A Winter Wish was a witty, emotional novel that I devoured in less than a day! It hooked me from the beginning with the charming cast of characters (hello Theo) and the journey of self-discovery that Lexie was bound to embark upon. I was expecting this to be your average romance novel, but it delivered in so many other ways. The detail of travel that allows for a few surprise twists and turns throughout, was one of my favorite additions to the storyline. Highly recommend to anyone looking for a sweet, touching read!

I appreciate the opportunity to read this before it is released; thank you Netgalley for the eARC!

I love a romantic comedy around Christmas time! This one got me excited! I really enjoyed Always, in December. I think Emily Stone is a good writer.
I appreciate the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.

Thank you to @NetGalley and the publisher for the E-Arc in exchange for an honest review.
Lexie finds out her father, who she has not spoken to in a long time, has passed away and has left her his traveling company. Problem is that he also left half of the company to his employee, Theo. From the beginning, Lexie and Theo cannot not see eye to eye on the future of the company. But with time, the two just may be able to work together to help the company and at the same time, work out their feelings for each other.
I did enjoy the storyline I just felt that at spots, it dragged a little bit for me. Overall, A Winter Wish is a good holiday read.

#NetGalley #AWinterWish

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the ARC of A Winter Wish.

Lexie is a traveling wanderer who thrives on new places and meeting new people. She has an estranged relationship with her father that has causes abandonment and commitment issues for her to deal with. Theo had a fine childhood but it was not full of warmth and support which he grapples with as an adult. Together they are forced to run a travel company and they have to figure out eachother but also what they want for themselves.

Overall this was a sweet story with a minor Christmas/winter theme. It was a slow start but the end carried great emotion as the characters discovered themselves and processed their hurt.

A Winter Wish is the enemies-to-lovers story of Lexie and Theo. When Lexie’s estranged father passes away, he leaves his travel agency to Lexie and Theo and they, of course, can’t sell the business until they’ve run it successfully together for a year.

At the beginning of the novel Lexie was pretty immature and selfish and her growth came pretty late in the story. Theo wasn’t as fleshed out as a character and I wish we had learned more about him. The story was somewhat slow-moving but I stuck with it and enjoyed the book.

I liked that the agency planned trips around local holidays. I would have taken a couple of those trips!

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House - Dell for an eARC. Opinions are my own.

This was my first Emily Stone novel and while speaking with other book club friends, they said this was not her best work. I do not have a frame of reference with that. This book was a quick enemies to lovers Christmas time romance. There was not a lot of character depth in my opinion and I didn’t relate with Lexie. Overall, the book was a cute read. Thank you to NetGalley for the early copy!

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC! A Winter's Wish by Emily Stone is a charming holiday rom-com that can be enjoyed all year long. If you love a good 'enemies to lovers' troupe, you will enjoy the story of Lexie and Theo. The premise is fun and the novel is well written with well developed characters. If you're a rom-com fan, add this to you TBR!

This was a delightful, emotional novel that I enjoyed much more than I was expecting to. I thought I was in for a light winter romance, and while it is in part that, it's also a deeper book about grief, acceptance, and grappling with your own identity. Lexie wasn't my favorite narrator, but she was relatable in some ways, and it tugged at my heartstrings to read about her journey of discovering her late father and trying to learn how to forgive him. I also really liked some of the supporting characters, like Rachel and Ange. And, of course, Theo was a sweet, sweet man who I just fell in love with. The writing was good and I enjoyed the travel aspect of the storytelling. I'll definitely recommend this to friends when it comes out!

Thank you netgalley for the opportunity to review this! I've loved Emily Stone and I am a big fan of Christmas in July reading, so this was right up my alley!
This story is a romance between Lexie and Theo, enemies to lovers who have inherited a company from Lexie's recently passed father that specializes in traveling around the world for holidays. First and foremost, I loved the company. This concept is so unique and I love that the author took celebrations from areas that aren't as well known. The romance itself was a real slow burn that was maybe PG-13 in spice: a few sentences here and there but otherwise relatively tame. I loved the interactions and snappy dialogue between Theo/Lexie: their transition was really believable, and their interactions never felt forced.
But at its heart, this story is about grief and fatherhood: what defines a father, how someone can be a father figure in different ways, how grief lives in each of us. I really enjoyed these concepts and thought it really anchored the story.

**3.5 STARS**

Content Warning: death of parent, strained family relationships

I felt like this story was a little more than a holiday romance. Did it have elements of Christmas in it? Yes, but what I really love about it is the travel destinations the characters take in this story and the story about mending relationships. Lexie’s dad has died all of a sudden and is leaving her his travel company but she doesn’t want it because she didn’t have the best relationship with her dad. He left their family, remarried, and she basically cut him off from her life. His death makes her revisit memories of her childhood with him, and how her love of travel actually stems from him. Lexie has a fear of commitment because of her dad but her stance is questioned when she meets Theo, who seemed to be close to her dad and worked for him.

Lexie has a lot of issues to deal with when it comes to her dad’s memory, her half-sister Rachel, and this new guy Theo. I love how the company becomes a found family for her though and maybe Lexie didn’t have a relationship with her dad, but she has a best friend in her mom. I enjoyed how the author tackled the issue of commitment and wanting to be free to move around as opposed to staying put in one place.

I thought the romance was cute and progressed nicely from rivals, to partners and to something more. I actually loved how they would travel to destinations together – I was thinking what a cool job to be working in a travel company!


