Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for an eARC copy in exchange for a review!

Wha a good Christmas romance that takes a new spin on the fake dating trope. While Ellie and Andrew’s relationship was enjoyable and I loved the friendship that developed, I was in love with Ellie’s relationship with Jack! First their first night together being told through her webcomic was super cute and made me want more of it! Then we get to the forbidden romance and love triangle if it all which brought so much more to the relationship in my opinion. I mean the tension and the longing and the stolen glances had me screaming for them. I was just waiting for them to get back together after Last Christmas. But let me tell you it was an emotional rollercoaster of a story that I throughly enjoyed! This book was also full of funny and serious moments.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and recommend that you read it this holiday season, as it will be such a great Christmas read!

Read if you’re looking for…
•Fake dating/marriage of convenience
•Forbidden romance
•Bi MC and wlw relationship
•Mental health rep
•Taylor Swift references

*I received a free ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

I am obsessed with "The Charm Offensive", so when Alison Cochrun announced she was writing a queer Christmas book I knew I HAD to read it. Thank you NetGalley for letting me celebrate the holidays 6 months early, because I am now obsessed with this book too!

This has ALL the best tropes: Fake Dating, Marriage of Convenience, Second Chance Romance, Forced Proximity. Characters getting stranded in a snow storm? Check! Christmas baking? Check! Teaching a character to ski? BIG FAT CHECK! This ticked all of the boxes (and then some!) to create a trope-filled, emotional, but ultimately warm and squishy holiday romcom.

For anyone like me who HATES a cheating (or cheating adjacent) set-up, I want to assure you that does not happen in this book. I was a little worried, but the way Cochrun has set up the 'love trapezoid' (as coined by Ellie) is perfect and doesn't have that undertone of infidelity.

And of course, I can't write this review without mentioning my favourite characters: THE GRANDMAS! As much as I loved Ellie and Jack, Meemaw and Lovey have my heart <3

Cochrun has once again crafted a masterpiece in the romance genre. Her writing is wonderful, and the way she navigates topics like genre identity, sexuality, difficult family dynamics, and personal struggles is frank, honest, and sensitive. I highly recommend this book (as if the 5 star review didn't already tell you that!)

This was delightful and Christmas-y! Apparently I celebrate Christmas in June. The author said she wanted it to feel like While You Were Sleeping and MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. That’s one of my favorite romcoms & this was just perfect. ARC thanks to @netgalley !

Thank you to Atria Books for providing a NetGalley ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Genre: romcom (fake dating, forced proximity, second chance romance, only one bed), queer fiction
Pub date: 11/1/22
In one sentence: Ellie agrees to a fake engagement with her landlord Andrew in the hopes of a pay day - but then she learns that his sister is an old flame...

I loved The Charm Offensive, so I had to read this sapphic love story! I related a lot to Ellie's struggles - her mom uses her for money, her animation dreams crashed and burned, and she doesn't have many friends. It's in desperation that she accepts Andrew's offer at the beginning of the story, and I was glad to see her come into her own later in the book. Jack is a lovely character as well - not a manic pixie dream girl (thank goodness!), but rather a straight-talking butch baker with an Airstream trailer and more baggage than she'd like to admit. I loved seeing these two thrown together, alongside Andrew, his secret crush Dylan, and the rest of the Kim-Prescott family. And it takes place at Christmas - the time of wonder and awkwardness!

If you enjoy romcoms with personal growth and a touch of whimsy, I think you'll like this one. Despite it being June, this book put me in the holiday spirit!

I hate to say it, but Kiss Her Once For Me was a pretty average and forgettable romance for me. Nothing about it was ever egregiously bad, but it never really managed to impress in any way.

