11 Christmas Romance Books To Curl Up With This Year

Dating hijinx set at Christmas-time in this rom-com when a woman, down on her luck in that department, gets suckered into a dating agency that promises LOVE before Christmas in the form of 12 dates with 12 different men. 

Perfect for: fans of small town set romances with nosy neighbors (a la Lorelei in Stars Hollow but British village), lovers of banter in their rom-coms, cute & cozy books

Perfect if you like: Groundhog Day-esque plots (especially if you enjoyed the plot of In A Holidaze), books in the Bridget Jones vein or Sophie Kinsella’s work, second chance romances/ the boy-next-door trope, books that are more contemporary fiction with a heap of romance, dysfunctional family sideplots

Family shenanigans & meddling + a Christmas wish made by a family member has the newly single main character waking up to relive Christmas Day over and over again.

As she tries to figure out what she needs to do to get out of this cycle, she sees a way to use this time to make her family member’s wishes come true. Not to mention she enjoys spending time the guy next door who could be her second chance at love.

One of my FAVORITE romances set around Christmas-time: this book is an absolute DELIGHT.

When Sophie gets dumped by her boyfriend, she flees to the refuge of her grandparents house and gets to spend her Christmas break with her HUGE (super fun and nosy) family that live nearby too.

Wanting to help her with her heartbreak, they create a competition in which each of them set her up on a blind date with 10 different guys.

Absolute fun dating shenanigans in this smile-inducing YA rom com that will make you want to be a part of this fictional family. 

Perfect for: Lovers of cute and funny YA books, readers who are looking for books featuring close knit families you will fall want to adopt you, readers looking for a sweet kind of romance (aka not remotely on the steamy side)

Perfect for: readers who are looking for a heartwarming contemporary Christmas romance, lovers of royal related romances, fans of A Princess For Christmas, readers who appreciate a slow burn friends to lover romances, Hallmark Christmas lovers that want a bit of added steam

This one is a followup to last year’s Christmas romcom A Princess For Christmas and is about Leo’s bff Dani. You don’t have to read that one to enjoy this one but you’ll be familiar with the characters and have more context if you do.

Maximillian von Hansburg is being pressured, by his father, to find a suitable bride before he inherits the title he feels like will trap him. Sent to New York to meet a potential bride, he ditches his responsibilities and shows up at the doorstep of the woman who is the Best Woman in the Eldovian wedding he’s the Man of Honor in to get to know her better.

Dani is newly single and swearing off men, especially a rake like Max, which is a perfect match for Max who is looking to escape life and seek a distraction also. As they form a friendship and their bond deepens, this shouldn’t-happen romance finds a spark.

Check it out if you like: second chance romances, queer romcoms, the fake-dating trope (but with a twist!), heart-warming romcoms

This one is about a woman who fakes an engagement of convenience with her landlord to help him get his inheritance (and her to get a nice chunk of change for doing so) only to find out that his sister is the woman she fell for last Christmas Eve after their meet cute and never saw again.

A holiday-themed romantic comedy about identical twins who switch lives, thanks to a work related disaster, in the days leading up to Christmas.

One heads off to keep a cooking show alive while the other makes their way home to run the family business. It’s a tough act to keep themselves straight especially when they both experience some romantic feelings.

Perfect for: romcom lovers, fans of twin swap plots a la Parent Trap or The Princess Switch,

Check it out if you like: a good cry, scavenger hunts, this author’s book ALWAYS IN DECEMBER, slow burn romances, the movie P.S. I Love You, a book with romance but also that life-affirming women’s fiction type story, friends to lovers romances

This one would make a great book club book for the holidays!

Cassie feels the weight of loneliness and grief this year at the holidays after the recent and tragic passing of her brother. She and her brother have relied on each other, and the found family they chose, since becoming orphans at a young age.

And then an envelope arrives with Tom’s handwriting and she knows it’s the first clue in the yearly scavenger hunt he puts on for her every year at Christmas and this one he’d been boasting about as the best one yet.

This last bittersweet gift from her brother sets her off on a journey of a lifetime of traveling and reconnecting with friends, herself and an old love that had drifted away and who also happened to be Tom’s best friend and a huge part of Cassie’s life years before.

An aspiring fashion designer and the son of a high end department store mogul, in need of a girlfriend to satisfy his family’s pressuring, come to an agreement on a faux relationship for his story’s grand opening in exchange for a spotlight on her work. This temporary business arrangement is in jeopardy when sparks fly and neither one of them have room in their life for something real.

