Christmas Eve book review

I knew as soon as Emma announced this book that I needed to try and read it this festive season. From what I heard her say I knew that I would love it and didn’t want to have to wait a year to read it even if that meant rejigging my festive TBR.

Christmas Eve follows Emma Smith follows Eve who feels like everyone is leaving her behind in life until Toby, her childhood crush, asks if she would like to be involved in a speed dating event for the elderly at Mistletoe Square, the home her Nanny lives at, offering her the ideal thing to set her mind to.

I knew from page 1 that I was going to have a great time with this book. I was invested in Eve as a character and really was just enjoying the story.

Eve was a character I felt that I could really understand. I could understand who she was and why she felt the way that she did with how everyone was acting. I really wanted the best possible outcome for her and for things overall to just feel that bit better.

I would have liked to get to know Toby a bit better I do think however with the length of the book the level of detail does make sense. Toby was a character who really interested me and someone who felt like a real boy you could come across at a British high school. This is something in 2024 I really found within Emma’s books she is really good at creating characters who feel really real and true to the setting of the book, I always feel like I could come across someone like them in the environment in real life and I feel like the genre Emma normally writes that this is a real positive.

This was a romance I supported and was interested in from early on. I could see how well Eve and Toby worked together and while I did want them to get together I also feel the development of their romance was right for them.

Something really heartwarming about this book was that it wasn’t just really about Eve’s romance, we instead followed three different generations of women and their romances. Whether they are smooth running, have a hiccup or two, or not work out, it was really special to read about all three at once and loved it.

This book was also the perfect amount of Christmassy and festive feels which just added to my love and is something I’m always looking for in books aiming to be Christmassy.

This book has just proved to me that Emma is an author who I need to read more from and has a decent chance of becoming a favourite. It is a Christmaasy novella that I loved and would highly recommend checking out ahead of next December.

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