Holiday Ever After
Holiday Ever After by Hannah Grace is a Hallmark inspired Christmas Romance by the popular author of Icebreaker. Will this trope-y holiday story please romance fans? Let’s discuss!
Review of Holiday Ever After by Hannah Grace
I have very mixed feelings about Holiday Ever After. Even though I really enjoy a Hallmark movie plot, I feel that this book followed the formula a little TOO closely.
If you watch Hallmark movies you will know that one of the top five (three?) plots is the employee of the evil corporation heading to a small town to show them how it’s done/clean up some kind of corporate mess/get stuck in a blizzard.
Clara Davenport’s family owns a toy company, which she dreams of running one day. Then Clara learns that a small business is accusing Davenport Innovation’s “Evie” doll of copying their “Holly” doll. So Clara volunteers to rush off to Fraser Falls, launch a charm offensive, and try to get them to take down the posts accusing her company of theft.
Though Clara is supposed to be a thirty year-old New Yorker, she is about the most naive person I’ve seen in a book in a while. It never seems to occur to her that there could be any truth behind the accusations, and she never looks into the matter at all.
Okay, maybe she’s sheltered by wealth. But in the love scenes, the love interest notes on two different occasions that her love language (or sex kink) is praise, so he proceeds to tell her how good she is at sex, which just weirded me out. Was she unable to perform without hearing this?
My other issue is that Clara was obsessed with the fact that she had the idea for the company’s top-selling product, the “Clara” doll. And that her father never gave her credit. Okay, her father IS a huge jerk but this sort of suggests that her only contribution to the company is something she did twenty years ago in fifth grade.
By the end, things had definitely improved. Clara had finally figured out that (no surprise) her father was terrible and that she needed to stop chasing his approval.
Holiday Ever After Had:
- A cute small town setting. Fraser Falls was charming!
- A toy theme, plus toy drives, Christmas tree shopping, a dog named Elf, and a reindeer named Mikayla.
- A few open door sex scenes which were fairly spicy!
- Publication date: September 23, 2025 by Atria Books. Thanks so much to them for the advance review copy.
Holiday Ever After is Perfect For:
People who genuinely and unironically love Hallmark movies.
My Master Post on New Christmas Romance Books for 2025 has spice levels, romance levels, and more for ALL my holidayl picks (including Holiday Ever After) so be sure to check it out!
