when Cass' will throws everyone for a loop, Miriam has to decide if she wants to go back to her old life and fiancée or stay in the one place that truly makes her happy.

She had to figure out the whole picture of Miriam Blum, whether she could trust Miriam to be a part of this place Noelle needed for her own survival— and if she could work with Miriam, without combusting in ill-advised lust.

When Miriam gets to the tree farm, she meets the farm manager, Noelle, and even while Noelle is cold to her, Miriam still can't help having not-safe-for-work thoughts about her and neither can Noelle. Season of Love was a holiday themed romance set on a Christmas tree farm that came with all the seasonal trappings, ice-skating, mistletoe, snow, and a festival. There was plenty going on with characters and their issues to keep readers involved but even with all the glitter, curtsy of Miriam's artworks and her upcycling business, the glue was missing for me.

Her mom knew why their relationship was relegated to fifteen carefully curated minutes a month.

We're introduced to Miriam first and it's sprinkled in here and there that she doesn't have a good relationship with her parents and that's why Cass' farm was a haven to her. We know that there was a blow up that caused Miriam to leave and never come back but it isn't until the second half that we know the reason and full extent of how much Miriam's dad damaged her. We get some scenes with Miriam and her mom and since the dad isn't shown, he plays villain off screen, the mom takes most of the anger. Even though Miriam is engaged, it's made clear that it's not a romantic relationship between her and her fiancée, they do have sex, but it's more about appearances and businesses. There's also a little bit with anger and hurt feelings between her and her cousin Hannah. Hannah works at the farm and along with the farm's cook and general maintenance couple's son, Levi, Miriam and them were best buds. So, when Miriam shows up at the farm, she's dealing with all these emotions, how she needs to get back to where she lives because she's opening up a new store, and has a friend from college, Cole, tagging along with her.

She wasn’t ready to go to a second funeral for a second mother.

Noelle takes a little longer to get to know but she's a recovering alcoholic and her parents died before she could ever resolve the issues between them. Noelle has a degree from Yale and is a pro at sustainable farming, she's been the tree farm's manager for a couple years and has become bestfriends with Hannah and looked at Cass as a second mom. Seeing Hannah left alone to deal with the farm and Cass' sickness has made her angry and bitter towards Miriam, even though they've never met before, she just sees Miriam as the one who left. The beginning has Noelle crossing the line from grump into rude towards Miriam but Noelle also has lusty feelings towards Miriam.

“She said she had a dream that Carrigan’s was a ship. Miriam was the sails, the creative wind. Noelle was the anchor that kept everyone from blowing off in wild directions. Hannah was the captain, Levi was the map to unknown lands, and she, Cass, was your North Star.”

When the will gets read, it's found out that Cass left the farm to not only Hannah and Noelle but also Miriam and Levi. Levi and Hannah have their own issues with them falling in love as young adults and getting engaged, Levi wanting to leave to see the world but Hannah feeling she had to stay to help Cass so they break up and Hannah tearfully tells Levi to not come home, so it's been four years since he's been back. Miriam is shocked but when they find out that the farm is in financial trouble she wants to stay and help. So our grump now has to deal with forced proximity and while Miriam is engaged, her fiancée shows up around 30% and they, with some hurt on Miriam's fiancée side, break-up. At this point, Noelle has done some talking with Miriam to get rid of some preconceived notions that made her hostile but I still felt the feelings were still grounded in lust. Instead of the fiancée, now the impediment keeping them apart is Noelle's worry that if they breakup, it would make them owning the farm together intolerable.

She’d spent all her childhood trying to convince people who didn’t love her to change their minds about her, and she was done with it.

As you can tell, there was a lot going on in this story, all the characters, their personal issues, and the issues they have together but even with all this, it still oddly felt like not much was happening. In the beginning, there were a lot of time jumps, Miriam arrives at the farm but we're jumping from the funeral, through shiva, and not sitting in some of those moments to deliver the emotion, making them feel fleeting. It's that glue I was talking about, the spaces in-between characters and moments that give us their thoughts and emotions. Around 60% Miriam and Noelle start dating and while we get some kisses, this was a firmly shut bedroom door story.

“I might be worth the risk,” Miriam said softly, her eyes huge and hopeful.

