A Christmas Wish and a Cranberry Kiss at the Cosy Kettle

Title: A Christmas Wish and a Cranberry Kiss at the Cosy Kettle
Author: Liz Eeles
Genre: Contemporary romance
Intended audience: Adult
Date Read: 30/10/19 – 06/11/19
Rating: ★★☆

Review:

Ah man. I hate being that person. That is, the first person to give a negative review of a book. I just didn’t love this one!

Look, I probably should have checked my review of A Summer Escape and Strawberry Cake at the Cosy Kettle, the second book in this series, before I requested this one. I thought I had given that one four stars, and that this one would be much the same. But actually, it was only a 3-star read for me, and I think I had a lot of the same issues with this one.

It started out well. I found Becca really relatable at first. But her inability to see that Logan was usiing her combined with letting the book club crew walk over her and insist on helping her (“they’re being kind” she says as they push her into something she’s not entirely comfortable with for the fifth time) just made her feel more like a doormat after a while.

Most of the side characters were pretty one dimensional. I ddi mention in my review of the previous book that I thought Stanley was a bit over the top, and that feeling continued in this one. He was pushy, and inserted himself into situations he had no real right to be in. While I understood Becca’s anxieties about her twin sister and thought they were well-written, Jasmine herself was irritating. I guess she was supposed to be a little, though.

A lot of the complications in the second half of the book would be alleviated if the characters just talked to one another. I get that it’s difficult to tell someone you have feelings for them, but a quck “Are you and my sister a couple?” would have helped.

And given that Logan was booking the Cosy Kettle for one night only, it seemed odd that Becca spent a good couple of weeks leading up to his party redecorating the cafe to his requirements.

I feel like such a Grinch giving a feel-good holiday romance a bad review, but I guess at the end of the day I just had too many niggles to really enjoy.

(Thank you to Bookouture for sending a free copy my way in exchange for an honest review)

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Announcement: On Monday I posted the cover reveal and pre-order link for an anthology I am apart of. It contains 8 Christmas stories set in Australia, where 25 December is in the middle of a summer and quite a different experience from what many of you are used to. I’d love it if you checked it out and threw a pre-order our way.

And now to your regularly scheduled WWW post.

It’s time for WWW Wednesday! This blog hop is hosted by Sam over at A World Of Words. Link up with us by commenting on Sam’s post for this week, and just answer the three questions.

What have you recently finished reading?

I absolutely loved The Kingdom by Jess Rothenberg! There were parts that could have been more fleshed out but it totally hooked me so I didn’t mind. Here’s my review.

Next I read Serpent and Dove by Shelby Mahurin, which was really engaging but I had a lot of questions abuot the world-building. Namely how does literal Christianity exist in a made-up fantasy world? My review goes up on Friday.

After that, I read The White Hornet by Celine Jeanjean. This is the fifth book in the Viper and the Urchin series. Celine has been churning new books out this year but somehow always manages to maintain a high standard. Here’s my review.

And finally, I finished the Antics of Evangeline series by reading Evangeline and the Mysterious Lights by Madeline D’Este. I’ll have my reviews for the series up soon.

I’ve also posted reviews of The Dead of Winter by Chris Priestley and Songbird by Ingrid Laguna since my last WWW post. Click the titles to read them.

What are you currently reading?

I’ve started Too Flash by Melissa Lucashenko. This is a YA contemporary and will count towards my 2019 Australian Women Writers Challenge, and my challenge-within-a-challenge to read at least two books by Indigenous Australian women.

Except I forgot to take Too Flash with me t o work today, so I started my ARC of A Christmas Wish and a Cranberry Kiss at the Cosy Kettle by Liz Eeles. I enjoyed the last Cosy Kettle book and I couldn’t resist a Christmas title.

I’m also listening to Circe by Madeline Miller on audio. Audible kept reccomending this to me and I wasn’t in the mood for any audio books so I just picked this up on a whim. But it turns out I’m enjoying it quite a lot.

Last but not least I have finally started A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas. To be honest, I wasn’t intending to read this series but a friend whose opinions I trust said she really enjoyed it and that it was quite different to Throne of Glass (which I DNFed and she didn’t enjoy either). I’m about 20% of the way through, and yeah, got to admit it’s pretty readable.

What do you think you will read next?

.I started the audio book of Illumination by Karen Brooks a while ago and I knew it was just too long and I wasn’t going to get through iit before it was due back, so I’ve got the hard copy now. It is a massive tome with tiny print! But I’ll get there, and it will be nice to finally finish the Curse of the Bond Riders series.