Having read Maggie Knox's The Holiday Swap the previous Christmas, I was really excited to read All I Want For Christmas over this festive season.
But sadly this book frustrated me.
I'm really not a fan of the miscommunication trope and that is basically what this entire book is. I really did wish that Max and Sadie could have had one honest and open conversation with each other as it would have resolved so much so quickly. However, that didn't happen.
It was also difficult to keep track of them being together, then not, then together, then not.
What also really irritated me was that instead of being shown how they were falling for one another, etc., we are instead told about it, which immediately puts a distance between us as the readers and the characters.
It also didn't lean into all things festive/Christmas like I expected either.
I did enjoy the setting but this was a serious letdown for me.
Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley UK and Hodder & Stoughton for sending me this advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
As soon as I read that this book was set in a singing competition, I was hooked. The premise sounded so interesting that I immediately started to read this book. Also, I always think that the fake romance really works in the celebrity industry.
I think the characters were really interesting, I liked their background stories, I liked how they fell in love with each other and how important music was to them. I also liked the message between the lines that fame does not automatically means happiness, but there were a few things in this book that didn’t work for me. First, I was expecting that the singing competition would last most of the book (this was 100% an expectation that I created in my mind). Second, about the narrative, I was a bit tired of all the drama that happened back and forth throughout the book, and most of their fights were just immaturity and lack of communication between the characters. I was getting so annoyed at them hiding secrets and ghosting each other.
Despite having issues with how the relationship was developed, this book is a very easy and quick read with an excellent concept for the story and well developed characters.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an arc of this title, in exchange for this honest review.

This book was just not it for me. The characters were honestly annoying and a little dramatic at times, the author duo weren’t very good at aligning stuff like tone and story and character arcs, which made this story incredibly messy. The characters never communicated, which created a lot of unnecessary drama and made it hard to believe they could ever be in a functional relationship. They fought, were dramatic about misunderstandings (like leave the city etc.), sung, had sex and were whiny. This book was literally just miscommunication with a side dish of more miscommunication.

This just wasn't the book for me. It just aggravated me to no end that neither Max or Sadie seemed to be able to have a single conversation where they were actually honest with each other.

I thought to sbook was okay.. the I felt.like we were being told about their feelings but not shown... there was no build up of feelings they were just there.

The plot was good and I enjoyed the music aspect of it

Miscommunication is my least favourite trope. Had I known miscommunication was to feature so much I probably would not have requested this book. While it a sweet and festive read, it was spoiled a bit for me by my frustration!

The characters and story are good. Max and Sadie are contestants on a show which I guess you’d describe as the country music version of X factor. They sing a duet together and their chemistry is fire and they are told to keep the people thinking that they are a couple to generate more votes.

The dual storyline is good but like I said, frustrating! Also, Max is not the great romantic guy we should be rooting for. In fact I didn’t really get on with him at all! Loved how this was set in Canada and overall a good romantic story.

dnfed @ 10%

first dnf of the year, but I really tried getting through this book, but the writing and the characters were just too cliche. Max and Sadie don’t really have much of a personality, and the whole plot feels really forced and unnecessary.

I’ve been looking forward to this one for awhile. I enjoyed The Holiday Swap earlier this season & was eager to dive into this writing duo’s sophomore novel. Unfortunately, it just fell flat for me. If I’m being honest, three stars is a pretty generous rating. It had potential & the back of the book/summary was promising, so that’s why I landed on three stars. Execution struggled for a couple reasons (in my opinion)—

•This book was marketed as a Christmas story (as evidenced by the title), but it didn’t fully embrace it. This was a story centered around a singing competition (akin to American Idol) set in Nashville (akin to the TV show, Nashville). If you mash those two shows, you’ve got this book…which the authors admitted to in the Q&A at the end of the book. The Christmas part of the story took a backseat to the relationship…if we can call it that.

•Speaking of the relationship…Sadie & Max gave me some MAJOR whiplash. They’re together, then they’re not, then they’re together, then they’re not…repeat about 45 times. In reading through the Q&A, I fully believe this was their take on enemies-to-lovers. For me, that’s not how the trope works. It’s usually a lot of banter, tension, and annoyance between the main characters UNTIL they get together. In this one, they’re together for 2 pages, then they’re mad at each other again. Over and over and over. If they were a real-life couple, I’d tell them they aren’t right for each other & they need to move on. It felt forced. I did not find myself rooting for them.

•Show, Don’t Tell…this is something we teach in our 4th grade writing class. Don’t TELL me what happened, what people were feeling, etc…SHOW me through their actions, their words, etc. Their relationship wasn’t believable because we were never given a reason to believe they liked each other. At least nothing worth overcoming all their obstacles for. Am I really supposed to believe they love each other when they haven’t managed to stay together for longer than 12 hours at a time?

I will give some credit for the scenery described in Banff. This place is HIGH on my bucket list, so I loved hearing the small town, the cabin, and the snowfall described here. It solidified my desire to visit Banff.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Hodder&Stoughton and Maggie Knox for providing me with this ARC!

