Christmas with a Crank

Title: Christmas with a Crank

Author: Courtney Walsh

Publisher: Sweethaven Press

Genre: Christmas, Contemporary Romance,

Source: Hoopla/Kindle Unlimited

My Review:

I started listening to this book on Hoopla, but it was returned, and I couldn't check it out again. The narrators were fine. I ended up checking the book out from Kindle Unlimited to finish it.

Being set on a Christmas tree farm, this has all the Christmas vibes. I struggled to connect with or relate to the characters, which affected my overall enjoyment of the book. 

Read for:

🎄grumpy/sunshine

🎄Christmas tree farm

🎄family traditions

🎄second chance romance

🎄saving the farm

This is not Courtney Walsh's best Christmas book. I liked it, but I didn't love it. It dragged in parts and felt too long. The last part of the book was the best, but it took a while to get there.

★★★/3

  

Book 15 Christmas Reading Challenge

Book 7 #2025HoHoHoRAT

Synopsis (Goodreads):  

A second chance with your first crush.

Doesn’t happen often.

For Liam Fisher, that first crush was his next door neighbor, Olive Witherby.

Childhood was lazy summers, treehouse stargazing, and endless games of hide and seek at Pine Creek, the Christmas tree farm that’s been in Liam’s family for generations.

When Liam moves away, he and Olive say goodbye the only way they know how—with a fumbling first kiss neither of them will ever forget.

Even though twelve-year olds’ promises of keeping in touch feel eternal, time and distance eventually make Olive and Liam practically strangers.

Twenty years later, Liam’s parents announce they’re retiring and selling the tree farm.

Twenty years later, Pine Creek is the last place grown-up Liam wants to be. Inherit this legacy? Not on your life.

And twenty years later, grown-up Olive is stuck.

Her work life is a lot like her love life—floundering. After a humiliating business failure, loads of debt, and one too many laughable first dates, she’s in no hurry to put herself out there again, in business or in romance.

When Olive is hired by Liam’s parents to rekindle the lost magic of the farm one final time before it’s sold, she sets out to make this the last, best Pine Creek Christmas, for the town and for a very cranky, not-so-talkative, surprisingly attractive Liam.

Part of her mission? Convince the crank to fall in love with Christmas.

The other part? Not fall head over heels in the process.

Christmas With a Crank is a grumpy/sunshine, childhood crush, opposites attract romance with plenty of sizzle but none of the steam.