MoMoBookDiary

📖 Book Description

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✍️ About the Author

Kiley Dunbar

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👩🏻‍💻 My Review

A Heartwarming Christmas Return to Cairn Dhu

Returning to Cairn Dhu and the Highland Repair Shop felt like settling back into somewhere wonderfully familiar.

One of the things I love about this series is that, although the books are connected through the Highland Repair Shop and the community surrounding it, each story stands completely on its own. I can now confirm that from experience! Having read the first book but not yet caught up with the two in between, I slipped straight back into Cairn Dhu without ever feeling that I had missed something I needed to know.

This time we’re there in December, with the Highland Repair Shop helping to save the town’s festive lights while the future of the local ski centre is looking increasingly uncertain. And really, that’s about as much as you need to know before stepping into this story for yourself. At the heart of the book are Hamish and Florrie, and I absolutely loved their connection. Hamish cares deeply about the ski centre and the community it belongs to, while Florrie arrives looking at things from a very different perspective. What I particularly enjoyed was watching that perspective begin to change as she experienced Cairn Dhu for herself.

Because this isn’t simply about whether something works financially. It’s about what a place can mean to the people who live there.

That community feeling is one of the things Kiley Dunbar writes so beautifully. These characters genuinely care about each other, and that warmth runs right through the story. There are several threads quietly weaving together, plenty of romance and some lovely moments of discovery, but it was the heart behind everything that kept me completely wrapped up in it.

I spent a lovely day snuggled in my reading chair with this book, initially turning the pages excitedly and then increasingly slowly because I wasn’t quite ready to leave these characters behind.

There is also a little sadness beneath all that warmth because, while Cairn Dhu is fictional and we know we’re safely inside an uplifting romance, there are real communities facing similar struggles. Places that matter to people don’t always fit neatly onto a balance sheet, and I loved that the story could acknowledge that without losing any of its escapism.

And escapism is exactly what Kiley Dunbar’s books give me.

Her books have become part of my own little reading escape kit. They’re what I reach for when I want to disappear from real life for a while – and sometimes even when I need an escape from all the other books waiting to be read. I can settle into one of her stories, become completely wrapped up in its world and trust that, however complicated things become along the way, there will be a happy-ever-after waiting for me.

Saving Christmas at the Highland Repair Shop was warm, romantic, uplifting and absolutely full of heart. It gave me the escape I hadn’t realised I needed and left me with a huge smile – while simultaneously making me wonder why on earth I’ve allowed the other Highland Repair Shop books on my Kindle to remain unread for so long.

A Little Note to Kiley Dunbar…

I think I owe Kiley Dunbar a small apology – although, as I sit here writing this with an entire pile of her books on the bookshelf directly behind me, I feel I should probably get some credit for good intentions!

When I reviewed Fixing a Broken Heart at the Highland Repair Shop, the first book in this series, back in July 2025, I confidently declared that I was “already itching to return to this Highland setting” and would be there “day one” when book two arrived.

Reader, I was not.

I did, however, buy the books. They have been sitting patiently on my Kindle while review deadlines, book tours and an ever-growing reading pile somehow kept getting in the way.

Then I spotted Saving Christmas at the Highland Repair Shop on NetGalley and decided enough was enough. I needed a little more Kiley in my reading life.

I was absolutely delighted when Boldwood Books granted my request for a pre-publication digital copy via NetGalley — and returning to Cairn Dhu has reminded me exactly why I bought those other books in the first place.

I will catch up with them. Promise!

And just in case Kiley needs proof that I really do mean that… I’ve just checked. There are currently 18 Kiley Dunbar books on my Kindle and another 11 on the bookshelf behind me. Yes, I know that adds up to more books than Kiley has actually published, which means I’ve apparently bought some of them more than once.

Whoops!

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DISCLOSURE: I received a review copy of this book from Boldwood Books via NetGalley.

#SavingChristmasAtTheHighlandRepairShop #KileyDunbar
#TheHighlandRepairShop #BoldwoodBooks #NetGalley