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Still engrossed in my Christmas reading binge, I came across this gem in, fellow GR Member, Srivalli Rekha’s reading list. First and foremost, I’d like to point out something in the book summary that was just a little confusing to me at first because incorrect book summaries are kind of a pet peeve of mine. The book summary states that Noel and Jonah were drifting apart in their marriage. Well��..the story starts out with Nora, a successful NY book editor, and Jack, a Wall St titan, drifting apart in their marriage. Nora and Jack don’t become Noel and Jonah until the next day after making a wish on a snow globe that they received from an old man named, Pad (who suspiciously sounds like a Santa lookalike based on his physical description) they met while walking their humongous, mastiff dog, Elliott.

So, the next day, Nora and Jack wake up and are Noel and Jonah and two people who simply live in the same condo building and apparently didn’t even notice each other until the night before when they shared an elevator. Oh, and Elliott? Noel is now dog sitting him for one of her prospective writers, Padrick, so that he can finish his book with no distractions, because Elliott is QUITE a handful.

It’s 10 days before Christmas and both Noel and Jonah are called back home by their respective parents because of some drama going on in town between the mayor, who sounds like a right Scrooge character, and the townspeople. They run into each other at the airport when there is a ruckus about not letting Elliott fly with Noel. When Jonah finds out that he and Noel are both going to Cheyenne, WY, Jonah conveniently offers to take Noel and Elliott to WY on his company jet. They learn later that they are both going back to the same small town, Winter Falls, where they both grew up. Oh yeah, and neither one of them has any recollection whatsoever of ever knowing each other. Good grief!!! Ok, cue up the Hallmark romance blueprint

Anyway, there are secondary storylines going on between the parents, lots of drama! One is Noel’s parents who want to create a Christmas village in the town square to make money for the town and allow the townspeople to celebrate the joy of the season, but the town Scrooge and Mayor, Jonah’s dad, won’t allow any of it. There is another secondary storyline between Jonah and his dad, who will never celebrate anything since his wife died on Christmas Eve when Jonah was six (he’s late 30’s now). This messed Jonah up and there is a lot of resentment from Jonah because his father never allowed him to talk about his mother or get professional help for the grief when he was a kid.

Most of the story flips back and forth between Noel and Jonah. Many of Noel’s chapters include emails between her and Padrick over the chapters he sends her to read, review and critique along with updates on Elliott and Moxie, the kitten Noel Elliott adopts as his companion. Most of the story is a solid 3star Christmas read.

However, I guess I would give it a 3.5 if I could because I loved the storyline around the center for dementia patients. Having experienced a few loved ones struggling with this devastating disease, my feelings toward it have evolved over time. I liked the way that the characters in the book adapted to Lizzie’s memories and lived in her world whenever they were around her. While it is heart-breaking when a loved one doesn’t recognize you anymore, it’s actually not so hard to live in their world and memories whenever you can. I didn’t know until this moment whether or not I would rate up or down on this story.