Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book. I have chosen to write this honest review voluntarily and it reflects my personal opinion.
I love reading Christmas -themed books and this promised lots of pages of Christmas. I liked the settings (the bookshop Nory owns, the castle where the wedding is to take place, her family's garden centre business) which I thought were described well and were suitably snowy, with copious amounts of hot chocolate and lots of festive decorations and floral arrangements. There were a couple of themes threaded through the romcom and wedding plots which were interesting. The characters were well-developed and realistic although some of the events (no spoilers) stretched credibility a little far (Nory did something a tad stupid close to the end and was surprised at the reaction it caused). In all I thought it was an enjoyable read for this time of year.
However there were a couple of things I found intensely irritating: the use of strong language was completely unnecessary, almost stereotyping the group of friends as Hooray Henrys who pepper their speech with childish swearwords as though they've never grown up. Many words were spelt in the American form even though the book is set in Britain and this completely destroyed the atmosphere for me. My rating is reduced by 1 star to reflect these issues.

DNF at 69% but I will give what I did read 2 stars…I just could not continue with it, my eyes were permanently rolling 🙄

This was just not the cosy, Christmas romance I thought it was going to be. It centres around Elinor (Nory), a bookseller who hates selling any of her stock (?) who joins her old school friends for a week away in the lead up to two of them getting married. The group went to boarding school and it’s safe to say that they are an arrogant, pompous, self obsessed group. Nory is supposed to be different as she only went to the school because she got a scholarship, but she constantly defends their actions when they aren’t really that defendable. I just couldn’t deal with them. I didn’t care for them, I thought the dialogue between them was awful - they were just a really unlikeable bunch. I found Nory very annoying - I felt like she had about three different personalities too and I couldn’t work out who she really was. She was a different person depending on who she was with.

Isaac was a saving grace - although how he could be with Nory knowing she was a part of the horrid group that tormented him for years on end I don’t know!! He needs a nicer lover interest!!! And I did find the parts about Tristan to be touching and a stark reminder of the fact that you never really know what someone is going through.

Ultimately, not for me and I wouldn’t recommend unless you like reading about spoilt, rich adults who thinks the world revolves around them!!

I have a little mix feelings about this one.
It began soooo slow, but I end up likeing it in the end. This was a 3.5 stars read for me.

This book was really difficult to get into as I thought the beginning was incredibly slow. There was also much too much going on at times, so I didn't get as invested in Nory and Isaac's relationship as I'd hoped to. While marketed as a romance, this felt much more like women's fiction.

I’ve read this book twice now. And both times I’ve loved it!
A wonderful, cosy read that invites you to curl up in front of the fire and spend the whole day getting to know Nori and the wonderful bunch of people in her life. This has it all; friendship, family dynamics, festive feels, great humour and super one liners. Yet it also has serious topics and of course, a beautiful romance (or three!). Reading Jenny Bayliss novels are an annual event for me now. I can’t wait for the new one.

Jenny Bayliss - Meet Me Under The Mistletoe.

If you enjoy a cosy Christmas love story, Meet Me Under The Mistletoe is a must read for the festive season. Although it’s not in your face, full on Christmas. This book does have some lovely festive vibes, that are utterly feel good.

The setting of the book is quintisensially English. Jenny Bayliss really brings the castle to life, with some beautiful descriptions that make you feel like you are there in person.

With some endearing friendships, a charming and well written story, and of course a sweet, toe tingling romance. Meet Me Under The Mistletoe is an absolute delight.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

With thanks to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for a digital arc of this title.

This is a good cosy romance.

A group of friends who went to school together meet up for the one of there weddings. It’s lavish and it’s being held in a country house. Nory one of the group meets an old friend Isaac and time will tell if they meet under the mistletoe.

A great romance story with a snowy Christmas setting.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for a copy.

A lovely cosy read that really got me in the Christmas spirit. Great characters and a really good story. Highly recommended.

This book has been sat in to ‘to be read’ list for a few months. Work/life pressures meant that I’d waited longer than hoped to get started on it. The loss was all mine as this is a great book!

I loved the story and found the characters to be realistic and well written. To me, this had future Hallmark film written all over it!!

An easy read and recommended to others.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for my advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review 📚

This was one of the sweetest christmas reads in a while. There was so much angst in the air at all turns, and I could truly never tell what was going to happen next.
The story of Nory and Isaac truly moved me, and made me feel more connected to characters than ever before, with the writing and plot of their meeting and relationship feeling very real and honest making me connect further.
I would recommend to anyone who wants to cuddle up and get cosy with a book over the holidays.