Perfect for: readers looking for a book that has minimal Christmas aspects (more so just set around Christmas-time than about Christmas), fans of fake engagements, readers who will be smitten with the London Christmas-time backdrop, readers who won’t shy away from some tough issues alongside the sweet romance aspect

Check it out if you like: steamy slow burn romances, second chance & friends-to-lovers tropes, books by Casey McQuiston, Alexandria Bellefleur or Ashley Herring Blake’s romances, queer romances, small-town Hallmark Christmas movie vibes, towns that feel a little like Stars Hollow

A tabloid blowup sends event planner Morgan Ross back home to her small town for a strategic retreat to regroup over the Christmas holiday and fix her image by throwing an event to save a local business.

Shortly into her return home she is forced to confront her former best friend and first love, Rachel, who also happens to be running the Christmas tree farm that the town and Morgan’s event will aim to save against greedy developers.

Heartache and lingering feelings must be put aside to throw this important event to save Rachel’s Christmas tree farm, her career and the small town she loves so much.

Perfect if you like: Christmas romances with more emotional elements (if you’ve read her other books you know), family dramas

Oh this one really was amongst my holiday favorites last year! Ooh still get a little teary.

The last few Christmases, now estranged from her family after a horrible & tragic accident, have been very lonely for Holly — with the exception of the one bright light to the season which is the anonymous letter writing/pen-pal club she joined and connects with other lonely strangers via letter every December.

This year the letter she receives from an older woman, who shares in a grief she knows well, mentions a location she is very familiar with and this connection makes her want to seek out the sender of the letter outside of the letters and maybe even help her reunite with her estranged grandson.

When she does track down the grandson, Jack, she realizes they met once and had a crazy connection — on the very night of the accident that changed everything for her.

Check it out if you like: books with a touch of magic, sweet romances more than spicy, Christmas markets, romances featuring 30-somethings, star-crossed lovers, sweet & heartwarming books, Hallmark Christmas movies

warning: have pastries nearby reading this!!

Newly divorced Astra makes her yearly trip to the Milwaukee Christmas market determined to have a great time with her friends shopping and eating and, once she’s there, adding flirt with the cute baker she meets.

What she doesn’t know is that she’s met this cute baker, Jack, several times before at his family bakery but magic prevents her from remembering him — though she does always feel an inkling of familiarity with him.

Jack lives inside Julemarked — a magical Christmas alley that defies time and where it’s always December even after it disappears from one location and pops up at the next.

The two fall for one another after spending some time together but can they be with each other given they live in parallel worlds?

Perfect if you like: winter in New York vibes, a pretty slow-burn romance, heart-warming books, family secrets, foodie-centric, something wintry but not exclusively Christmas-centric

Iris, a chef, comes to New York looking for a fresh start from her abusive ex and the death of her late mother who had a special connection to New York.

She stumbles upon a family-owned gelato shop that her mom visited decades ago and has seen in photographs and finds out, from the handsome owner, that it’s in danger of closing as his uncle forgot the secret family recipe after he had a stroke.

After tasting the gelato she realizes she just might have the key as it tastes EXACTLY like the gelato she makes — a recipe she knows his uncle must have given her mother but she doesn’t know why.

She decides to help him by offering her chef talents to recreate the recipe but without letting on to the fact she knows the secret recipe in order to not dredge up family drama and old secrets with this man who just could be something more in her life.

Perfect if you like: found family, friendship stories, holiday traditions, non-linear stories, fans of Friends/other “friend group” shows, Christmas in New York

This was being billed as a rom-com and I don’t want you to miss this one because it’s a fantastic Christmas read about found family/friendships with a good dose of a romance. BUT I wouldn’t say it’s truly a rom-com or romance.

IT IS fantastic though and I think lovers of Christmas rom-coms will dig it for sure because the romantic plots in it are fantastic.

It’s about four friends who came together and created a tradition of spending Christmas together for many years as they — for their own reasons — don’t spend Christmas with their families.

Their holiday adventures are sacred even as they’ve gotten older. But now the tradition is about to be upended when one of them announces a big life change.

The non-linear storytelling really works as we learn the ins and outs of this group and experience their traditions together as well as the drama throughout the years and obviously in the present with a huge change upending the tradition.

As someone who has had a hard time with Christmas traditions after losing my mom (at least until Riley was born), this book was such a great look at unconventional Christmas traditions and found family.