Then ending gives us a rush of a last minute save the farm auction, finally dealing with Miriam's off-screen villain dad, learning to not emotionally or physically run from both Miriam and Noelle, Miriam's mom having her own heroine moment, saving the farm by turning it into an all-year-round destination (series!), last minute third act breakup that involved a blink and you miss it decision from Miriam that still gets Noelle to get all self-righteous, and, of course, our happily ever after. The story had a lot of elements but not enough substance for me, I needed those moments of emotion instead of jumping from one thing to another; I kept thinking this felt like a book that could have been written on Twitter, if that makes sense. With all the family and personal trauma issues, this wasn't quite as light as I thought it was going to be, but if you're wanting some winter wonderland activities in your seasonal reading, this does deliver on that.

We have a lot of hallmark-esque sapphic holiday romances releasing this fall so of course some are going to not hit the mark. Not Season of Love though, because it is the perfect feel-good holiday romance of my dreams.

We begin sitting shiva at a christmas tree farm (because of course we do) and the book continues to be refreshing and heartfelt through every moment. It was easy to root for the characters in this one because I genuinely wanted to see them grow and thrive.

I think I loved that both characters could acknowledge their faults while recognizing that trauma is not something people get over in a day means loving each other even as they mess up or get scared. It was refreshing to see characters so human in the way they handle fear.

Season of Love actually addresses the miscommunication as conflict trope by well, communicating and it makes this book a gem. I hope we one day get a follow up book on the other cousin because I’d love to revisit this world again. If you’re only picking up ONE sapphic holiday romance this winter, I hope it’s this one.

I’m a marketing and publicity intern at Forever Publishing, so I am reading this for work! Aaaaaaand there's a character limit on reviews here are some more words

3.5/5 Stars
The concept of this book was my absolute dream! I’m a total sucker for cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies and this book gave me that and more! - (The “more” being in depth and imperfect characters that were simultaneously easy and difficult to love.)

The build of the relationship between Noelle and Miriam was done really nicely, I often see enemies to lovers (or extreme distrust here) being flipped very suddenly to lovers after one singular moment or deep conversation. I appreciate that there was a slower build - it took many nice moments and multiple deep conversations for these characters to get a clear enough understanding of one another to move past the original things they found so unsavory about the other.

The pacing is the only thing I struggled with and it didn’t hit me until just over the half-way point. The plot's action was concentrated in the first half and then it dragged on a little too long for me there. I already knew all the characters and it seemed the big decisions had already been made so I wasn’t sure why I was still there! The plot picks up again for the ending, I just prefer the middle of the book to be more engaging otherwise I lose my interest.

I wasn't in love with the writing style also didn't like the couple. I wish that this was better written, it was confusing at times and overall, I just had a hard reading this.

(I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)
What a fun romance!! It's queer! And Jewish! And there is therapy involved! I don't often find a romance that digs deep into trauma and where the characters continually work on themselves. But we need moreeeee of ittt!! Watching not just Noelle and Miriam learn trust and love eachother, but also their own progress in terms of their past, was such a beautiful thing. And the setting! The time of year! It was perfect.
One thing I will add though that definitely lowered my rating, is the pacing. A good majority of the book felt slow and some of it just felt unnecessary. It took me awhile to get through it because of that, I also am just use to faster paced romances.

SEASON OF LOVE was such a fun read, I devoured it! Miriam hasn't seen her family in ten years, leaving because of her abusive father. She's put up walls, built a successful art/antiquing empire on social media, and gotten engaged to a woman she doesn't love. When her aunt dies and leaves a fourth of Carrigan's, her Christmas tree farm, to her, she must uproot herself and re-examine how she approaches life. Noelle, the butch farm manager, and Miriam get off on the wrong foot, but as they work together to save the farm they can't fight their growing attraction for each other.

This was such a fun romance full of holiday tropes and cute moments. I wish Miriam and Noelle had had a bit more build up and cute moments before getting together, but I still enjoyed the moments they had. We only see them kiss and sex is implied - I would've loved a bit more detail, but I know not every romance book needs that. I think overall parts of the romance were rushed, and this is what kept this from being a five star read for me. I still really enjoyed it overall and am rating it four stars!

Definitely going to be one of my top ten books this year. A total joy to read. This is one of those books I loved so much that my only two choices are to just scream GO READ IT IT WILL MAKE YOU SO HAPPY!!!!! or to write a novel length review detailing the ridiculous amount of things that make it so perfect. So, I'll do both! If you don't want to stay to read the full gush, just know that I adored this and want to give it to pretty much everyone I know and I'm already rabidly desperate for the next book (s?) in the series.