My fundamental problem with this novel is, I think, the setup of its romance. Our two main characters are Ellie and Jack, who meet as strangers on Christmas day and proceed to have a whirlwind sort-of romance in that one day. Something happens to split them up, though, and then a year later Ellie finds herself once again meeting Jack under very chaotic circumstances (Ellie is pretending to be fake-engaged to Jack's brother to help him sort out a thing with his will). The basic issue here is that the romance that this entire book is predicated on has the bulk of its development happen in the course of a single day--and I just didn't buy it. Listen, I've read some great romances that happen over the course of only a couple of weeks--Act Your Age, Eve Brown, A Marvellous Light--but one day? No matter how expertly done, one day is just never going to be enough to make me feel invested in your romance. And I wasn't: Kiss Her Once For Me was the kind of romance that I read and then immediately forgot about the second I finished it. I was never that invested in the romance because the romance doesn't give us that much to be invested in. And sure, Ellie and Jack get to know each other a bit more once they meet again a year later, but that also takes place over a very short time frame--about a week--and most of it takes for granted the fact that they already like and want to be with each other, based on that one day that they spent together a year earlier.

Aside from that, I also had some issues with the writing. Interspersed throughout the novel are these short sections written by Ellie, presented to us as excerpts from a web comic she's written about that Christmas day that she spent with Jack. I didn't particularly like these sections--again, the whole not-buying-the-romance-based-on-one-day thing--but the first one in particular I found extremely saccharine; it almost put me off reading the whole novel because it was literally the first chapter of the book and it was so twee. There were some writing things here and there, too, that I found annoying, mostly because they were repeated over and over again (Jack smells like freshly baked bread, WE GET IT). Also, the last section of the novel is very clumsy and almost rote in its execution: after the inevitable but no less frustrating third-act breakup, Cochrun tries to get Ellie to come to terms with the ways in which she's failed herself and others, but it ends up feeling like a really cheesy and tired afterschool special.

Overall, this was fine, but it lacked finesse, and at no point while reading it was I really that invested in or moved by anything in it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Thanks to Simon & Schuster for providing me with an eARC of this via NetGalley!

Fun and campy lesbian romance set in the Portland, OR area. This fake engagement holiday romance is a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Kiss Her Once for Me by Alison Cochrun follows Ellie, our main protagonist, as she agrees to a fake marriage with a man for a nice cut of his $2 million dollar inheritance. It should’ve be easy to convince his whole family they’re actually in love, had his sister not been the woman she fell in love with over the course of one day last Christmas.

This novel broke me. I went into it expecting a cute, fluffy rom-com with a side of spice. I got that, but I also got so much more. Anyone who is a fan of Cochrun’s debut will attest to her genius in balancing mental health issues with romance, and her sophomore work follows suit. I didn’t realize she used my diary as reference material for this book. Ellie’s fear of failure ultimately getting in the way of her success is all too familiar, and something I felt very seen in. Her anxiety was handled delicately but still felt real and relatable.

The characters are all so loveable. Ellie’s fake fiancé and her love interest are only the beginning of such a great cast of characters. I fell in love with the Kim-Prescott family (omit Alan), and Ellie’s own chosen family. I also love how queer everyone is. Who needs only cishet people? Not us, and not this book!

Somehow this book managed to hit every romance trope and did it beautifully: meet-cute, second-chance, forbidden love, fake dating, love triangle (trapezoid?), friends to lovers. Jam packed with romance and God if I don’t love it. Ellie and Jack, our main couple, compliment each other so well. I fell in love with their gestures, both big and small. I fell in love with their love for each other.

Read this book. It’s past 2am and I finished it in tears. I love lesbians.

I recommend this book to fans of Cochrun’s first novel (The Charm Offensive), Love & Other Disasters by Anita Kelly, and Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake.

I absolutely adored The Charm Offensive so I was thrilled to hear about the newest novel by Alison Cochrun. A Christmas sapphic romance!

Things I loved:
-A dog named Paul Hollywood
-The log cabin at Christmas setting
-Great LGBTQ+ representation
-Well developed characters who are authentic and vulnerable (also, great mental health rep)
-Endearing and adorable grandmas!
-Found family and realizing it's okay to take a step back from your own toxic family ("“Some of us are born into families that deserve us and some of us have to spend our lives searching for them”.)


