The Christmas Concierge
by Beth Kendrick
Release Date: October 5, 2022
Publisher: Tule Publishing
Number of pages: 201
Source: ARC from the publisher
Contemporary Romance/Holidays
Ages 13 and up
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Christmas concierge Holiday Smith, known as “the Wish Granter,” procures impossible-to-find gifts for her elite clients. But after years of granting everyone’s wishes but her own, she promises her family that this year she’ll finally make it home for Christmas. Just one tiny glitch: a favorite elderly client begs Holiday to set up her grown granddaughter on a blind date with her old high school crush, tech-world escapee Alex Sappier…who’s somewhere off the coast of Maine.
Famously private, Alex flatly refuses a date with an old classmate he doesn’t even remember. And there’s nothing this beautiful stranger can do to persuade him. Unless…she’d be willing to cast her wish-making magic on his own Christmas family crisis?
Holiday has less than a week to rescue Alex’s family’s Christmas, arrange a Grinch-defying Christmas Eve blind date, and get herself home before a blizzard closes the roads—or worse, before they give in to the growing attraction between them.
As Holiday teams up with exactly the right man at exactly the wrong time, can she find a way to make her own wish for love come true this Christmas?
Holiday has an interesting name and an interesting career. Her job alone makes this a compelling story. This book would make a perfect Hallmark holiday movie, and I mean that in a good way. It takes place in a matter of days and it’s a bit like a scavenger hunt, going from place to place and trading in one favor for another until Holiday and her clients get what they need.
Alex is a wonderful guy whom we are led to believe has had some tough breaks when it comes to love. That was my main issue with this story. Not that his past relationship was smooth sailing, but it was a bit of a letdown when the story comes out. It felt as though the level to which that breakup affected Alex didn’t correlate to what his feelings were for the woman. Therefore, his hangups didn’t make a lot of sense to me.
There was a lot of sweet falling in love in this story, yet I didn’t get those sought-after warm fuzzies until Alex showed up for the fateful date Holiday was hired to set him up on, which was in the last few chapters. Once those butterflies showed up, they added on and on and on so it was worth the wait.
The town of Alemeda Island is quaint and I’d love to read more stories taking place here, especially if they involve Holiday’s new friends we met in this story. I feel there is a lot of fun to be had here.
3.5 stars
**I received an ARC of this book courtesy of the publisher. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and given freely**
All In Good Time 