This was not what I expected. I liked that it was set in Liverpool rather than London, which gave it a fresh look, but underneath it was a surprisingly mundane sort of romance, unfortunately.

Lily is cursed. When she touches someone she gets a vision and it is usually a terrible one. As such she had learned to stay away from people, which means that she has a lot of sarcasm (which is nice) but she also makes the same bad decisions in her mid-twenties as any teenager would (not so nice). She also turns out to be a Goddess, and probably has a very important role in something important I guess, because she is being prepared for a choice which is hardly a choice throughout the entire book.

I had the feeling there was an entire world behind the story, but we just didn't get to see it. Instead we were focusing on the maybe-or-maybe-not relationship between Lily and Gabriel. With some vampires thrown in for good measure. I would have liked to know more about the world and the whys, because now if felt mainly like a romance novel and that is not something I would pick up as easily.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Apparently I am 0 for 2 for Christmas romance reads this year. Geez. 

Well this was disappointing. I found book #1 a solid romance so I bought book #2. The second book in the series focuses on Laura's younger sister Becca. We have heard from Laura that Becca drinks, does drugs, and has all kinds of sex with totally wrong men, but loves her life. Becca goes and visits her sister and her family for the Christmas break to see how they are settling in and to meet her sister's new boyfriend. The big problem is that Becca hates Christmas. She also hates too much togetherness as well. We find out why Becca is this way, but honestly I wanted to tell her to grow the hell up so many times while reading I am not even getting into her backstory (which I totally called by the way).

Becca is not that interesting to follow in this book. We find out that she has been on a diet that does not include men, drinking, drugs, etc. since her sister fell apart two years ago after her husband died. That apparently means that Becca is not much fun at all these days. Though her sister still tries to set her up with someone, Becca is resistant, until she's not. Honestly, there was no real tension in this book. Reading about Becca constantly turning down the character of Sam was boring. Heck it gets even worse when they finally get together. I wish that we had Becca talking to her sister and even her mother in this one. She shares all of her secrets with Sam and another resident and it didn't feel real at all after what Johnson shows us of this character. 

The writing was eh. Due to Becca not being a central part to the story, she feels removed from other characters we heard about in book #1. I would have expected more of Becca playing and hanging out with her niece and nephew, or staying up all night talking to her sister. They all barely interact in this one. 

The flow wasn't great. The story felt rushed (it was only 209 pages) so the get together of the hero/heroine came way too early and didn't feel earned. 

The setting could have been perfect if the Christmas aspect had been played up more I think. Instead I found myself rushing to finish this thing.

The ending made me roll my eyes. No spoiler, but come on. It was totally obvious where this was going to go. Going to skip reading any more books in this series. I think I would just end up irritated. 

Keeping this fairly short since I liked this book and did not care for the sequel at all. I liked the main character (Laura) taking her children away for the summer in order for the family to do some real healing two years after the death of her husband. Laura had been in love with her husband since they were children, and after a freak accident doesn't know how she and their family will survive without him. She takes a job at a place called the "Comfort Food Cafe". She meets some new people and happily starts to find a place for herself and her children.

So, I know a lot of romance readers do not like romance novels that have a widowed husband/wife. I don't mind this one probably because the dead husband sounded great and felt real to me as I was reading. I didn't get the idea that Laura was trying to replace him at all. And her kids still thought of him as well, but did want their mom to start to move on and be how she used to be before their dad died. 

Laura felt like a very developed character and I got a great sense of her daughter, not that much of her son though. I also like Laura's love interest, though I wish we had gotten some more details about him than we get. 

The food that Laura makes for certain customers had cute backstories to them. I do wish that we would have gotten recipes for certain things though. I don't know why when a romance novel revolves around food or baking they don't include recipes. That's my favorite thing to do is to read a recipe from a book and try it out. 

The writing was okay and I thought this was a very solid romance novel. 

A fairly short not typical Christmas romance book. I was a bit disappointed with this one. The main character in this one is Laura's younger sister Becca. Becca hates Christmas and is going along to visit her sister and her family during the holiday cause she knows how important it is to them. We get some insight into why Becca feels the way she does, but honestly I felt over her about halfway through the book and just didn't gel with her or the hero on this book. Also this book didn't read as a Christmas book and it drove me up the wall. 

A cute romance book about finding love again. A really good second chance romance. I think some of the secondary characters could be a bit more developed, but I enjoyed the main character Laura. Takes place in England which I always love as a setting in a romance book.