Cozy, small town Christmas romance: A Little Paris Christmas by Jennifer Shirk (ARC Review)

 



A Little Paris Christmas by Jennifer Shirk ★★★


Jennifer Shirk's Instagram bio describes her as a writer of "closed-door, swoony, Hallmark vibes" books, and "A Little Paris Christmas" definitely delivers that. 


This is a nice and low-conflict, low-drama story. The main character is Sophie, who works for the Chamber of Commerce in a small town called Paris in Pennsylvania. Tourism is declining, and Sophie's job is to attract more visitors to the town, which models itself as the small-town American version of Paris, France. 


Sophie's new neighbour is Mason, a horror writer with a distaste for Christmas and festivity. The pairing of the Christmas fanatic with the moody Christmas hater is a classic! Mason's fame and notoriety could be the solution to Sophie and the town's tourism problem, but he is reluctant. His little dachshund, Gingersnap, features and becomes a bit of a celebrity himself. Although they don't seem to get along well at first, Sophie and Mason's chemistry is undeniable as they work together to save the jobs of Sophie and her colleagues. 


It really does feel like a Hallmark movie! It is a great choice for a cosy Christmas romance. The romance does move quickly, but I think that's quite normal for Christmas/seasonal romances. I would've liked to have seen the conflict resolved sooner so we could have had a few scenes/chapters of Mason and Sophie together. I also felt like the conflict was resolved very quickly and mostly via buying gifts, I'd rather have seen more of an open conversation (at least in addition to the gifts).


The romance is closed-door, with just kisses happening on the page. If you prefer higher stakes and conflict, this probably isn't for you, but this is great for readers who want a lighter, fun read! I enjoyed the small town vibes, and I really wonder if there is a small town called Paris where everything is French-themed somewhere in Pennsylvania!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What I learned from waking up at 5am every day for a year

Image
It's probably not the answer you're expecting. For as long as I can remember, I've been a night owl. Part of it was growing up in a toxic and volatile home - night time was peaceful and quiet, and the only time I felt I could relax a little bit. The other part of it was that, no matter what time I went to bed, I just couldn't get up easily in the mornings. My mother called me lazy. My teachers always assumed I'd just stayed up all night playing video games or watching TV.  I always maintained, even as a kid, that not everyone is a morning person. I would be awoken every weekend day by my mother loudly blasting her "cleaning music" and the vacuum at about 6am. My brother and I would beg her to wait just a few more hours, to let us catch up on some sleep after a busy week. But she would always shout at us that by sleeping in, we were just being lazy layabouts. She'd tell us to go to bed earlier, but I couldn't go to bed any earlier than I already was...
Read more

30 Before 30: Book Edition

Image
 I turned twenty-nine two days ago, and I've seen a lot of people make "30 before 30" bucket lists. I started making one only to realise it was mostly books I am really eager to read, so I decided to turn mine into a mini book bucket list.  I can read about 30-50 books in a year, so I should be able to get through this list with room for mood-read picks in between. It is a mix of "bucket list" classics (the ones you find on those  everyone should read once in their lifetime  lists), nostalgia picks and some contemporary choices by authors I've previously read and enjoyed.  If you want to follow my progress, I'll be ticking them off as I go on my listography ! War and Peace  and Anna Karenina  by Leo Tolstoy War and Peace  is the ultimate bucket list book for me. But it's so long I feel like I'll never actually sit down to read it unless I put it on a list like this! On a good month, I read around this number of pages anyway, so I'm trying to ...
Read more