I remember after I finished reading Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall for the first time, I felt like walking around wearing a sandwich board and handing out pamphlets like "Have you heard the good news about Luc and Oliver?" because it was just so wonderful and I wanted all my bookish friends to get that same dose of joy. And I feel the same way about this one. Time to make another sandwich board. Probably a light up, bedazzled one ;)

So, um... ok. I guess I should try to talk about the actual book instead of just shouting incoherent praises? First off, this is one of those reads I fell effortlessly into. From the first page, the writing just worked for me. I floated along on my serene lazy river of reading. I never lost interest. I never felt like anything in the story was forced or out of place or didn't ring true. It was all just so RIGHT and so fun and so damn enjoyable. That isn't to say that the book is fluff (which isn't a bad thing, just not applicable here) or that it didn't hold surprises. Just that everything felt so thoughtful and true to the characters. By about a third of the way in I relaxed completely, the way I usually only do with favorite authors, because I could tell I could trust this author.

I loved all the characters right from the get go. And when I say all, I mean ALL of them. Well, okay, there's one character who really sucks, but even they feel true to life. Every other side character and main character is so full of life and depth and I'd happily read a book about any of them. They're all so interesting and lovable. (But please PLEASE let there be upcoming books about the three couples I am fiercely shipping!!!) The MCs in this one were so delightful to spend time with. I just loved loved them together and loved how they worked through their shit to really see themselves and one another and build a future together. I'm total trash for "I'm a complete fucking mess and you still love me just as I am." It gets me every damn time. And it's so well done here.

This has all the winter holiday vibes you could want, and all the cozy, quirky small town aspects you might expect. But it also has so much more. The characters have a lot of heavy emotional lifting to do. These MCs are carrying around a lot of baggage that they have to unpack before they can really have any hopes of being together. And all of that is handled so well. The pacing and the romance arc were spot on for me. I tend to be a hyper sensitive reader (thanks anxiety!) and often dread reaching the low moment in a romance, sometimes I even have to skip over it or read ahead to reassure myself, even in romance where I know there's a happy ending. And while there is some serious emotional stuff going on, I never felt that dread here. Again, I think that's down to the overall vibe of the book, but also to trusting the author.

This is closed door, which I know isn't everyone's cup of tea. I went into it not knowing what the spice level would be. As someone who enjoys spice but also really appreciates books that don't include on page sex, I was overjoyed with this. It can be really hard to find really good closed door romances. And this one is spectacular. Even if you usually like high heat, I really do think the chemistry and connection between the MCs and the character work here are so well worth the read. One of my only tiny nitpicks about the book is that occasionally the transition in and out of the closed door scenes felt a bit clunky? But everything else was so abundantly fantastic that I didn't really care.

The epilogue was the only other thing I didn't flat out love, the POV switch felt a little jarring. And I generally get annoyed with cliffhanger endings, though I didn't mind it here because our MCs in this one are left all happily wrapped up in cozy bliss, it's just that now I'm frantic for the next book to see how things play out with another couple.

It's hard to pick a favorite thing about this book, because I loved it from start to finish, but there's a relationship that doesn't work out that is handled so beautifully and thoughtfully and with such awareness that not all relationships have to look a certain way to be valid that it was a real lightbulb moment for me. In so many stories, that relationship and arc would have been framed so differently and I appreciated how it was handled here more than I can say.

So, yeah. This made me laugh and cry and I will not be shutting up about it anytime soon. One of those rare books that's pure magic.

This book is a surprisingly refreshing combination of so many beautiful things!

A Jewish family, who own a Christmas tree farm and hotel.
A lesbian main character engaged in a marriage-of-convenience situation, escaping an abusive father and estranged family.
A delightful love interest who is the most relatable character I've met in a while. Love Noelle!

Loss of a beloved family member pushes Miriam out of hiding and into a holiday miracle - finding real love.

"'Next year at Carrigans' was her tiny private version of 'Next year in Jerusalem'. She'd always thought, 'Nexy year I'll have the courage. Next year, I'll stop running and go home to my family.' But she'd always seemed to have a good reason to put it off, and now it was too late."

"'You hate when things end,' she paraphrased Breakfast at Tiffany's."

"Well, who was she to argue with Cassiopeia Carrigan's last wish?"

Please do yourself the favor of adding Season of Love to your holiday wishlist.

Bisexual Miriam is estranged from her family because of her abusive father, but when her excentric aunt, a Jewish woman who started a Christmas tree farm, passes away, she returns to the farm to sit shiva. There, she finds out she's inherited part of the farm, but to run it, she has to get along with the farm manager, a butch lesbian who maybe doesn't feel Miriam deserved to inherit.

