Ahh ’tis the season! As I’m writing this I’m in the coziest pajamas I own, with freshly fallen snow on the ground (not nearly as much as they said we’d get but I’ll take it), a cup of cocoa next to me, two blankets on me and the strongest vibes to read all the Christmas romance books!
It seriously does wonders to my soul in December to consume all the Christmas movies and Christmas themed romances — ESPECIALLY in these times. A steady diet of Christmas romcoms and cozy Christmas romance novels is the perfect way to close out this year and it definitely is one of my ways to enjoy winter.
So prepare your future reading list and don your coziest apparel and let me tell you about 11 Christmas romance books to add to your list!
ALSO please tell me the best Christmas romances to read that I might not have gotten to yet!
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links which means that if you click on a link and purchase something I’ve talked about or recommended, I’ll receive a very small percentage of the sale. Please see my disclosure policy for more info.
A Little Tip…
Below you’ll see Bookshop.org mentioned. Bookshop.org is a fantastic place to buy books online that supports local bookstores. If you are looking to shop small when it comes to your books, I personally buy my books from here (when I can’t shop in person) and highly recommend! Local bookstores are the heart of communities and Bookshop.org makes it SUPER easy to support them.
16 Christmas Romance Novels To Read in 2024
New Releases For 2024
Looking for newer Christmas romance books to read? Here are some newly published and upcoming festive romances and rom-coms to read this year if you feel like you’ve already read most of the ones you see recommended.
My Christmas reading pile is huge considering how many new Christmas related romances are coming out this year.
The Christmas Countdown by Holly Cassidy
Read it if you want: LOTS of Christmas cheer & festivities, Hallmark feel good vibes, a grumpy/sunshine pair, a Christmas challenge/game aspect, closed door romance
If you like your Christmas romances heavy on the Christmas cheer and activities of the holiday season, this one is for you.
What it’s about: Still down in the dumps from being dumped by her childhood sweetheart, Callie is officially hibernating for Christmas (and life).
Her sister intervenes and cooks up a homemade Advent Calendar challenge inspired by a childhood tradition — full of gifts as well as festive tasks — to help snap her out of her Scrooge mode at home and get her feeling more positive about life again.
As she reluctantly plays along on her sister’s challenge for her, she finds herself trading bah-humbug for more cheer — especially when she meets a cheerful baker who helps her out along the way.
Out October 22, 2024 from G.P. Putnam’s Sons.
All I Want Is You by Falon Ballard
Read it if you want: exes (and professional rivals) snowed in together at Christmas-time
I love Falon Ballard’s romances so I was so excited to see she was coming out with a Christmas-time romance featuring exes who are romance writing rivals and (my favorite) forced proximity, only-one-bed goodness during a snowstorm!!
Better yet — they are both in writing slumps and realize that channeling their own personal frustrations/tension might be the cure to ridding them both of it. *fans self*
Kiss Me At Christmas by Jenny Bayliss
Read it if you want: a romance revolving around a rag-tag cast of characters putting on a derelict theater’s last Christmas production
I couldn’t get enough of The Twelve Dates of Christmas a few years ago and this one sounds so fun!
What it’s about: It’s about a divorced mom feeling pretty blah about Christmas when her college-aged daughter decides to spend her holiday away from home.
Her holiday season turns unexpected after a one-night stand and a trip to the police station after she takes the fall for a group of her students breaking into a derelict theater.
Her penance to the owner is to help clean up the theater and help put on what will be the theater’s last production ever — A Christmas Carol.
And just who is the lawyer the theater owner has involved in this agreement and overseeing it? The very man she had a one night stand with.
Out now from G.P. Putnam’s Sons.
The Merriest Misters by Timothy Janovsky
Read it if you want: something with The Santa Clause vibes on the outside but deeper on the inside plus a marriage in peril romance
The Santa Clause with Tim Allen was a staple as a kid and I still find it being one of my comfort Christmas movies and this book is giving the fun that movie brings to Christmas but with a gay married couple whose marriage is straining under the weight of life and being married.
What it’s about: A couple, barely keeping their marriage together in its first year, find a new challenge on Christmas Eve: having to save Christmas after one of them knocks out an intruder who happens to be Santa Claus.
It doesn’t end there — they must assume their roles as Santa and his Merriest Mister or else Christmas is cancelled forever. They decide to stay together – if only to save Christmas – for the next year to fulfill the duty but it might take a Christmas miracle for their relationship to survive.
Out October 1 from St. Martin’s Press.
The Christmas Crush by Noelle Douglas
Read it if you want: a Christmas romance that will having you want fresh baked cookies
I was already adding this book to my list because this Christmas rom-com looks exactly like all the things I love in them — small town setting, a cookie competition (!!), an enemies to-lover- thing going on between a small town baker and a woman who works for a big cookie chain that is now the bane of his existence.
BUT THEN? I saw the small town setting is none other than the charming town that is 15 minutes from where I grew up (and still go to even though now I’m a little further away) and the exact town our wedding reception was in.
I’m not saying I’m at an advantage reading this but I kind of am because I can envision this town so vividly from the cute Christmas train I’ve taken Riley on and all the shops/eateries that line the downtown and the picturesque view of the river. It ooooozes charm any time of year but definitely at Christmas.
Out October 1 from St. Martin’s Press.
The Merry Matchmaker by Sheila Roberts
Read it if you want: a Hallmark-worthy heartwarming & fun Christmas romance inspired by Jane Austen’s Emma
I love meddling characters whose meddling goes awry like this character, a widow and holiday shop owner, who loves to meddle in everyone else’s love life and make attempts at matchmaking — all while ignoring her own love life. That is until this holiday season when things go awry around her and she has to look inward for once.