Things I didn't love:
-The "love trapezoid" - I just didn't enjoy the tangled web of feelings in this family.
-There's a lot of secret keeping and lack of communication, which does serve a purpose for the plot. I did find it refreshing that the characters were so open about talking about their feelings. The problem is, they are only willing to do so some of the time.

This was a great book that many will adore! Cochran's writing is charming and fun and she creates some really relatable characters. I'm just not the biggest fake dating fan and had a hard time getting invested in the plot until the second half of the book. It wasn't my favorite but I'll still be reading anything this author writes!

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book; all opinions are my own. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to be an early reader.

“Some of us are born into families that deserve us and some of us have to spend our lives searching for them”.


Wow. Where to start with this book? It was sheer perfection. Everything I anticipated it being and hoped for. I went to bed at 2 am last night literally falling asleep reading it! It was the first thing I reached for this morning because I had to immediately read until the end. The Sandra Bullock mentionings in it and the fact that it’s loosely inspired by While You Were Sleeping are the sole reasons why I had to immediately watch that movie promptly after finishing.

Anyway, moving on to my actual thoughts on this incredible book. It was just so so good. It took place around Christmas time and primarily over a few days at the fake fiancée’s house ( vacay at the family’s house makes for a more elite holiday rom-com. Thems the rules). In a gist, Ellie becomes fake engaged to Andrew because there’s a clause in his inheritance contract that requires him to be married to get the funds. Ellie could really start up a new life and support her emotionally immature mother with the 250k that is promised to her in this deal. She just has to go spend Christmas with his family and convince everyone around them they are engaged. Simple right?…very wrong. The plot twist is that the girl Ellie fell in love with during the span of one day last Christmas and hasn’t seen since but thinks about almost daily is Andrew’s sister, Jack. Things get really awkward, really fast. It’s a chaotic, slightly messy ride but a very fun one!

Alison’s writing is so captivating and she effortlessly incorporates humor and tenderness. I was seriously grinning and chuckling at so many parts! Just like in The Charm Offensive, she knows how to balance serious emotion and humor very well, interchanging the two seamlessly. Every character was so lovable and left you rooting for the happiness of all of them. Jack has my whole heart and I particularly love her character. I relate to Jack a lot. I, too, have ADHD that has been misconstrued because society around me fails to see how my brain works. I also have restless tendencies, am not dainty, and can be “too” exuberant and loud. I love the contrast of Jack’s hardiness with her love of baking and running a bakery. And I love how much Ellie loves her, completely free from judgment. As well as how much her brother Andrew loves her.

All of the central characters are queer and I love that so, so much! I also particularly enjoyed that Alison constructed an introduction scene where Ellie didn’t assume/perceive Jack’s gender. She kept her pronouns neutral until a natural name introduction occurred and she provided her pronouns, asking Jack for hers before writing Jack’s pronouns in. I believe this act as an author, to effortlessly incorporate that into a story is just so incredibly important and powerful to see on-page. When introduced to Dylan, their pronouns were also effortlessly included without needing to unnecessarily draw attention to them. I would love to see more books do this!

The romance was there! The humor was there! And the plot and steam were also certainly there! This is a long-winded review/mini-rant to say that this book is perfection and has ranked in as one of my top favorites of the year!!

The rep included:
-Ellie (mc) being Bi and Demisexual
-Jack (mc) is half Korean, and a butch/masc lesbian (her bakery is called The Butch Oven and I 10/10 would go there just based on that name alone)
-Andrew (sc) is half Korean and queer (identifying term isn’t explicitly stated)
-Dylan (sc & Jack’s bestie) is non-binary
-Ari (sc & Ellie’s bestie) is trans, lesbian, and poly
-Ellie has Generalized Anxiety Disorder
-Jack has ADHD

Tropes:
-One bed
-Fake engagement
-Bookstore meet-cute!!
-Holiday activities like caroling & family sweater-wearing

CW’s:
-Descriptions of parental neglect and absenteeism.
-Strained, tense, and toxic relationship with mother. -Essentially non-existent relationship with father.
-Discussion of parent’s drinking problems (off-page).
-Struggles with perfectionism and overachieving.
-Panic attacks and anxiety.
-Formed anxious/insecure attachment style as a result of her upbringing/parents.
-Ableist comment from a parent regarding ADHD.
-Biphobic comment from a parent.