⭐️⭐️⭐️

I loved The Holiday Swap by Maggie Knox, it was my Christmas read last year and I devoured all of its Hallmark movie style goodness. But All I Want For Christmas didn’t work as well for me unfortunately.

This had everything in it that I would usually love; a relationship in the spotlight, forced proximity, enemies to lovers, (kind of) second chance romance… but it just felt like miscommunication throughout the entire novel. This book would have been half as long if Max and Sadie had just talked to each other and it just left me feeling frustrated.

However, I did like the concept of Max and Sadie being forced to sing together on Starmaker (an American Idol style TV show), there were so many Christmas songs mentioned which was lovely, and the fact that it was set over two Christmases made it feel super festive.

If you are looking for a quick Christmas romance and don’t mind the miscommunication trope, then I do recommend this book!

Read if you like:
💙 Music
💙 Hallmark movies
💙 Miscommunication
💙 Festive feelings
💙 Fluffy romances

(Thank you Hodder and Stoughton and Netgalley for the E-ARC!)

💙

Thank you so very much to Maggie Knox and the team for sending me this ARC! Sorry it took so long, wanted to read it in the festive season.

I rated this book 3.5 stars (rounded up to 4 on Good Reads) and I loved it! I thought that it was well balanced between character driven and plot driven and that there was good separate character development between Max and Sadie. Overall a really comforting, cute and Christmas-y rom-com that is perfect for the festive season.

SADIE - I loved her so so much. From her personality to her determination to her character strengths and weaknesses I thought she was a likeable, relatable character. She didn’t, at first, fall head over heels with the love interest, which is always a good start to the relationship as insta-love introduction isn’t always believable. The stark differences between hers and Max’s childhoods were important to the story and an attribute of this book that I really felt and enjoyed. Sadie’s grief and relationship with her mother and grandmother were a key part of her character and I loved their positive inclusion in her story and rise to fame. Her realistic story of overly-touchy and boundary pushing producers in the music industry was a good touch to add into the conflict but to also add realism to the story and the nods to the toxicity and faults of the music industry. Overall I thought she was a well-rounded character with realistic flaws and a great personality.

MAX - Now added to my list of amazing book boyfriends. Whilst Max did have his good moments, he also had his bad. The mis-communication between Max and Sadie really did get some feelings out of me - the frustration I felt from each of them. His stubbornness didn’t mix well with hers but they pushed past. Max’s ‘tough on the outside, soft on the inside’ personality really made me love him - his dog Patsy and the sweaters he knit for her were the most adorable thing and personality trait. Max’s relationship with his family was a complicated one to start - broken apart by fame, false narratives and death was a good introduction for his own personal character development and the healing of his family.

I did love the separate character progression between the two - you always know that the books is going to be good when the love interest and main character have that. Their almost get-together and then separation were angsty and made me want to read more. I really did love their story - the fake dating, fame, chemistry worked together so well like perfect pieces in this jigsaw of a love story.

This one came quite highly anticipated for me, after hearing of how loved Knox's previous Christmas romance, The Holiday Swap, has been by readers everywhere, and this certainly did not disappoint. I'm a bit of a sucker for the whole Nashville, country music setting, and the enemies-to-lovers, fake dating storyline through being rivals in a talent competition felt perfect. I fell in love with the writing style immediately, I felt it flowed so nicely while still allowing Sadie and Max to have their own distinctive narrative voices. After finding out Maggie Knox is actually the pseudonym for two Canadian authors I definitely want to check out their respective back catalogues. The Holiday Swap has been pushed to the top of my Christmas romance to-read list for next year and I can't wait to see what's next!

I love romances set on reality shows! Especially when they involve fake dating!

Sadie and Max are both contestants on the reality singing show ‘Starmaker’. In the second round they are paired up as duet partners, and they have instant chemistry on stage. Their voices go together so well and the viewers of the show immediately ship them together. Their time on the show as soloists is over, as they are forced to continue the show as a duo. This may seem like the perfect situation, but Saide and Max’s chemistry doesn’t immediately translate off stage. There is a lot of tension between them as Sadie holds a grudge against Max from their first meeting, which he doesn’t even remember. They are also encouraged to fake date for further publicity.

‘All this, what we’re in, it’s supposed to be all fake. But it is real, isn’t it?’

After the show, things appeared to be moving positively. Until they weren’t. There is a year flash forward in this book, and this book deals with some heavier topics. These two were frustrating at times as their main issue was the lack of communication between them! Once they sorted this out, I was back to swooning over their cute romance. It took a while for them to get there, but Sadie and Max had to do a fair bit of individual growth before they could get their happy ever after!

Sadie and Max are contestants on Starmaker, a country music version of X Factor. For Sadie, this is her last shot for success; for Max, it’s his shot to prove he’s more than just the son of the legendary Holden Brady. Sadie met Max years ago where he let her down & she’s never forgotten, which causes friction between the couple. During duet week, Sadie & Max set the world ablaze with their chemistry, causing #Saxie to trend worldwide. To keep the ratings up, they’re told to pretend to be a couple. Can they keep it up to increase their chances of winning or will the animosity be too much?

