Holiday Wishes by Jill Shalvis

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Title: Holiday Wishes
Author: Jill Shalvis
Series: Heartbreaker Bay #4.5
Published by: Avon Impulse
Release Date: November 7th 2017
Format: Kindle Book
Pages: 128
Genres: Contemporary, Holiday, Romance
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2017 12 Books of Christmas Challenge, Lenoreo's 2017 Contemporary Romance Reading Challenge, Lenoreo's 2017 New Release Challenge, Lenoreo's COYER Winter Switch 2017/18
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks ✩ IndieBound
My rating:

Blurb:

It’s Christmastime again in Heartbreaker Bay!

When Sean O’Riley shows up at the Hartford Bed & Breakfast for his older brother’s bachelor weekend, he’s just hoping to make it through the weekend. What he’s not expecting is to come face to face with the woman he lost his virginity to a decade ago—a woman he’s never really forgotten.

The last time Lotti Hartford saw Sean, she told him she loved him while he said nothing. Now, ten years later, she’s just looking for a good time. For once, she wants to be the wild and free one, and Sean – the good time guy – is the perfect candidate.

But as the weekend continues, Sean realizes that after a lifetime of being the hook-up king, he’s ready to find happily-ever-after, and he wants it with Lotti. But will she open her heart to him again? As Christmas sweeps through the little B&B, he can only hope love and magic are in the air.

My Review:

3.5 stars — This one started off really strong, and while I’ve only read 1.5 other books in this series, it was still nice to see all the characters that I’d already fallen in love with again.  I loved how we didn’t have to wait too long to find out what happened between Sean and Lottie in the past, b/c I tend to be too impatient for that kind of thing.  And I could actually understand how it happened, what with them both being 16.  I honestly felt Sean’s regret/remorse, and his desire for a second chance.  I actually really liked what I saw of Sean in the beginning of the book…he was earnest in his desire to take care of those he loves.  And for a novella, I really felt for his relationship with Finn…just makes me want to go back and read Finn’s book now instead of waiting.

I felt a bit less for Lottie…I felt like we just didn’t get as much time in her head, understanding who she was.  Basically a lot of novellas suffer from just not having enough time to give you a good glimpse of who the characters are, and what shaped them, and I felt that more for Lottie than Sean in this case.  I wanted to know more about what happened last year, what happened after she left Sean when she was 16, just…more.  I wasn’t given enough to really connect with her.  The bare bones were there, but I needed just a titch more.  Especially since we’re given the impression in the blurb that she’s all “one night stands only”, and I really didn’t feel that that strongly in the book…  I expected it to play a bigger part.

I enjoyed their initial…not reconciliation, but their first conversation together.  I liked that it wasn’t too overdramatic, and it felt like Lottie understood better what happened in the past and saw it through adult eyes if that makes sense.  But somewhere along the way my interest fizzled a bit.  Maybe it was because while I felt a bit of chemistry, it wasn’t that strong and overwhelming.  Or maybe it was just me, and I got distracted while reading.  But it just felt like the book came to an end more suddenly than I was expecting.  I think it’s really hard to write a novella, especially a romance, and have the reader still feel satisfied in the end.  And I didn’t quite get that with this one.  It was close, but just fell slightly short.