The main character is in her 50’s which I find so refreshing as it’s harder to find books to recommend that feature a character of a more mature age than what is currently the trend in publishing.
Out October 1 from MIRA.
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The Christmas You Found Me by Sarah Morgenthaler
Read it if you want: a heartfelt & emotional marriage of convenience romance with a small ranch town setting at Christmas-time
This Idaho-set romance is about a divorced rancher who enters in a marriage of convenience all thanks to a “husband for hire” ad a friend put up as a joke for her. But a man does respond as a serious inquiry — a man whose 4 year old daughter is in kidney failure and who desperately is fighting to help her.
Honestly what a perfect plot for marriage of convenience but bring tissues!
Out October 1 from MIRA.
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A Winter Wish by Emily Stone
Read it if you want: a holiday read (not necessarily just Christmas) that will have you armchair traveling
Emily Stone has become one of my staples when it comes to delivering me with holiday reading in December! They tend to have some sort of emotional thread running throughout them than being your more holiday rom-com type read though this one seems like it might be a little less emotional than her others. Though it does look like it deals with grief and forgiveness so who knows!
This one is about a woman who finds out that her estranged father has passed away and comes into an unexpected inheritance — half of the holiday travel company he owns. The travel company specializes in giving you a travel experience focused on other cultures during different holidays.
The will stipulates that she must run it for a year with the mentee & young executive he left the other half to before they can decide what the fate of the company will be.
There’s some enemies to lovers vibes going on with these two opposites who don’t have the same vision.
Out October 15 from Dell.
My Top Christmas Romance Recommendations
These are the ones I loved the most and am always recommending when people are looking for some Christmas-y romances for the season. I really enjoyed all of these so feel free to ask questions or let me know what you thought!
The Twelve Dates of Christmas by Jenny Bayliss
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
The Christmas Wish by Lindsey Kelk
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.
A Cosy Christmas In Cornwall by Jane Linfoot
Ivy, a lover of Christmas, has been hired to make a Cornish castle rental be super festive and ultra Instagrammable for a client.
When she arrives early to start the decorating, she finds two things in the way of succeeding in this task: she basically got castle catfished as it doesn’t look at all like the pictures and the owner of it is a (grumpy) crush from her past.
Perfect for: fans of cozy settings, lovers of grumpy male leads, people who love a great secondary cast of characters, readers who want a sweet and heartwarming book
10 Blind Dates by Ashley Elston
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)
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Want to make the holidays even better?
One of the ways I find extra time to read as a busy mom is through audiobooks via my Libro.FM subscription (the Audible alternative you really need to know about). I love listening to Christmas romances like these while I wrap gifts and drive from store to store shopping. Check out my review of LibroFM.
A Princess for Christmas by Jenny Holiday
You’ll be content prying yourself away from the Hallmark channel for this one, I promise.
When cab driver and guardian to his little sister, Leo, stops to help a woman nothing will prepare him for the fact that a real life princess will be sitting in his cab and is in need of his help for the rest of her help in her quest to prove herself as the fate of her small country is on her shoulders. And little did either of them know that maybe they could be what each other needs.
Perfect for: lovers of Hallmark Christmas movies, people who want their Hallmark Christmas movies with a little more sex, fans of fictional royalty and romances featuring royalty and a regular guy, lovers of wonderfully cheesy (in the best way) romances
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Duke, Actually by Jenny Holiday
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.
Kiss Her Once For Me by Alison Cochrun
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.
In A Holidaze by Christina Lauren
I can always count on my fave romance/romcom duo of Christina Lauren to make my heart happy and this one did the trick for me in a escapist holiday read. I will be honest — it was a little disappointing in any explanation of the time loop so beware if that will bother you.
Life for Maelyn has been messy and disappointing lately and, when on her long time traditional holiday cabin trip with her family and two other families, things get a bit messier romantically AND she gets the blow that this will probably be the last year this trip happens.
Super upset on her drive away from this cabin for the last time, she pleads with the universe to share her what will make her happy.
Next thing she knows a car accident happens and everything goes black — and she wakes up on the plane to start the holiday over. And over. And over. And over again. Playing out the same trip wondering which outcome will get her out of this loop.
Perfect for: lovers of Groundhog Day-esque setups, rom-com seekers, friends to lovers fans
The Holiday Swap by Maggie Knox
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,
One Last Gift by Emily Stone
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.
Meet Me In London by Georgia Toffolo
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
In The Event of Love by Courtney Kae
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.
Love, Holly by Emily Stone
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.
Once Upon A December by Amy E. Reichert
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?
Last Year’s Standouts (Newer Recommendations)
A Winter In New York by Josie Silver
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.
The Christmas Orphans Club by Becca Freeman
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.
Three Holidays and a Wedding by Uzma Jalaluddin and Marissa Stapley
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.
Wrapped with A Beau by Lillie Vale
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!
Faking Christmas by Kerry Winfrey
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.
Wreck the Halls by Tessa Bailey
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!
Snowed in For Christmas by Jaqueline Snowe
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.
Emergency Contact by Lauren Layne
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.
P.S. Check out some new romance reads for this year or perhaps you want the winter vibes but a complete about face from romance with some wintry thrillers! Or maybe you need to deck the halls with Christmas decorations for book lovers.
So let me know…what are some of your fave romance or rom com books set during Christmas, Christmas-themed romances or just any romances that feeling particularly wintry.
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