✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ /5

This book was everything I love in a sweet cozy holiday rom com. 🎄❄️⛄️
I read it while cozied up on a snowy day and it was perfect. The storyline was unique & the found family in it was so sweet. Definitely my favorite holiday romance book I’ve read. If you’re looking for a book that is going to give you the holiday feels, this is a must read this season 💕🥹🍨

I had really high hopes for this book after loving One Day in December but unfortunately, this just didn't hold my attention the way that book did. There was a lot of potential but I found the story difficult to follow at times.

A Winter in New York is the perfect novel to grab this winter! It is the perfect city read to grab while sitting around the fire. I loved the characters, family and love throughout the book!

Cute book with some good substance! I enjoy a Christmas in NYC story. The ending was especially good!

Thank you very much to Netgalley and Random House Publishing-Ballantine for the advanced reader’s copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Highly enjoyed this latest title from Josie Silver. Loved the mature romance and all of the baggage that comes along with it. Was rooting for Gio and Iris the entire time!

Cute but extremely boring. Disappointing because I have enjoyed her books before. I cannot finish it!

What a cute romance.
Except I couldn’t get over the lying part. Why not just tell him the truth? Why let it go on and in when you know you’re eventually going to have to tell him? And I couldn’t stop wondering if we’d find out in the end that they were related.
Still a cute romance and I loved the nyc setting and all the sisters!

A Winter in New York by Josie Silver
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for providing me with an advance copy. All opinions are my own.

A Winter in New York is a delightful, Hallmark movie of a Christmas rom-com and the perfect read for this time of year! In this book, Londoner Iris has come to New York to escape a bad relationship and spend time in the place where her musician mother spent some of her best years. While there she finds Gio Belotti, whose family owns a Gelato Cafe in the city and has a connection to Iris’s own family.
This story was a really tale about found family. The setting of New York City at the holidays really shone through and made me want to visit the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree 🎄 It also really made me crave vanilla gelato ( there’s a recipe in the back of the book, if you’re so inclined).
I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a sweet, holiday rom-com!

A Winter in New York was a beautiful, cozy, heartwarming romance that was an absolute joy to read! I think it’s impossible not to love Iris and the Belotti family, as the past and present intertwined throughout.

This wasn’t just a romcom — it was a story about healing after an abusive relationship, second chances, and rediscovering the magic & whimsy of being alive.

Josie Silver’s writing style was a treat to read, this was my first time reading one of her books! I was effortlessly able to imagine the scenes and characters, and this book read like a dreamy romantic screenplay in the best possible ways.

One of my favorite quotes: “You guys have enough baggage between you to fill a goddamn carousel at JFK, but isn't that kind of the point of love, that you help each other carry the bags? Fresh starts are for Hallmark movies, not real life.“

5 stars from this hopeless romantic of a bookworm!

Thank you to NetGalley & the publishers for this ARC.

What a lovely read. I did get frustrated with Iris for her total lack of communication and secret hiding but it all turned out for the best. The Bellotti family was so lovely and welcoming to her, gotta love Italians! But the ending was a little hokey for me with them arriving en masse to defend her honor to her ex.

I enjoyed this book. Iris is a likeable main character and I felt the tension of what was enevitable to happen throughout the story.

Oh, Josie Silver, how I adore thee. I love the romance reads with the deeper stories underneath. A Winter in New York has love, so much love, but also found family and gelato, which, I've honestly never had but have been craving since finishing this book!

I received an advance copy. All thoughts are my own.

Iris runs away to New York from a mentally abusive ex.
She finds an old haunt of her mom's that turns out to be more history than she thought.
nothing note worthy that would make this book stand out.

Thank you to the publisher for the gifted copy of this book.

A Winter in New York follows Iris, a 30 something Londoner reeling from the recent death of her mom and escape from an emotionally abusive relationship. She moved to NY, found a job in a noodle restaurant, and an apartment above. One day while out with her best friend, she stumbles upon a gelato store that is strangely familiar. She realizes it's the same store that's in one of her mom's old photographs = and the same top secret family recipe that her mom taught her. She meets Gio, a widower and single dad, and he is struggling to figure out the gelato recipe their store has used for decades. Only two people at a time have access to the recipe, and one copy is misplaced, and the other is lost to the memories of Santo who just had a stroke. Does Iris tell Gio she has the recipe? How is her mom tied to the store and this amazing family?