Remember y’all: “In a World of Grinches, Be a Griswold” (less)

This was a breath of fresh air that I couldn’t put down. I can’t wait to re-read when there are twinkly Christmas lights and cold air around me. This book is cheesy, romantic, and cliche in all the right ways-a way that leaves you feeling warm inside when you read it. I also love the depth of the characters and the way you actually connect to/understand the fear-based actions on Elle’s part. Many holiday-themed romance books can be too far-flung to be in the realm of believability, but I think this book truly succeeds at telling a romcom holiday romance without completely leaving the world of realism. My only critique is that I personally felt a little lost in the very beginning of the book (for example, I didn’t understand the webcomic start and wasn’t sure if it was part of the book or a preamble story that I wasn’t understanding). However, by the time I hit chapter 4 I was hooked fully into the story. This book reads like the very best kind feel-good Christmas movie and I can’t wait to recommend it to everyone this winter.

“Was it possible to have a hole inside you, cookie-cuttered into the shape of a person you hadn’t met yet?”

❄️ There are three things that folks know about me pretty quickly: I love to read, I’m queer, and I am obsessed with Christmas. So when I found out that @alisoncochrun (author of The Charm Offensive) was releasing a sapphic Christmas romcom, I absolutely lost my mind. Kiss Her Once For Me was, easily, my most anticipated book of the year and it blew my expectations away. Like, I’m saying 10/10 would recommend — but it’s so much more than that y’all.

KHOFM is the story of Ellie, who, after losing her dream job as an animator, is just going through the motions and trying to scrape by as a barista with crippling anxiety. When Ellie is offered the chance of a marriage of convenience that’ll give her some cold hard cash she ends up getting way more than she bargained for.

KHOFM is a lot of things. It’s hilarious, it’s romantic, it’s chock full of Christmas traditions — but it’s also such a painfully beautiful and honest look at what it means to live with anxiety. I’ll forever be amazed at how Alison manages to write stories that show the true depths of mental health while simultaneously being stories of joy.

This book comes out November 1st and it’s time to add it to your preorders, because you will not want to miss this queer Christmas masterpiece! ❄️

Kiss Her Once For Me is by far one of my favorite queer adult romances. Alison Cochrun has written such complicated and beautiful characters that really make this book come alive. This is THE queer holiday romance to read year round. It is the perfect definition of a Hallmark Christmas movie put into a book with some Taylor Swift inspiration that had me feeling every emotion possible.

Kiss Her Once For Me is a single pov story from Elle’s perspective. Elle is originally from Ohio and moves to Portland for her dream job at an animation studio. Last year, Elle spent her Christmas crying in a bookstore because her mother only calls when she needs money, not because she cares for her own daughter. When a tall and beautiful Asian butch lesbian comes into the aisle where Elle is crying, they have the most adorable meet-cute possible where they reach for the same book. The two spend Christmas together where they become co-parents to a book, get their car stuck in the snow, and hideout in a local bar for shelter. Their night is wonderful and so is the subsequent morning until reality comes crashing down.

A year later, Elle was fired from her dream job and, between rising rent prices and her mother demanding more money, is just barely scraping by. One day, her knight in shining armor (technically her boss’s landlord) drops by into her workplace and strikes a deal with her. If she spends Christmas with his family and marries him, he will give her 10% of his trust fund. Spend Christmas with a lovely family and easily make a ton of money? Elle won’t pass this opportunity up but it gets infinitely more difficult when she arrives at his family’s holiday house and his sister, Elle’s dream girl from last Christmas, arrives. Elle never did get over this girl and now she’s stuck marrying the girl’s brother. When Elle is unable to deny being pulled to the sister, how deep will Elle dig her own grave?