This was such an enjoyable story! It may not have been very Christmassy but I didn't mind that too much. Nory and Isaac are perfect for each other, they are the dream team. They have shared interests, they aren't afraid to speak their minds and they have a chemistry that it like no other.

Nory's relationships with her privileged friends was another interesting thread to the story. Her doubt of whether she fitted in with their crowd overshadowed her but I actually liked some of the group. Jeremy was my favourite in the group, he seemed the most level headed and showed true loyalty to Nory.

This was a book to escape into, get lost in the romance and the friendships, it also helped that Nory loved books too!

Jenny Bayliss has become a firm favourite of mine each Christmas, and this one was super lovely too.

A Christmas wedding, a re-kindled love and a heroine who we can all relate to - all my favourite parts of romance!

This was such a lovey book loved how you got to know each character, the story was something I could picture watching on t.v
Thank you for the chance to read this book.

Meet Me Under The Mistletoe by Jenny Bayliss

I received an advance review copy for free thanks to NetGalley and Pan and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Blurb

Elinor Noel—Nory for short—is quite content running her secondhand bookshop in London. Forever torn between her working-class upbringing and her classmates’ extravagant lifestyles at the posh private school she attended on scholarship, Nory has finally figured out how to keep both at equal distance. So when two of her oldest friends invite their whole gang to spend the time leading up to their wedding together at the castle near their old school, Nory must prepare herself for an emotionally complicated few days.

The reunion brings back fond memories, but also requires Nory to dodge an ill-advised former fling. When she falls quite literally into the arms of Isaac, the castle’s head gardener, who has nothing but contempt for the “snobby prep school kids,” the attraction between them is undeniable. And as Nory spends more time with Isaac during the wedding festivities, she finds herself falling hard for the boy she used to consider an enemy. Nory and Isaac explore their common ground, but pressures mount on all sides, and Nory must decide what kind of life she wants to live and what sort of love is worth the risk . . .

My Opinion

This Christmas book is one that I have been looking forward to for a while. Firstly I instantly connected to Nory, running a bookshop there was no way I could dislike her. The main theme of this book is a selection of school friends meeting up for a reunion and wedding.

This is a lovely, festive read - that whilst frustrating in parts, Bayliss more than makes up for it. A very easy book to follow and I can confirm this works well as an audiobook.

Rating 4/5

I really enjoyed this book. It was a really cosy, cute and comfy Christmas read. It was really well written and the characters were great. Would definitely recommend.

I really had no expectations for this book going into it - Bayliss's name sounded familiar to me but I didn't know whether to expect a mindless, cheesy romance or something more than that, and I have to say this completely bowled me over by the end of it. I did really enjoy reading about the whole whole friendship dynamic, of the old friends reuniting and unearthing lots of old drama, but they did frustrate me endlessly at times, to the point where I did truly wonder why Nory stayed being friends with some of them. Nory herself was just the sweetest and I rooted for her to get her happy ending throughout, while also being slightly jealous of her dreamy second-hand bookshop. The constant references to Tristan, their dearly departed friend, and the ways in which they all commemorated him, really warmed me and even made me cry at times! And if that isn't the mark of a great Christmas book I don't know what is.

Description 🔖

Two of Nory Noel’s oldest school friends are having a winter wedding in a luxurious castle; she should be excited right? Except she’s not. She’s not seen her old school friends in quite some time and they have since grown apart so Nory is dreading spending the week with no plus one amongst a group of couples.

Once the champagne starts to flow, old tensions start to rise again and Nory is desperate for some quiet time alone from her friends. In the castle gardens she quite literally bumps into Isaac; the castle gardener and Nory’s rival from childhood.

Turns out that Nory and Isaac have more in common as adults than they thought and the pair start to steal moments away together whenever they can. However when Nory tries to do something incredibly kind but risky for Isaac, everything could backfire and the pair could end up as rivals once more.

General Thoughts 🤔

This is likely going to be my penultimate Christmas book of 2022 so I was hoping that it would be as cutesy and romantic as it sounded. I am pleased to report back that it lived up to my expectations and it was a lovely book for me to read whilst flying back from my holiday and trying to spark some Christmas spirit. The book wasn’t exactly Christmas themed, but it was set around that time of year and it had all of the cosy feelings of winter.