As the story unfolds, I fell in love with GIo and his family (and I really want some of their gelato). Iris and Gio are the cutest once they both let their walls down, and the way Gio's family kind of adopts and welcomes Iris in was just the sweetest.

This would have been a 5 star book for me except for the miscommunication trope - I HATE IT. It's saying a lot about the book that I still loved it enough to give it 4 stars, even with all the miscommunication. I know it's the whole point of the book, but ughhhh if Iris had just told GIo "hey....so my mom had your secret family gelato recipe, here ya go, and by the way, my ex isn't dead, he's just a huge abusive d*ckwad"...

All that being said, I will continue to read Josie SIlver's books, and hopefully continue to love them!

A cheesy hallmark movie in book form. It was okay. Not my cup of tea, but cute enough to finish it. The relationships were cute

Read if you like:
🗣️ Miscommunication Trope
🍦Gelato
🗽Books Set in NY
🤫 Family Secrets

Honestly, this one didn’t work for me like I had hoped. It has all the makings to be a great winter romance, but the intentional withholding of information for a flimsy reason was a big turn off for me, and I feel like it was just to create drama for a third act break up that just isn’t necessary in romance.

All in all, I think a lot of people will like this one, but it just wasn’t a favorite for me.

A holiday read that spans the seasons of late fall through New Years. Iris finds herself in New York after leaving London and a bad ex-boyfriend behind to find connections to her mom and the life her mom left behind there. Iris starts a new life in the city and ends up entwined in the lives of the Belotti family. A cute love story with some deeper storylines of loss and also abuse. I enjoyed getting to know the big personalities of the characters in this story and the sense of place led me to a clear picture of the streets and homes of the story. A quick holiday read, I recommend. I struggled to get into the story but at about 20%, the story picked up and I flew through the last 80% or so in one morning.

I thought the book was cute but I was not surprised to read in the end that the author had never been to NYC before. Something in the day to day life and how she described that pastrami sandwich seemed off. And why would a chef be impressed by how people were cutting up sausage and peppers at a street fair?

I thought there were some timeline issues. Unless Santo was supposed to be a decade or more older than her mother which didn’t seem to be the case, he’d only be in his mid-fifties. But he and his wife are portrayed in a way that makes them seem elderly and a relic of an earlier time.

Gio was supposed to be 39 but repeatedly talked about how old he was. Iris must have been about 36 but also talks about how he is older than her. They are basically the same age! I guess Santo, at about 15 years older than Gio could be a father figure but you’d think they mention how close in age they are too.

I don’t see how Iris’ mom could have thought Gio was Santo’s child when she went back to NYC when Iris was a toddler but it’s heavily implied she did. Gio is older than Iris by enough that he would have been born by the time she met Santo.

I think we could have done without the bad ex storyline, there was enough going on between her being a chef, her mom’s death, Gio’s family and also being a singer. She didn’t need another reason to be NYC and he seemed like a comic book villain.

4/5 stars

Trigger Warnings: Grief, Death of parent, Emotional abuse

I really enjoyed this holiday book! It was a very emotional, powerful, sweet, and a bit mysterious. A book set in NYC with lots of England and baking references?! yes, please! All the gelato talk made me go get some.

Iris is an incredible main character and I love her growth throughout the book. Gio is such a caring and supportive person to both his family and Iris. Of course I don't love third act breakups but this one is done so well and I enjoyed the ending so much.

The family in this story is so delightful and I will truly miss them. I will continue to read whatever Josie Silver writes each year. This book definitely got me into the Christmas mood.

Heartfelt and tugs on every emotion you may try to hide. This story was emotional, adorable, magical, everything you could want in a holiday book. It will definitely get you in your feels. Josie can do no wrong when she writes.