Fundamentally, there is not a single thing wrong with this book. It delivers in every single way imaginable. The spice? Check. Tension between the MC and LI? Check. A family that makes you long for that sort of love? Check. Queer representation? Check. Forced proximity? Check. This is the type of book where, 15% in, you know that it’s going to be a great book. There’s no denying it. The only slight issue I had with the book was that it seemed to end a little early. You mostly get a happily ever after but I wish there was an epilogue featuring Elle & Jack’s next Christmas. In the arc, there was not any sort of epilogue so that may be added later or not at all, but an epilogue would really give this book the closure that it is leading to.

I love this book! My favorite part of being a bookseller is when I get to read an advanced copy, absolutely love everything about it, and then go “I get to make it a staff pick when it comes out and sell it to someone else who is going to love everything about it!” Kiss Her Once For Me is exactly that type of book. The queer representation and mental health representation was SO WELL DONE!

The queer, generalized anxiety/adhd love story of my dreams. The charm offensive was such a favorite of mine that I quoted it in my wedding ceremony. This one blew me away and while Charm is still a favorite, KHOFM became number one about 30% into it.
There was not a single moment that I didn’t love and I struggled to put it down to just like live life outside of this story. I was invested from the first moment all the way through the acknowledgements, and I will be rereading this many times over the next few months.

Thanks for NetGalley for ensuring I spent all day reading instead of working today.

This was adorable and heartfelt and funny and an incredible summer read even with the Christmas themes.

I absolutely loved the story and the romance and second chance romance * with a twist. The side characters were incredible - I did find myself wishing for more interaction between Ellie & Andrew as their friendship was the only one that didn’t feel fleshed out to me.

I’m not a love at first sight or first date gal but Alison Cochrun may have converted me here. The bouncing back and forth between past and present was so lovely.

I want to be Memaw when I grow up (or maybe Lovey). Thé found family and discussion of how family isn’t always good for you was so well done.

My solitary complaint : the writing felt a bit repetitive at times - expressions , depictions , descriptions , etc just constantly cycling out and it removed me from the story at moments.

Overall - Alison Cochrun Continues to own a piece of my heart. Can’t wait to hold this book in my hands for real.

Getting an arc to the sapphic holiday romance of my dreams cured my “it’s too hot to move” blues. It’s got everything: meet-cutes, fake dating, secretly being in love with your fiancé’s sister, respect of early aught’s pop music, and the rightful acknowledgment of evermore as a Christmas album.

Ultimately it’s a book about the fear of failure and the beauty in being vulnerable enough to let people help you and take a risk even when it’s humiliating. Jack and Ellie had me giggling, twirling my hair, and kicking my legs and I can’t wait to revisit this novel in November.

Last Christmas Ellie had one perfect day with a stranger and fell in love. Now a year later she's broke, working in a job she hates, and about to be evicted from her apartment. The landlord who owns the building she works work offers her the perfect solution - a marriage of convenience that will allow him to receive his inheritance and will solve all of Ellie's money problems. All she has to do is spend the holidays with his family. But when they show up at his family's cabin, Ellie is shocked that her fake fiancé's sister is the woman she fell in love with last Christmas.

I absolutely loved Alison Cochrun's debut novel The Charm Offensive, so I was very excited to read this one! I read this book in one day because I liked it so much I couldn't put it down!
The LGBTQ+ representation was fantastic! It wasn't just limited to the main characters - there was representation throughout the entire book and side characters which I loved.

I also loved the family dynamics in this book. Reading about Jack & Andrew's family just felt like a big hug - especially Meemaw & Lovey!

I think that an epilogue would have been great to really tie the end of the book together. I felt like the ending was sort of abrupt and an extra chapter or epilogue could have helped with that feeling.

Things I loved -
•LGBTQ+ representation
•Holiday romance
•Forbidden romance
•Baking Christmas cookies
•Boozy grandmas
•Only one bed!