If this sounds amazing, that's because it is. I was expecting to enjoy this, but I was not ready for the idyllic setting combined with heaps of personality. There was so much to love about the characters, and them going to bat for the farm and especially against Miriam's father was a delight. I do want to warn you to tread carefully if abuse is a trigger for you, though, because it is an important theme in the book.

There is nothing that brings me more joy than holiday themed romances. Reading this book felt like a warm cup of apple cider on a cold day and I am absolutely here for it.

This book felt like a Hallmark story in the best way possible. We have two cousins and the beloved manager working together to try to save the family Christmas tree farm. Everybody comes into this with their own separate trauma that they are trying to work through and they really have to work through that trauma to make their plans a reality.

I loved that this wasn’t just a traditional Christmas story and included bits of Jewish culture and the Jewish holidays into the story. I loved the characters and would spend the whole year at Carrigans if that was possible. While I ultimately love Miriam and Noelle’s love story, it did feel a little insta-lovey to me which isn’t always my favorite troupe.

This is definitely the kind of story I think should be made into a movie and I would watch it all year round. Thank you so much to NetGalley and Forever publishing for providing me a digital copy of this book to read and review.

I really enjoyed book! Nothing better than a cute, sweet, funny, and inclusive holiday read!

I will absolutely read this again when the holidays roll around, or maybe sooner. :)

My absolute favorite thing about this book is the fat butch in a clinch on the cover. HELLO PUBLISHING INDUSTRY. I REQUEST BUTCHES GETTIN SEXY ON ROMANCE COVERS AND FAT PEOPLE GETTIN SEXY ON ROMANCE COVERS AND FAT BUTCHES GETTIIN SEXY ON ROMANCE COVERS. I just love everything about this.

As for the book though, there wasn't a ton that I loved. Don't get me wrong, there wasn't much that I hate either. The book just felt fluffy and was very plot and detail heavy without a lot actually happening? And the relationship between the heroines was really hot and cold. It felt like one minute they hated each other for pretty much no reason and then they were pretty soon staring longingly across the room and taking off each others' clothes and talking about their capital r Relationship. Listen, I'm a lesbian so I understand U-Hualing, it's just that the emotional progression of this romance didn't feel very deep or clear to me at all.

I actually found myself more invested in the straight (gasp!) relationship of the side characters than the main romance or the central external plot.

(Oh P.S. I felt really weird about the way the book talked about one heroine's mom as though she were responsible for the abuse her husband enacted even though she herself was a victim? I did not like this at all.)

One in the rash of Christmas-tree farm sapphic holdiay romances coming out this season, this one was mostly just fine for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and Forever for this ARC.

CW: parental abuse, alcoholism, parental neglect, spousal abuse, death of a loved one.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this digital arc!

I would give it more of a 3.5 because for this being a debut novel it was better then expected! I think the book was trying to do many things like incorporating the family dynamics, jewish culture and past trauma into the storyline which may have taken away from the romance which is what this was marketed as. I feel like Miri and Noelle didn't get enough time together and when they did the love and attraction was pretty instant (which isn't bad but it's not my personal favourite). The characters take a bit to get invested in, they are pretty quirky and their inner monologue sometimes goes on for a long time, but once you get used to that in the book I think they were well-written characters. Overall I would say the 'bad' is that the book does move pretty slowly and so it gets boring at times, and the good is that I really liked the tropes it had and the plot was interesting.

I was really excited to see this book! A queer holiday romance yay! Unfortunately I didn’t love it. It was fine, just not my fave. It was kinda boring is my main complaint. The characters also just weren’t that deep.

DNF at 45%. And I rarely DNF a book.

I really, really wanted to like this one. I loved the summary and premise. I was excited to have a story with a Jewish main character.
But I kept waiting for it to grab me and it did not. It’s been slow going and I had a hard time getting invested in the characters. They don’t feel fully realised. I would hope that almost half way through a book I’d be engaged and I most certainly was not.
I liked Cole, I guess.
Some of the dialogue is quite clunky and there is a lot of telling rather than showing in the internal monologue and transition.
Speaking of the transitions—some of them are awkward/unclear, which pulled me out of the narrative.
Overall disappointing—I’d hoped for more from this. Maybe it gets better or maybe it’s just not for me but I feel l’m forcing myself to keep going hence the DNF.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this digital ARC.

I wanted to read this one because it combines both Jewish cultures and Christmas. I loved the setting of the tree farm. So glad I got to read this during Pride month. I think it's a fun read for the holiday season!

Thanks NetGalley for this ARC!