Series Name: Creekville Kisses, # 4
There is no mistake. In this next circle of Dante’s hell, my new neighbor, she of the blue eyes and lightly freckled nose, she of the well-fitting jeans and perky—
Er, the woman next door is a Christmas lunatic.
Scrooge and the Girls Next Door is such a fun and fluffy Christmas romance! I could not put it down.
Twenty-six-year-old Paige Redmond, single mom and go-getter, can’t wait to give her daughter, Evie, the Christmas of her dreams. Nothing can get in Paige’s way, not even her newly purchased fixer-upper cottage needing way more fixing than she planned.
Paige tackles the holiday with Clark Griswold spirit, amusing the entire town—except for her humbug next door neighbor, the grumpy but deliciously handsome Professor Henry Hill. With the help of colorful friends and found family—plus a feral cat and a pancake snowman—Paige and Evie wage a campaign to cure the cranky professor of his Christmas blues.
When Paige’s feelings for Henry wind up as tangled as her Christmas lights, there’s suddenly more than Christmas spirit on the line. Will Henry pull the plug on their first solo Christmas? Or can Paige and Evie convince the town’s biggest scrooge to open his grinchy heart to the holiday . . . and to them?
Thank you, bookstagram, for this book recommendation! This book kept popping up on my Instagram feed and was getting some positive reviews from fellow book bloggers. I decided to see what all the hype was about and order the book online. A few days later, it was dropped off at my front door (thank you to my mailman!!), and I sat down and read it all in one day! I adored this book: it was the perfect fun pick-me-up holiday read that I was looking for. Scrooge and the Girls Next Door is part of the Creekville Kisses series, but it can be read as a stand-alone. It was so easy to form attachments to all the characters in this book and fall in love with Creekville as a community. It’s a place where I can see myself wanting to return to again and again.
The story’s structure is typical of many other rom-coms out there. Your two love interests meet and what follows is a series of moments that brings them closer together. Of course, they have to overcome problems and hurdles, but you know they will end up together. I loved just being able to sit back and enjoy this story and its delightful characters without worrying about any unexpected twists or turns popping up. I could soak up the happiness that was radiating from its pages. I loved all the neighbourly war antics that happened between Paige and Henry. They were fun and had me laughing at times. I could relate to how Paige retaliated against Henry by taking her Christmas decorating to an extreme. I would do it too if I had a Scrooge for a neighbour, LOL. What made this book sparkle the most was Paige’s daughter Evie. This little girl is a delight and radiates that child’s wonderment and excitement when it comes to living life. Evie’s character leaps from the pages. I adored the relationship she formed with Henry by leaving him little presents to help him like Christmas again.
Paige and Henry have an opposites attract, and enemies to lovers love story. The attraction between these two wasn’t there when they first met. There weren’t any of that insta lust sparks flying between them. Henry is very Scrooge-like when we first meet him in the book. He doesn’t like Christmas, and he wants a neighbour who won’t make any noise and will fix up their house to fit the image of the street. Paige and her daughter Evie don’t fit into that perfect neighbour mold. Paige has got a lot on her plate. She is a single mom who has just bought her first house. She wants to ensure that Evie has that perfect Christmas and doesn’t plan to let Henry ruin it for her. I like both of these characters. They have their own particular charm that grows on you. Henry may be a grouch at times but underneath that prickly exterior is someone with a heart of gold. Paige is kind and caring but often has a hard time asking for help when she needs it. The relationship between these two starts to develop through meet cute or meet disaster moments. I like the slow and steady pace of their relationship. It allowed them to build that foundation and chemistry at a believable pace. This is a clean romance, so if you are looking for a holiday romance with a bit more spice, then this book isn’t for you. But I do like my holiday books more charming than spicey, so it was right up my alley.
Scrooge and the Girls Next Door is a fun and endearing rom-com I will want to read again and again.
