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📖 Book Description

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📚 Publication Details

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✍️ About the Author

Jaimie Admans

Jaimie Admans is a Welsh romantic comedy author who lives in South Wales. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys gardening, horror movies, drinking tea and coffee, autumn and winter, and singing songs from musicals. She is also a lifelong book lover who knows she will never have enough time to read all the books she’d like to.

Jaimie’s stories are filled with romance, humour and wonderfully escapist settings, with a little magic often finding its way into the everyday. Winter Magic at Hollybrae Castle is her latest romantic comedy, published by Boldwood Books.

🔗 Connect with the Author

Website • Facebook • Instagram

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👩🏻‍💻 My Review

A Fairytale Happy Ever After I Wasn’t Ready to Leave

I genuinely don’t know where to start with this review. I finished Winter Magic at Hollybrae Castle as a complete emotional mess. The beauty, romance and sheer fun within these pages had me laughing one minute and sobbing the next, and by the time I reached the end I needed to put the book down, go to bed and give myself a night to piece myself back together. Even now, I don’t quite know how to explain just how much I loved this story without giving away all the little things that made it so special. Because everything I want to talk about feels like a spoiler.

From the opening pages, with a malfunctioning Santa Claus and a very unfortunate Paddington Bear, I knew I was going to have fun with this one. Lula’s arrival at Hollybrae Castle then brings her into Ollie’s rather complicated plan, where somehow she has to convince a group of complete strangers that she isn’t simply a woman he’s just met, but his wife of five years. What could possibly go wrong? Except somewhere amongst all the pretending, something starts to feel incredibly real.

Lula and Ollie are two people who have reached points in their individual lives where fate seems to put them in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. They both know there should be professional boundaries between them, but neither has very much waiting for them beyond the situation they’ve suddenly found themselves in, and the connection between them is impossible to ignore. If they’re going to convince everyone they’ve been happily married for five years, they need to be comfortable together. They need the closeness to look believable, the affection to appear effortless and the familiarity between them to feel completely natural. The beautiful thing is that it does. They genuinely enjoy being together. Their friendship develops so naturally, and I loved the conversations, laughter and little moments between them. There was an ease to their relationship that made it feel real long before either of them seemed willing to acknowledge that perhaps they weren’t pretending quite as much as they were supposed to be.

And Jaimie Admans has once again reminded me why I’m single. How is any real-life man supposed to compete with the men she creates and somehow has us all falling hopelessly in love with? Ollie is wonderful. Lula is equally wonderful. Together, they are just perfect. But it wasn’t only Lula and Ollie that made me fall in love with this story. Hollybrae is filled with some of the loveliest characters I’ve ever met in a Jaimie Admans novel. They aren’t simply background characters filling scenes; they feel like genuine people you’d want in your own circle of friends. They each bring something different to Hollybrae, creating a warmth and sense of belonging that made it somewhere I desperately didn’t want to leave.

Okay, there might be one or two people I wouldn’t be quite so quick to invite into that circle… read it and tell me I’m wrong!

There is so much joy within these pages. There are moments that made me laugh out loud, wonderfully ridiculous situations and all the Christmas magic I could have wanted, but there is also so much heart. I laughed, I cried and then I properly sobbed. Jaimie’s stories might give me my fairytale happy ever after, but somehow she still leaves me an emotional wreck. By the end, I felt as though I’d been through every emotion alongside these characters.

And there is something I’ve realised while trying to put all of this into words. Even with books I’ve really enjoyed, there can come a point when I just need to know how everything ends. I’m ready for the answers, ready for those final pages and ready to reach those two little words: The End. I have never felt that way with a Jaimie Admans book.

I’m never ready for The End. I’m usually an emotional wreck by the time I get there, and I always need a little time afterwards to piece myself back together and almost grieve for the characters I’ve had to leave behind. Winter Magic at Hollybrae Castle was no exception. I didn’t want to leave Hollybrae. I didn’t want to say goodbye to these characters, and I would absolutely love Jaimie to take us back one day for a little “what happened next?” Not because anything feels unfinished, but simply because I want more time with them.

Beautiful, funny, romantic, emotional and filled with Christmas magic, this is Jaimie Admans doing what she does so incredibly well. I loved every moment.

And no, Jaimie, I still wasn’t ready for The End. ❤️

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

#JaimieAdmans #WinterMagicAtHollybraeCastle
#BoldwoodBooks #NetGalley