Weekly Book Recs 50/2025: Christmas Romance
- Apollo Imperium
- Dec 12, 2025
- 7 min read
7 BOOK SUGGESTIONS EVERY FRIDAY –– A MIX OF INDIE AND TRADITIONAL PUBLISHED BOOKS
Here we finally are: Christmas romance books time! This week's pics are some recently published books––so there's no chance you've read them last christmas. While we're getting ready for Christmas (shopping for presents, choosing dinner menu's, setting up the tree), why not pick up a cozy romance novel––or play its audiobook while you're doing your Christmas preparations?
"The Secret Christmas Library" by Jenny Colgan
Goodreads Rating: ⭐️ 3.91
A new holiday story set in the Scottish Highlands to warm book lovers’ hearts by Jenny Colgan, New York Times bestselling author of Midnight at the Christmas Bookshop.
Mirren Sutherland stumbled into a career as an antiquarian book hunter after finding a priceless antique book in her great aunt’s attic. Now, as Christmas approaches, she’s been hired by Jamie McPherson, the surprisingly young and handsome laird of a Highland clan whose ancestral holdings include a vast crumbling castle. Family lore suggests that the McPherson family’s collection includes a rare book so valuable that it could save the entire estate—if they only knew where it was. Jamie needs Mirren to help him track down this treasure, which he believes is hidden in his own home.
But on the train to the Highlands, Mirren runs into rival book hunter Theo Palliser, and instantly knows that it’s not a chance meeting. She’s all too familiar with Theo’s good looks and smooth talk, and his uncanny ability to appear whenever there’s a treasure that needs locating.
Almost as soon as Mirren and Theo arrive at the castle, a deep snow blankets the Highlands, cutting off the outside world. Stuck inside, the three of them plot their search as the wind whistles outside. Mirren knows that Jamie’s grandfather, the castle’s most recent laird, had been a book collector, a hoarder, and a great lover of treasure hunts. Now they must unpuzzle his clues, discovering the secrets of the house—forming and breaking alliances in a race against time.
A treat for booklovers and treasure hunters alike, The Secret Christmas Library serves up a delicious mystery with a hint of romance, and plenty of holiday spirit!
"Merry Me" by C.R. Jane
Goodreads Rating: ⭐️ 4.25
A standalone holiday rom com featuring Natalie from the Wrong Player Series!
She thought she buried her past...until it shows up in a Santa suit at her sister’s wedding.
Natalie Bennett has a plan: survive her big sister’s Christmas Eve wedding, avoid her estranged father, and absolutely do not fall apart in front of the ex she walked away from...even if he does look annoyingly good in red velvet. Easton Maddox was supposed to be a high school memory—before Hollywood, before heartbreak, before she convinced herself walking away was the right thing. But when one broken down car, a meddling grandmother, and a very compromising duet throws them back together, old feelings resurface faster than you can say “I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus.”
Now stuck in a cozy mountain lodge with one very determined ex, Natalie’s forced to confront the truth: maybe love doesn’t follow logic. And maybe, just maybe…the boy she left behind is the man who never left her heart.
Merry Me is a funny, tender, and swoon-filled second-chance romance standalone about finding your way back to the one who never really let you go.
"Christmas Fling" by Lindsey Kelk
Goodreads Rating: ⭐️ 4.22
Laura and Callum have met exactly three times – once at a mutual friend’s wedding (Laura doesn’t remember), once at a baby shower (Callum doesn’t remember) and once right now – when Laura lets herself into his flat to find him exiting the shower completely naked (they both remember).
When Callum's parents walk in and mistake Laura for his mystery girlfriend, Laura has no choice but to play along, accepting their invitation to spend Christmas at home in the Scottish Highlands.
But then Laura's best friends show up pretending to be her family, and Callum's ex is invited, and as Laura gets closer to Callum, she can't tell if the increasingly sizzling chemistry between them is real or just a very convincing part of the act…
"Snow Kissed" by RaeAnne Thayne
Goodreads Rating: ⭐️ 4.26
'Tis the season for a little white lie...
