Review: The Christmas Cure
If you like your Christmas romcoms with a dash of time travel and a heavy frosting of family traditions, The Christmas Cure is for you. This new book from Kristine Winters (aka Karma Brown) is exactly what you need if you want your holidays full of fun, light stories that are full of heart.
Here’s the book’s description:
He wasn’t on her Christmas wish list, but he’s just what Santa ordered.
When Libby Munro returns to her hometown of Harmony Hills—a holiday-obsessed village that feels like stepping into a Christmas card—she’s longing for an escape. A respite from her hectic job as a big-city emergency room doctor, and a change of scenery after a painful break-up. Maybe Harmony Hills’s festive charm will help her rediscover the holiday spirit.
What she doesn’t expect is Liam, the dreamy, green-eyed owner of the local bakery, whose smile rivals the glow of the town’s legendary Christmas tree. Or a run-in with Liam’s excitable pot-bellied pig, Mary Piggins, at the rumoured-to-be-magical tree-lighting ceremony. Libby’s knocked unconscious in the chaos and wakes up to find herself thrust into the specifically, to Christmastime, one year ago.
As she relives last Christmas, Libby begins to wonder if this is a second chance to change her life. With every snowflake-filled moment, the undeniable spark between her and Liam grows brighter. But if she’s going to rewrite her future, she’ll need to figure out what changes the past is asking her to make—and whether she’s ready to embrace the pull of home, and the promise of true love.
If you’re not a fan of time slip or time loop novels, put The Christmas Cure down. I thought it was delightful but I’m into a bit of holiday magic. It’s not for everyone so know yourself and don’t read something you know isn’t for you. I’m glad this was more of a time slip than a loop because it meant the story didn’t feel repetitive at all. I do think there should have been a little more explanation or time spent on the story after Libby comes back to the present. It all seemed a little rushed at the end.
I recently heard Winters talk about the book and how holiday romcoms are the only kinds of romances she’d write because she loves how the Christmas season lends itself so well to a romantic romp. She loves the food and the traditions (two things she really nails in this book) and noted that Christmas amplifies everything that would typically happen in a romcom. I’m glad I got to hear her discuss the book before reading it because it made my reading experience so much better.
During that same talk, Winters also talked about how she had written a book years ago that never sold and decided to try to rework it into a holiday romcom. The Christmas Cure is the result. I love that I got that insight! I’d be interested to know if it just worked better as a holiday novel or if the market has changed. Or maybe it’s that Winters is a stronger writer now than she was before. The reader and marketer in me is so curious!
Liam is pretty much the perfect guy. (Winters knows this and purposely wrote him as such.) He’s essentially a walking green flag, which is even more delightful to read when he’s a hero of a holiday romance. We don’t need any problematic character traits when we’re trimming the tree and stuffing ourselves full of cookies. It was too funny that basically the only thing Libby could find wrong with him was his choice of breakfast foods. I don’t think it would have worked for me in any other romance but a holiday one? I totally fell for Liam!
Libby, on the other hand, was a little less perfect but she was a perfect heroine. The story is more about her trying to figure out what’s in her heart than her giving her heart away to a man. She’s at a crossroads - she’d just been dumped (by a man with SO MANY red flags) and her job isn’t fulfilling her like it used to. The perfect set up for a Christmas book! I liked that Libby was open to spending time at home even when she initially wanted to resist it. I get it. It can be hard to go back to your (small) hometown. She realized, though, what she had been missing and was able to look at Harmony Hills through fresh eyes (helped by Liam, naturally). Being with her family really helped her discover what her next step needed to be. And as much as I love a Happily Ever After, I was rooting more for her to figure out what she wanted outside of a romantic relationship. She deserved all the good things.
I had a lot of fun reading The Christmas Cure by Kristine Winters. I swooned over Liam, rooted for Libby, and was full of festive cheer from start to finish. If you’re looking for a holiday rom com to add to your list, consider this one!
*An ARC and an egalley were provided by the publisher, Simon & Schuster Canada, in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*