CHRISTMAS IN ROSE BEND

Grief and healing take center stage in this contemporary Christmas romance set in a quaint Massachusetts town.

For Boston emergency room nurse Nessa Hunt, the hits don't seem to stop coming. Six weeks earlier, her father, Isaac, died of cancer, leaving her the guardian of her 12-year-old half sister, Ivy, a young girl she barely knows given how little her dad wanted to do with her after having gotten divorced from her mother years ago. And six months before Isaac's death, Nessa's mother confessed on her deathbed that Isaac wasn't really her father at all. It's a secret that eats at her, especially as she fulfills Isaac's last wish that she and Ivy spend the holidays together in Rose Bend. The trip starts poorly, as Ivy acts out in grief and the pair hits traffic, making them late to their check-in at the Kinsale Inn. Upon arrival, Nessa literally walks into Wolfgang Dennison, the innkeeper's son, and their attraction is immediate. Wolf has his own trauma, having lost a friend in combat and spent significant time in a military hospital; now he's dealing with the return of his former fiancee, Olivia, after she broke off their engagement. As in many small-town romances, Nessa and Wolf are repeatedly thrown together amid the Christmas festivities. Nessa's grief at times feels overwhelming: She's lost both of her parents within a year and been saddled with a preteen she feels woefully unprepared to raise. It doesn't help that she has to face Olivia as a romantic rival. Though this romance packs in plenty of charming wintry scenes and holiday cheer, the characters' emotional weight and their slow-burn romance keep the plot from feeling too sugary sweet.

A festive romance that packs an emotional punch.