Thank you for allowing me to review this book. I found this to be an enjoyable rom-com. Easy to read with an engaging storyline. Iris is in New York recovering from an abusive relationship. Gio is a member of the Bellotti family running a gelateri in NY. Both these characters are very well written with backstories of trauma, grief and family history. The Bellotti family are typical Italians.
I'm not usually a big reader of rom-com but I enjoyed this one and can recommend it.

If you love Fluffy romance books based on New York then this is definitely a book for you. I really enjoyed it, the characters were good and the plot was pleasant.

A beautifully written winter romance with important messages about grief and healing. It was so empowering to see Iris begin to heal from an abusive relationship and make a new life for herself. While I loved the Belotti family, I was less invested in the backstory between Santo and Iris's mother.

"theres something about you thats just like pure fuckin sunshine.”

𝗖𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿
ooh its such a cute festive cover!! however it does not reflect what the book is about, there needed to be icecream on the cover!!!

𝗧𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲𝘀
Secrets
Icecream
Food
Love
Family

𝗧𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀
I love this author and have read all their books. i found this one a little bit slower, and harder to get into. however overall i loved it and i was sobbing near the end.

𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀
I loved both Iris and Gio, but i have to be honest, there was nothig special about either of them. this is the perfect copy and paste type of romance (and there is nothing wrong with that)

𝗪𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴
as always, i love Josie Silvers writing! especially chapter 35, honestly i had to go and read it twice, thats how raw it felt!!!

𝗔𝗻𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗜 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲𝗱?
the beginning was REALLY good, i laughed so much but then chapter 1 to about 35%, was really dry?!?!?

𝗙𝗮𝘃𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗤𝘂𝗼𝘁𝗲
“but we're book people for gods sake we dont behave that way”

Oh hello lighthearted yet poignant and touching cosy read 🫶🏻 I SO enjoyed this story! I’m a sucker for a New York setting - I’ve never been (which should definitely change sooner rather than later), but I love how the place is full of magic and romance in literally every book that it’s featured in.

With Josie’s beautiful writing, it was so easy to imagine walking through the city with Iris. It was also easy to imagine the famous Belotti vanilla gelato 🤤 I’m not a particular fan of gelato but I swear my mouth watered every time it was mentioned.

I absolutely adored every one of the characters from each member of Gio’s fun-loving family to the wonderful Bobby and Robin and of course the slow burn romance’s dream Iris and Gio 😮‍💨 every single cast member was written perfectly.

While it wasn’t quite a 5 star standout read for me, I certainly have nothing negative to say about it - it was the sweet, heartwarming piece of escapism I didn’t know I needed!

Thank you Penguin & Netgalley for an E-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

After leaving her abusive ex on Christmas day, Iris decides to move to New York to feel closer to her late mother. Whilst wandering the streets of a food festival, she stumbles upon a gelataria that looks very familiar. Inside, she meets Gio, who is suffering from a crisis of his own. The only person who knows their famous vanilla gelato recipe has lost their memory but unbeknownst to him Iris is the one person who can help him she just can't tell him that as the recipe is a sacred family secret. Will she manage to help without breaking their hearts in the process?

This was a good wintery read. Even though it dealt with some heavy topics, it was still so much fun to read. I loved the strong family dynamic and the friendships. I liked how every character had their own story, too. The romance was sweet without too much spice. The only reason it's a 3 star for me is that the end felt too rushed but otherwise I enjoyed this.

Iris runs away to New York to escape her abusive partner, and to visit places that her mother spent her life as a singer in a band . She meets the Belotti family, and her life changes . Brilliant reading for a cold ,wet autumnal day.

A Winter In New York

Iris has moved to New York for a fresh start. She’s alone in the big city with just a couple of friends. Iris flees to New York after a failed relationship to revisit a city than meant so much to her Mum Viv. A chance encounter sees Iris run into Giovanni Belotti…part of the notorious family who run a Gelateria. He needs help figuring out his family’s secret gelato recipe whilst his Uncle recovers from a stroke.
Iris steps in to help him work out the recipe. But Iris has a secret. Before long she has a few of them.
Really loved this story. Two people with two very different lives coming together when they need each other most.
From bereavement to domestic abuse, family dynamics to finding and losing love. A really love Christmas read. 4 stars from me.

This was a lovely story and whilst I’m not a fan of miscommunication (which is a big part of the story all the way through) I still enjoyed it and found the book very readable.
The whole story is told from Iris’s pov, though there are a couple of chapters giving us a glimpse into her mother’s past too. I would have liked to see a couple of chapters from Gio’s pov.