Perfect if you like: holiday romances that include but aren’t just about Christmas, snowy settings (Canada in winter but also the most atmospheric small town during the holidays!), experiencing all sorts of different traditions and cultural celebrations

Why limit your holiday cheer (and chaos) to just Christmas?? Add in two other winter holidays and a wedding for good measure! This is a fantastic holiday romance that includes Christmas but also Hanukkah and Ramadan (oh and a holiday-set wedding).

Get ready to land in the small town of Snow Falls with two strangers and seatmates flying to Toronto — one for a wedding, one to meet her boyfriend’s family — as the two women and a bridal party get detoured there thanks to an emergency landing. All this after the two women start dishing their secrets and hopes and fears during their scary and turbulent plane ride.

Once their truest feelings have been uttered and they set foot in this small town — some unexpected things start to happen during the holiday season in both of their love lives showing them that just maybe this unplanned detour is exactly right where they needed to be.

Sweet, light and heart-warming! Super fun if your vibe is Hallmark movie but you want more diversity! The town gave me Stars Hollow vibes.

Perfect if you like: small town romances, slow burn romances, grumpy/sunshine vibes

Elisha Rowe will do whatever it takes to get her small town back on the map with a sequel to a beloved holiday classic movie that was shot in her hometown fifty years ago. Including getting her late friend Maeve’s historic house to be featured again as the Christmas House in the film.

There’s only one problem — she has to convince the new owner, Maeve’s great nephew, to get on board especially considering she already gave the green light for the house to be available for filming.

But Ves wants nothing to do with it — he’s only in town to sell the house and get back to his life quickly and he also particularly doesn’t love the holidays.

But Elisha isn’t someone who gives up quickly and takes on the challenge to get him on board.

Add in a fake dating plot and some no strings attached fun turned something more? You got yourself a fun Christmas rom-com!

Perfect if you like: fake dating (well husband) plots, snowed in romances, enemies to lovers romances, rom-coms

If you like faux dating/marriage plots — the main character of this one fakes a whole husband (with her nemesis), kids and ownership of a local farm (that’s really her twin sister’s).

A misunderstanding makes her boss think she actually owns her twin sister’s farm (she only does the social media for it) and doesn’t think it’s a big deal to correct — that is until her boss, after getting dumped by his wife before the holidays, invites himself over for the big holiday dinner at the farm that he thinks SHE owns.

No problem though, right? She can just pretend to not be her hot mess self and turn into her cozy home-maker sister complete with a fake family for the duration of the dinner festivities.

Posing as impressive hostess for her boss proves to be difficult especially when her fake husband is her nemesis from her sister’s wedding and a snowstorm makes the festivities last a whole lot longer than intended.

Perfect if you like: something spicier than most cute holiday/Christmas romances, rom-coms, family drama

A fun Christmas-time romance about the two adult children of two former rock stars who must team up to convince their now estranged mothers to play a Christmas Eve concert after 30 years since the duo’s very public split.

The famous duo’s music has become popular again and the people want a reunion — something a reality tv producer desperately wants to make happen with the children at the helm for this reality special reunion.

Both Melody and Beat — who haven’t seen each other since they were 16 — reluctantly want to do it for their own reasons (money to name one!) despite it being outside of their comfort zone but they know reuniting the two women is a tall order!

Less Christmas-y than some others on this list and more “set amidst the backdrop of Christmas” — still a great Christmas-time read!

Perfect if you like: snowed-in shenanigans, steamy/spicy Christmas romances, grumpy/sunshine romances

Becca Fairfield is excited for the school holiday as a sorority house mom — a break from her duties being House Mom to the young women but also plenty of hot cocoa, books and cozy alone time.

But when a HUGE blizzard cuts off power, in order to stay warm she must stay with her grumpy neighbor who has a fireplace — a football coach who ghosted her two years ago after what she thought was a great date and connection and who she now has a fairly strained and awkward relationship with.

Perfect if you like: rom-coms, second chance romances, Christmas romances with no spice, travels gone hilariously awry, forced proximity

Bad enough to get a concussion before the holidays but our main character, an ambitious NYC attorney named Katherine, gets one and has to be monitored for 48 hours.

Having forgotten to change her emergency contact, the person that gets called is her ex-husband and they both reluctantly agree, with nowhere else for Katherine to go, to travel with Tom to his family in Chicago for the holidays where he plans to propose to his new girlfriend. (Just let me take the chances and be concussed alone, amirite?).

A blizzard turns a quick plane ride into quite the misadventure to get them to Chicago and old, complicated feelings start to stir between the exes.