There are no real shocks or surprises in the story but I didn’t need or want there to be. I just wanted to be swept away and get a lovely warm tingly feeling about some lovely characters that were involved in a lovely story. What I wanted was what I got.

Characters 👫👭👬

I really liked Nory as the main character. She wasn’t perfect, but I loved her for it. She was a relatable girl and she owned a second hand bookshop so if you’re a bookish person, what was there not to love?! I thought she was a tad naive in her decision making and was potentially a little too trustworthy but who hasn’t been there. Her heart was in the right place and to me, that was all that mattered for her character in this story.

Isaac was such a lovely guy. Potentially a little too lovely for me. I didn’t find myself lusting after him or anything but he was perfect for Nory. The two of them seemed to fit together so easily that it was hard to believe that they had ever thought that they had any differences.

Writing Style ✍️

This is the first Jenny Bayliss book that I have read, but I have since noticed that Christmas books are kind of her thing. She did it so well with this story, I can tell that this is definitely her jam. When reading, it was like I could feel that she was enjoying writing every dialogue between characters, every scene description and generally every chapter. There was a lot of love oozing from her writing and it was what made me finish this book feeling warm and fuzzy. I’d very much like to go back and read her other Christmas books next year.

Conclusion & Scoring 🎖

I sat on an aeroplane saying goodbye to a Caribbean beach and heading towards a wet and cold Wales when I read this and I owe this book a thank you for making me feel somewhat better about that. This was a gorgeous story about family (relatives and chosen), friendships (close and distant) and love (old and new). I loved the wintery, cosy feelings this book oozed and I think I can probably now say I’m looking forward to Christmas.

When Elienor 'Nory' Noel travels back to her hometown to attend a school friend's wedding, she's both dreading and looking forward to the reunion with her group of best friends for a myriad of reasons. But Nory also ends up bumping into her old childhood enemy, Isaac and sparks fly immediately.

I really enjoy having a Jenny Bayliss book to look forward to every Christmas, and her characters and stories have kept me company the last three years and Meet Me Under the Mistletoe was exactly what I needed to get me into the Christmas spirit. Similar to A Season for Second Chances, Meet Me Under the Mistletoe isn't necessarily a Christmas read - more so a perfect Winter read as it starts the end of November, and leads up to the Christmas season.

I have said before that Jenny Bayliss is just an expert at creating book settings and locations - particularly small towns and villages you want to live in yourself. I didn't feel this so much in this book but I think the setting of the castle was still really good, and in particular Nory's secondhand bookshop came alive in the pages from the descriptions of the gorgeous Christmas window display and the vintage books up for grabs, to all the cosy armchairs and fairy lights decorating the shop.

The group of friends were all an interesting bunch, all made of money and reeking of privilege yet at the same time all good people who cared for Nory - even Guy, eventually. The story did lean heavily on how friends can be like family, and you love them even when you hate them, and this was made more poignant in the story by the storyline of Tristan, a friend who died by suicide. I thought Tristan's storyline was gently and respectfully done, showcasing the devastation left behind when someone dies in such a way and how friends and family live with that forever. Each time Tristan was mentioned or talked about when the friends were together (particularly in the epilogue) made me well up.

The romance is very sweet, and the third act conflict was an interesting one in terms of not something I had seen before and while part of me didn't like it as I felt Isaac was being stubborn and Nory was too rash with things, I also appreciated that it wasn't a case of silly miscommunication as normally seen in such novels. It was a conflict with a depth and a history to it, and an importance to.

Lots in this I really enjoyed, and it was a pleasant Christmas read to keep me company beside the Christmas tree.

a quick and easy festive read. Found myself wanting to finish this book as soon as possible because I was enjoying it so much! The first I've read by Jenny Bayliss, but it definitely won't be the last. A heartwarming emotional story about love, loss and friendships.

When I pick up a book from Jenny Baylis, I know exactly what I’m going to get. A great story, loveable and relatable characters and some much needed me time with a cup of tea and a couple of biscuits. I love that this is an easy to read story that transported me to a week away in a castle for an upcoming wedding with friends. It’s the perfect book to get you in the mood for the run up to Christmas and to make you want to take your time reading it so the story doesn’t end. I loved the twelve dates of Christmas last year and I loved meet me under the mistletoe. I can’t wait to see what Jenny Baylis comes up with next.