I received an arc from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

Iris' new start in New York looks set to echo the movies she used to watch with her beloved late mother Vivian. Iris knows that her mother was a singer in a band that toured the US and she knows that Vivian was entrusted with a secret gelato recipe because they used to make it all the time, when Iris was growing up. To her surprise, she comes across a familiar looking gelateria while exploring Little Italy with her best friend Bobby. Its facade is in the background of an old photo of her mum. Is this where the gelato recipe comes from? The next day, Iris investigates and meets Gio, who says his family's beloved gelateria is in danger of closing. His uncle Santo is the only one who knows the secret gelato recipe and as he's currently in a coma, they cannot make any more. But Iris can't reveal that she knows the recipe without knowing Santo's connection to her mother and the reasons he gave it to her.

I love a cute Christmas romance and I think this is the first one I've read that features gelato so heavily, so points for originality! Although I loved the family dynamics aspect, I found Iris to be very cookie-cutter and she kept being described as a Zooey Deschanel lookalike. Add to that the fact she sings and she just felt rather generic. Gio was also a pretty generic, handsome Italian guy, devoted to his family and business. I guess their genericness makes them a good match but I definitely wanted a bit more excitement!

There are also a few chapters that flash back to Vivian's time in New York and her involvement with Santo. This all seemed very tragic and I'm not sure I fully understood Vivian's decision to put her career ahead of true love but then, I will never understand people who do this!

Iris is also running from her abusive ex, Adam and I would have really appreciated the threat of him being more prominent. It does amp up towards the end and this thread has a very satisfactory ending but Adam could have added more suspense to keep the pages turning faster. I guess that's not really what readers want from their cosy festive reads though!

I don't think I enjoyed it as much as One Day in December but it was still a fuzzy, cute romance. There is also a cat called Smirnoff, who needed a much bigger role!

Iris Raven arrives in New York City from her home in London. She’s made up her mind to get away from her abusive, manipulative boyfriend. She doesn’t know anyone in New York, but remembers sitting with her mom, eating her mom’s delicious homemade gelato, and listening to her mother’s stories about the time she spent there when she was young. Iris hopes to start a new life and thinks this might be the perfect place to begin again.

With its endearing, likeable characters and real sense of place, this enjoyable novel will hold your attention until the last page!

Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with this ARC!!

After reading One Day in December and One Night on the Island - Josie Silver creates great characters and perfect settings. The New York and Christmas backdrop of her newest book is no different. I loved Iris' friends and the Belotti family that we are introduced to. Iris and Gios relationship is the cherry on top.
I felt the secrets bogged the story down a bit and I was just waiting on the inevitable happening. Won't stop me reading Josie Silver - but just lacked a bit of something something, that the previous 2 novels had in Spades.

I love Josie Silver books, especially one night on the island but this was very slow and dull. It had all the makings to be a perfect book for me but basically nothing happened and I had to keep forcing myself to get to the end. She did touch on some good topics throughout but it just lacked a decent storyline for me.

Josie Silver has such a wonderfully warm way of writing characters that really lends itself to a wintery, Christmassy tale.

Josie Silver always makes me fall in love with her characters. I'm so glad Iris had such lovely friends to support and love her.

Parts of me feel like this could be have been wrapped up quicker. I felt the impending doom of Iris having to tell the truth about her mother, Adam and everything was definitely there and there wasn't that many pages left of the book.

Gio and Iris and their love story make up for it.
Iris finally letting go of her mum's and scattering her ashes was so sad yet beautiful.

Overall I had a great time and I am very thankful to the publisher and netgalley for the opportunity ✨✨

I found it was hugely disjointed.. Iris needed a shake to come clean with her past secret. The secrets concerning her mother and Santo were not her secrets because she only realised some of the history of the connection when she arrived in New York and visited the Gelateria.. it did not flow easily.

The precise moment this book lost me was at 8%, when Iris decided to say "gosh maybe I could try to recreate the recipe" instead of (like a normal person) "look I'm really sorry, I don't know how it happened but my mum appears to have acquired the missing recipe somehow, let me return it". WHO DOES THAT? And suddenly the entire course of the book is revealed (hello final act breakup reason), and Iris becomes extremely unlikeable. There's was just no getting over that moment for me. I know romances run on coincidence and miscommunication but the skill lies in not making them so obvious and annoying that they overwhelm everything else.

This is a lovely read .
Iris escapes to New York a place where her mother had happy memories of. She is also escaping her abusive boyfriend. She arrives not knowing anyone but with a photo album of her mother's. At a food festival she discovers a cafe that she has a photo of....in the photo is her mother and the owner. What is the story behind it? There are some fun characters in this warm hug of a book that I read over a couple of days .

Gorgeous and romantic! I longed for vanilla gelato throughout this story! Great characters, not perfect by any stretch but very likeable. Iris has been hurt in many ways, loss, pain, a loss of control and having to run away to find some peace. She hides away in New York, works, survives but doesn’t really ‘live” until she meets Gio. Gio has a past full of pain himself but can he be part of what helps Iris move on from the life she left. Family secrets, heartfelt moments, passion, pain and drama - this book has it all. Amazing story and excellently written.

This is the second book I have read by this author and I can’t wait to enjoy many more.

The setting, the characters, the individual stories all make this a lovely heart warming read.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.