A huge thank you to NetGalley, Atria Books, and Allison Cochrun for an eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!

Queer Representation: Bisexual/Demisexual MC, Lesbian LI, Nonbinary SC, Bi(?) SC, Lesbian/Polyamorous SC.

I went into this not knowing what to expect. I have never read anything from this author and I haven’t had much luck recently with contemporary romances.

But after reading this book Alison Cochrun will be an instant buy for me. If I could rate this book 6/5 stars I would. I started and finished this in one day, crying at the last 10% in the car with my husband on the way to the grocery store. We held off on starting to shop because I needed to finish this.

The characters that Cochrun writes are so real and vibrant, I wish I could meet any of them (except Elle’s mother). I felt like every page was both expected yet unexpected - yes it was cheesy, but it was interesting and still very real. I connected with so many characters on different levels and I loved the queer representation that wasn’t just limited to the two main characters.

**Spoilers after this point**

Pros:
- The representation. The queer representation wasn’t just limited to Elle and Jack, it was woven throughout. I think we met more queer characters than not and every identity was believable. The author didn’t shy away from using the words on page. Elle said bisexual. Elle said demisexual. ON PAGE. And described it to someone! There weren’t euphamisms or dancing around it without stating an identity.

-The author didn’t write the characters to assume gender or assume people’s pronouns based on looks. This is the first book I’ve read which has done that. For example, when Elle first met Jack, she thinks of Jack using they/them pronouns until she knows for sure. Paragraphs where a main character is referred to as they/them… because no one had asked their pronouns yet. As someone who is constantly misgendered due to how I am perceived, I loved this.

-Lovey and Meemaw. They deserve their own pro. I love them, forever. They brought life and humor. I could feel their love and acceptance of everyone.

-Not jumping straight into love and that being a fix all. No, these characters worked on themselves and dealt with a lot of their shit.

-Miscommunication not being a major trope. Did miscommunication cause what happened with Jack and Elle in the first place? Yes. But I LOVED that Jack and Elle would sit down and talk about it. This specific miscommunication was hashed out very early in the book instead of being a huge part of the conflict for the entire book (like most contemporary romances do). Which usually leaves me screaming in frustration.


Cons:
-I genuinely can’t think of a con except that I hate Elle’s mother so much, which you know, isn’t a con really because I’m supposed to hate her.

Alison Cochrun does not let me down. I liked The Charm Offensive a little better, and that's only because this book is a bit of a Christmas book. As a Jewish reader, I always struggle a lot with enjoying holiday romances, but it wasn't a super big focus in this so it was okay. I really liked the romance, and the butch lesbian axe jokes in this were so funny. It was also really spicy and had demisexual representation too which I always love to see!! I'd recommend if you like LGBT+ romances.

There’s a lot to love about this book!

First of all, being loosely inspired by While You Were Sleeping (one of the best romantic comedies, ever) got my immediate attention. I’m also a huge fan of Allison Cochrun’s previously novel, The Charm Offensive.

Ellie is down on her luck, not making ends meet as a barista after previously being let go from the animation job she moved to Portland for. Between her bills and the constant requests from cash from her toxic mother she’s in a situation where she really needs some cash when she runs into Andrew, the handsome owner of the building where her barista job is in and he proposes a marriage of mutual benefit resulting in financial gain for them both.

I will note here that Ellie is both bisexual and demisexual and spent an idyllic day the previous Christmas falling for a woman named Jack (a butch lesbian), who once Ellie has gone home with Andrew for Christmas she quickly finds out that Jack is Andrew’s sister.

I loved the family dynamics of the mom and grandmothers of Andrew and Jacks family, I adored all the references to Taylor Swift and Gilmore Girls (also some of my favorite things). The flashback every other chapter to the snow day was a good way to evolve Ellie and Jacks story.

There was one instance I found particularly confusing in regards to Jack and Ellie’s relationship and times I became frustrated with both of them. I also think that an epilogue would’ve really helped tie together the end of the story.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book!

4 stars!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️