Christmas has always been single mom Holly Goodwin Moore's favorite time of year. The twinkly lights on the tree, the cookies in the oven, the snow on the ground. But she's just not feeling it this year. The wedding in her ex's family is almost here, her daughter, Lydia, is bursting at the seams to be a flower girl...and Holly couldn't be dreading it more. She told a little white lie about having a new boyfriend as her plus-one, hoping to save face. She needs a date for the wedding...and she needs it now.
Ryan Caldwell wants to be free this holiday season. So even he isn't sure how he landed in Shelter Springs, looking after his niece, Audrey, with his estranged father down the road. But when he meets Holly, she makes him want to belong for the very first time. So they make a deal: he'll be her date if she'll help him give Audrey a true Christmas to remember while her mom is away.
"Good Spirits" by B.K. Borison
Goodreads Rating: ⭐️ 4.35
He’s the Ghost of Christmas Past. She’s not exactly Scrooge.
Ghost of Christmas Past Nolan Callahan intends to spend this holiday haunting like every other—get in, get out, return to his otherwise aimless existence as a ghost awaiting the afterlife. But when he’s faced with Harriet York, the sweetest assignment he’s ever had, he suddenly finds himself wishing for a future.
Harriet York has no idea why she’s being haunted. She’s a good person—or, at least, she tries to be. A people pleaser to her core, she always does what’s expected of her. But as she and Nolan begin to examine her past, they discover there are threads that bind them together— and realize there might be more to moving on than expected.
With the deadline of Christmas Eve fast approaching, will they find the key to their futures in each other’s pasts? Or will they stay firmly in the present, indulging in their unexpected, spirited connection?
"Holly and Nick Hate Christmas" by Betsy St. Amant
Goodreads Rating: ⭐️ 3.98
When a Christmas-hating woman’s brother sets her up with a fellow Grinch and it backfires, she decides to out-Christmas her date by setting up a festive battle wills in this enemies-to-lovers holiday romcom.
Holly Sinclair has hated Christmas for as long as she can remember. Who names their Christmas baby Holly in the first place? She was teased mercilessly growing up. Holly Berry, Holli-days, Holly Jolly…not to mention the fact that her birthday is often totally overlooked amidst the season.
To make matters worse, instead of getting the promotion she was expecting, Holly’s been downsized—which is just fancy holiday talk for fired. Now Holly has to go home single, unemployed, and turning thirty. Bah, humbug.
Holly’s big brother, Ryan, has dragged his best friend, known holiday-hater Nick Kinsley, home with him. But when Holly discovers that Nick’s here to be her pity date, she decides the best revenge is to play along…and Christmas like she’s never Christmas’d before. Commence Naughty List. The fact that she’s attracted to Nick is totally not the point. She’ll teach him a lesson, one ho ho ho at a time.
The holiday grows more complicated when Holly and Ryan find out their parents asked all the siblings to come home for Christmas this year, but refuse to say why. The rest of the Sinclair siblings descend, each with their own sleigh full of secrets. Rumors spread as everyone tries to guess the reason for their parents’ demand—and Nick turns out to have a secret of his own. Will this be a Christmas to forget? Or will Holly and Nick discover there is so much more?
"Grace and Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon" by Matthew Norman
Goodreads Rating: ⭐️ 4.45
A sentimental advertising creative and a blunt, no-nonsense bar owner find a second chance at love while binge-watching iconic holiday movies in this poignant and heartwarming romance, from the author of Charm City Rocks and All Together Now.
The new year barely began when Grace White and Henry Adler both lost their spouses. Now, nearly a year later, the first holiday season since their "Great and Terrible Sadnesses" approaches. Although their mothers scheme to matchmake the two surviving spouses, it’s clear that neither is ready to date again. Yet no one understands what they're going through better than each other, and a delicate friendship is born.
When Henry sees an ad for a Christmas movie marathon—once an annual tradition for him and his wife—Grace offers to watch some films with him, despite her aversion to a few of his picks. Her two young kids, Ian and Bella, also join in whenever possible—bedtimes permitting, of course.
With each movie, Grace and Henry’s shared grief eases as they start to see a life beyond the sadness. But as they draw closer, other romantic possibilities leave them both uncertain about their future together. Is their bond merely the result of loneliness and shared circumstances, or have they found something that’s worth taking a shot at . . . again?
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