The Christmas Crush

The Christmas Crush by Noelle Douglas

Elena needs the new opening of sparkle cookie, her career is important to her.
Lawrence owns the local bakery and the idea of Sparkle cookie taking his customers sends him into a blind panic and things go even more awry when Elena and Lawrence get into a very public argument.

They know they are rivals but the more time they spend together, the more they can see their attraction is almost as strong as the imposing cookie war.

This book was perfect. It fully hugged me and drew me in. I could smell the cinnamon and nutmeg in my mind.

Elena really steps into herself and lets herself finally let go of all the negativity she has held onto and Lawrence realizes that Elena isn't the enemy but the exact thing he needed. It was so cute! It was a slow burn hallmark movie in a book.

Enemies to lovers - CHECK
Small town - CHECK
Cinnamon roll MMC - CHECKKKKK

Really was a solid wholesome holiday classic

4 stars

DNFed at 54%

Listen. I was very excited for this book until I actually got it. When I started reading it, I immediately disliked it but I tried to finished it, I really did.

There were too many unnecessary details in the writing. I don't need to know that someone crouched down to find cookie cutters in the cabinet and then rose to cut the cookies. Just say “and then he cut the cookies” or something like that. There were so many unnecessary details that didn't drive the plot forward at all, like why do I care that Lawrence appliances were too expensive? Nothing came out of it anyway. It felt like a high school student writing anything on their essay just to reach a certain word count. Unnecessary and distracting.

From what I've seen, people didn't like Elena but liked Lawrence, but I had the opposite problem. I love Elena, she was witty, strong, hardworking and opinionated. Lawrence, on the other hand was an anxious mess who had a boner for his granda. Seriously that's how he acted. His Nanna this, his Nanna that... Just give it a rest. You're an adult man, act like it. He was so annoying, honestly, I couldn't stand him most of the time.

The relationship between Lawrence and Elena was too insta love for me, and poorly developed. There were too many scenes they didn't spend time together and the focus was on other characters (cough Carmen cough) and I felt like they didnt really know each other. I couldn't feel the connection between the characters at all.

It was disappointing. I hoped for something else, tbh. It wasn't my cup of tea, but In sure this book will get many fans for it's Christmas small town feels.