Final Thoughts:

This was a fun, heart-warming, holiday romance story and I look forward to reading more from this author!

This book is heartwarming, emotional and a celebration of family, second chances and traditions. Stone takes you on an adventure to different parts of Europe and explores the complicated relationship Lexie, the main character, had with her father and her journey of self-discovery after his death. Plus, there is an epic Christmas in July scene that made this a perfect summer read. Despite all the greatness, I was hoping for more chemistry between Lexie and Theo. I wasn’t gushing over them as much as I have with Stone’s other main characters.

Read if you like:
-Romance stories with depth
-Holiday reads
-Enemies to lovers
-Complicated family relationships
-Grief and loss of loved one themes

Thank you Dell Romance for the ARC!

one thing about emily stone is shes always going to leave me in shambles 😭

i was a tiny bit hesitant on starting this one because one last gift absolutely destroyed me when i thought it was going to be a cutesy coming back together through a nosy brother second chance HOWEVER i couldnt resist the enemies to lovers situation in this one 😂

this is a relatable and heartwarming story perfect for christmas in july!! its got a bit of darker topics that’ll have you reaching for the tissue box but overall a great story of growth and overcoming different struggles

it was a bit slow to start but once it picked up i flew through it!!

Emily Stone writes romance with substance. This story follows an enemies to lovers romance trope, but it is SO much more than that. Her characters feel very fleshed out, and you can understand the motivations of each one. Lexie, the female MC, struggles with her relationship to her father-now deceased- while being very close to her mother. Theo, meanwhile, was very close to her father (while being distanced from his own parents,) and there's the source of the conflict with the two in the beginning. Meanwhile, other characters like Lexie's sister, her friend, and people from work have their own relatable issues. This story ends with a happy-ever-after but arrives there in a realistic way. I love all the Christmas vibes (especially Christmas in July since I read in the heat of summer) and small travel descriptions. This was a fun book to read with some tough issues to think through. I look forward to Emily Stone's next work!

Lexie is happily working for a family in Austria, when she receives news that her father has died. Her father grants her half sister, Rachel, his home in Bath. To Lexie, he leaves half of his travel business. The other halt going to his employee Theo. However, there are stipulations as to how and what Lexie and Theo can do with the business. Lexie is at first resistant to taking part in the operation of the business, but slowly comes around to the idea.

This is a slower moving book and the story unfolds over months. The story is not strictly for winter or holiday reading.
A decent book, but I have liked earlier books by Emily Stone more.

I received an advanced reader copy of A Winter Wish from NetGalley.

The plot was too predictable and the characters weren't compelling or even likable enough (borderline selfish) to carry. It was overall fine, and I did enjoy some bits, but I'm sure I'll never think of it again now that I'm done.

Maybe I'm too old but I have a really hard time rooting for characters who are just so selfish to the point of taking advantage of everyone around them. And Lexie felt so very selfish to me. Sure, she had a dad who walked out and never walked back into her life in a concrete way, but that was so many years ago. I don't disagree that things can lead to trauma, but there seems to be a tendency to blame others for our shortcomings and for making decisions these days. And there is this thing called free will. Lexie chooses to travel and not get close to anyone. She chooses to not respond to her father. She holds a grudge for so many years. I'm not saying that she didn't deserve to be upset or even angry for as long as she was, but at some point, you need to listen to others and mature.

The fact that this is an enemy to lovers romance, which feels very Hating Game in some ways, doesn't help because it just doesn't live up to the comparison. Theo was fine. And all of the secondary characters were just that: secondary with very little page time. I wanted to like Lexie. I wanted to root for her. But she just felt so one dimensional for most of the book that I could not get behind her in any way.

And yes, I give this three stars. It wasn't a bad read. And there will be many who enjoy the story much more than I did. Because the premise is fun. If you start out liking Lexie, then you'll have a happier time than I did with this one.

The only thing that made me want more was for Lexie to get the other letter ....

Emily Stone = Christmas! I have started looking forward to her Christmas books every year! You are definitely going to want to pre-order this book! It will be your perfect holiday read. Emily Stone knows how to weave characters and situations that are so real. I love this one!

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

A Winter Wish by Emily Stone - Lexie loves living a nomadic life. She never stays in one place for too long. Her life is turned upside down one Christmas when she receives a phone call to let her know her estranged father has died. In his will, he left 50% of his business to her and 50% to his executive, Theo. Of course, it comes with a catch - Lexie and Theo have to run the business with each other for one year. At the end of the year they can decide to either sell the company or keep running it together. The problem? From the moment they ran into each other at her father’s wake, they couldn’t stand each other. Through their travels and work, they discover themselves, and even more about each other. A lot can change in a year, but will enough change for Lexie to stay and finally put down some roots?

Overall I really enjoyed this book. As someone who also has a rocky relationship with their father, I found that Lexie’s thoughts and feelings towards her father to be very realistic. Also navigating the relationships that her father had before he passed, was also very realistic and the author made it very relatively. Even if you do not have a rocky relationship with your parent, I think that the author conveys the thoughts and feelings very well. Additionally, the book took place over a years time but the timeline was not dragging in anyway. The characters were well thought out, and grow as the story progresses.

I also love the concept of the company. I do not know if there is a company like this that actually exists but if it did, I would thoroughly enjoy using them. It is such a great concept.

There are a few grammatical mistakes and there were a few times that the company was referred to as P&L instead of R&L but these things are easily fixed.

This was a great read i really enjoyed it! as a person who’s lost a parent i can relate to this story, this was a great story.