This is a story that has several common ingredients in successful romances: a return home, an unrequited and now rediscovered young love, a fake romance, family dramas of various kinds. Shake it all up with a Christmas vibe and you'll get this.

And it's by no means a nonsensical and excessive hodgepodge, as it may seem from my item list. Quite the opposite, because each topic happens gradually, in the right time, creating a very romantic story, with little drama and some surprises.

The two protagonists are Liz, the prodigal daughter, who must reluctantly return to her family home, and Cori, the shy and sensitive woman who had a crush on the teenage Liz but was practically invisible to the cool kids at school, including Liz. Liz returns to help out in the family business because of a gallbladder surgery that her mother must have. Since she returned, she has had multiple chance encounters with Cori, who is the owner of a local handicraft store and creator of all kinds of scented candles. Until in one of those situations Liz proposes a fake relationship to Cori, to her surprise and a bit of reluctance as well. Because Cori hasn't stopped feeling that teenage attraction to Liz and now this can't end well in any way.

Good ingredients that have made a good story, including several secondary characters, human and not, all of them important to clarify some situation, the little drama, and a lot of snow.

This was such a cute, wholesome story, with hallmark movie vibes, I adored it! I will definitely be seeking out other books by this author.