The holidays are often associated with returning home. They’re about getting back together with loved ones, catching up over hot cocoa, and taking solace in the comfort of the familiar. These 8 books on holiday romance are for anyone who associates the holiday season with their own home. These stories about Christmas miracles, love, and acceptance are ideal for those searching for a little extra holiday cheer, whether you’re spending it with loved ones in person or in spirit.

Home Sweet Christmas
Susan Mallery
Until Camryn Neff can return to her “real” life in Chicago, she’s in Wishing Tree to care for her twin sisters. She’s not looking for forever love, not here. But handsome hotelier Jake Crane is a temptation she can’t resist, so she suggests they pair up for the season. No golden rings, no broken hearts. At his side, she sees her hometown through Christmas-colored eyes.
The cheer is cheerier, the joy more joyful. She thought she had put her future on hold…but maybe her real life was here all along, waiting for her to come home. New in town, River Best is charmed by Wishing Tree’s homespun traditions and warmhearted people.
Release Date: October 4, 2022

The Holiday Swap
Maggie Knox
When chef Charlie Goodwin gets hit on the head on the L.A. set of her reality baking show, she loses a lot more than consciousness; she also loses her ability to taste and smell—both critical to her success as show judge. Meanwhile, Charlie’s identical twin, Cass, is frantically trying to hold her own life together back in their quaint mountain hometown while running the family’s bustling bakery and dealing with her ex, who won’t get the memo that they’re over. With only days until Christmas, a desperate Charlie asks Cass to do something they haven’t done since they were kids: switch places. Looking for her own escape from reality, Cass agrees.
Release Date: October 5, 2021

The Santa Suit
Mary Kay Andrews
When newly-divorced Ivy Perkins buys an old farmhouse sight unseen, she is definitely looking for a change in her life. The Four Roses, as the farmhouse is called, is a labor of love—but Ivy didn’t bargain on just how much labor. The previous family left so much furniture and so much junk, that it’s a full-time job sorting through all of it.
At the top of a closet, Ivy finds an old Santa suit—beautifully made and decades old. In the pocket of a suit she finds a note written in a childish hand: it’s from a little girl who has one Christmas wish, and that is for her father to return home from the war. This discovery sets Ivy off on a mission.
Release Date: September 28, 2021

The Holiday Switch
Tif Marcelo
Lila Santos is ready for her last winter break of high school. The snow in her small town of Holly, New York, is plentiful, the mood is as cozy as a fuzzy Christmas sweater, and she’s earning extra cash working at the local inn—AKA the setting of the greatest film of all time, Holiday by the Lake—while moonlighting as an anonymous book blogger.
But her perfect holiday plans crash to a halt when her boss’s frustratingly cute nephew, Teddy Rivera, becomes her coworker. Lila is type A; Teddy is type “Anything but Lila’s Way,” and the two of them can’t stop butting heads over tangled icicle lights and messy gift shop merch.
Release Date: October 5, 2021

A Christmas Date
Camilla Isley
Even Little Miss Grinch, Nikki, a successful and independent woman, must face her bachelorette status at the most horrible time of the year. December is her personal version of holly-jolly hell: a merry torture made of couples kissing at every corner, forced vacation days, and an inescapable family reunion.
And when her baby sister announces she’s engaged—to Paul, the man Nikki is secretly in love with—and that he’s spending the holidays with them, Christmas starts looking bluer than ever. Nikki can’t possibly survive an entire week trapped home as the family’s spinster.
Release Date: October 25, 2018

Coming Home for Christmas
RaeAnne Thayne
Elizabeth was trapped in a tangle of postpartum depression and grief after the death of her beloved parents and she couldn’t quite see the way back to her husband and their two beautiful kids…until a car accident stole away her memories and changed her life.
And when she finally remembered the sound of little Cassie’s laugh, the baby powder smell of Bridger, or the feel of her husband’s hand in hers, Elizabeth worried that they’d moved on without her. That she’d missed too much. That perhaps she wasn’t the right mother.
Release Date: September 24, 2019

Holiday Romance
Catherine Walsh
Molly and Andrew are just trying to get home to Ireland for the holidays, when a freak snowstorm grounds their flight. Nothing romantic has ever happened between them: they’re friends and that’s all. But once a year, for the last ten years, Molly has spent seven hours and fifteen minutes sitting next to Andrew on the last flight before Christmas from Chicago to Dublin, drinking terrible airplane wine and catching up on each other’s lives.
In spite of all the ways the two friends are different, it’s the holiday tradition neither of them has ever wanted to give up.
Release Date: October 4, 2022

Meet Me Under the Mistletoe
Jenny Bayliss
Elinor Noel—Nory for short—is quite content running her secondhand bookshop in London. Forever torn between her working-class upbringing and her classmates’ extravagant lifestyles at the posh private school she attended on scholarship, Nory has finally figured out how to keep both at equal distance.
So when two of her oldest friends invite their whole gang to spend the time leading up to their wedding together at the castle near their old school, Nory must prepare herself for an emotionally complicated few days.
Release Date: September 27, 2022