This book has a lot of potential but fell a bit short for me. I didn’t like the dual POV, I felt it slowed the pace down & made it repetitive. Max didn’t have a lot of redeemable characteristics, I didn’t warm to him. There’s some odd time jumps which just felt jolting. Miscommunication galore, which is super frustrating. There’s a few different plots happening, too much at once. If one was dropped it may have been a bit more enjoyable. There’s one particular thing, where Sadie hasn’t told Max something personal & I was a bit confused as to how her agent hadn’t told his agent? It just seemed obvious that would have happened!

I did like the scenes in a small town in Canada, I would have loved more at that location. Overall just not my cup of tea when it comes to romance tropes!

All I want for Christmas is more Holiday reads!!

All I want for Christmas is another holiday read I can add to my “must read holiday books” list.

Not Christmas centred as I expected , but it was a lovely romance. In fact it could have been set at any point of the year. I think you’d enjoy it more if you’re a big country music fan or love tv competitions

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy in exchange for an honest review

I’ve finally read a book!!!! I read absolutely nothing in November and this is my first book of December 😱 this wasn’t quite the cosy Christmas read I was hoping for but it was decent enough for me to read in just one afternoon! I did like the two main characters, Sadie and Max. They were both very likeable in their own ways and I was rooting for them to be together! I love a story based around reality TV so that drew me in. There were some very annoying characters (Cruz!!!) but the nicer characters definitely outweighed them. Overall, this was a nice story but lacked a bit of oomph for me and definitely not as Christmassy as I hoped!

Thank you to Hodder & Stoughton for providing a copy of this book via NetGalley. Views remain my own.

This book was so close to hitting five stars, and nothing makes me more frustrated than when the book I’m reading is so good up to a point, then dips in quality around the midpoint.

The premise of this is great, the characters start off really strong, but from about halfway until the end I found myself wishing things would just hurry up. There’s only so many times a character can storm off-page before I’m exhausted by them.

Sadie and Max are both looking for their big Nashville break, and appear on the reality singing show Starmaker as contestants. Sadie has wanted to make it as a singer ever since she was a kid, and moved to Nashville at her gran’s encouragement to try and build a career. Max is the son of a country legend, a Nashville prince, but wants to break out on his own and show the world he’s more than that. The pair can’t stand each other, but when they’re paired up for duet week, fans lap it up, and the producers encourage them to fake a relationship until their final performance.

Fake dating! Reality TV! Nashville! I was so excited to dig into this and I absolutely loved falling into Sadie and Max’s journey. Until they exhausted me. More and more I feel like I’m picking up books that are longer than they need to be, that become repetitive and require a bit more cutting down. This definitely could have done with one less misunderstanding between the main couple, especially as the misunderstandings all seemed to be…basically the same thing.

One of the producers on the show is a sleaze. Not only that, but his behaviour is an open secret around Nashville. Okay, fair, realistic. He owns a restaurant that suffers from a series of food poisonings, with a slew of lawsuits in its wake. By the midway point, I was finding myself baffled about why anyone would want to work with him. Max consistently sees this producer and Sadie in situations he misunderstands, and although she clears the air the first one…two…three times…he still can’t use his own logic to realise what’s really happening, even though he knows full well what this producer is like!

There’s also moments where situations felt way too forced, where it felt like ideas were kind of running out for how to keep them away from each other. I found myself just wishing they would hurry up, whereas usually I kind of like when couples have different obstacles in their way. I like seeing the ways different authors keep couples apart and how they resolve their issues, but here…it’s never really resolved. Max never gets over himself and doesn’t really grow as a character, and Sadie faces so many different issues yet never actually confides in him which, honestly, if you don’t feel you can discuss ANYTHING IN YOUR LIFE with your partner, that’s a huge red flag. Max is toxic, unsupportive and immature, and by the end I was almost hoping Sadie would leave him in the dust. That maybe would have been more satisfying.

Everything about this book screamed that I would love it. I adore Country music and enemies to lovers but I could not get passed the 30% mark.

I felt that the story was very choppy for me and I can already see a miscommunication trope being in this one which is one of my most disliked tropes.

I really wanted to love this one but I just don't want to continue reading. Sorry!!

This book was fine but definitely not on par with the holiday swap, it didn't seem festive at all and the story could have been set at any time of year and still worked. I wasn't a big fan of any I'd the two main characters and didn't feel they had chemistry at all.

I do love a festive romance. This was set in the country, Nashville, with cowboy/cowgirl vibes, which is always the one. I do feel like Sadie was a bit of a brat, expected people to be able to read her mind, even without telling them what was truly going on.

I found it a bit hard to read because of this. I did enjoy Max, and his backstory however.

Thanks to NetGalley for the early release in exchange for my feedback.

For more reviews, I have a bookstagram at @blondesbooknook