About the book, Stuck with You for Christmas 
- Publisher : Pellerin Books
- Publication date : October 27, 2026
- Language : English
- Print length : 280 pages
A deliciously festive enemies-of-Christmas-to-lovers romance – perfect for fans of Sarah Morgan, Heidi Swain and Milly Johnson.
Event planner Natasha needs a distraction this December…
With her grown-up children on the other side of the world, Natasha is facing Christmas alone. So when England’s most famous Christmas town, Wellcombe, needs saving from a PR disaster, she packs her bags. She’ll spend the season working, not wallowing – mulled wine strictly optional.
Stained glass restorer Will is counting the days until it’s all over…
Since a terrible tragedy shattered his Christmas five years ago, Will wants nothing to do with twinkly lights, carol singers or festive cheer. But his biggest job this year is restoring a pair of ancient church windows in Wellcombe… at the heart of the very celebrations he’s spent years avoiding.
Natasha and Will have one thing in common: they’re both faking their way through the most wonderful time of year. Can gingerbread, mistletoe and a little festive magic thaw their frozen hearts? Or will it take a snowstorm to show them it’s never too late for a second chance at love?
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About the author, Jen Smith
Jen lives in the Midlands with her two kids, where she dreams of living by the sea in the south of France. She is an audiobook narrator with an MA in Medieval History and loves castles and King John (possibly a smidgen too much).
When not writing or narrating, Jen can be found planning the next family holiday, being taxi to the kids and giggling through her kickboxing lessons.
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My Thoughts 
I love a good RomCom. I especially love a good second-chance RomCom, or one featuring lead characters who are past their twenties. Even more, I love a good Christmas RomCom. So when I was offered a review copy of Stuck with You for Christmas by Jen Smith, well, obviously, I said yes.
I’m glad I did, because there’s something particularly appealing about a romance that acknowledges that falling in love doesn’t necessarily become easier with age. If anything, the accumulated disappointments, responsibilities, and losses can make it considerably more complicated.
Natasha and Will are both at points in their lives where the future looks rather different from what they’d once imagined. She’s a London event planner facing an unexpectedly solitary December, while he’s an artisan whose work brings him into the middle of a celebration he’d prefer to forget. Neither makes an especially favorable first impression, but I found that my affection for them grew as their individual histories came into focus. Smith allows them to be prickly, occasionally unreasonable, and recognizably human, which makes their eventual connection all the more rewarding.
I was especially fond of Kathleen, Betty, and Olive, a formidable little committee of unofficial matchmakers who seem to regard other people’s private affairs as a community responsibility. Their presence adds a welcome dash of mischief, and I found myself looking forward to their appearances almost as much as those of the romantic leads.
There are places where the narrative could have benefited from a firmer editorial hand. Some expressions appear so frequently that they lose their effectiveness, while certain sentences seem determined to take the scenic route to their destination. Although the direction of the romance is rarely in doubt, I don’t necessarily consider that a serious drawback in this genre. Sometimes the pleasure lies less in being surprised by the destination than in enjoying the company along the way.
What stayed with me most was the book’s gentle insistence that we aren’t required to have everything sorted out by a particular birthday. Life changes. Families evolve. Grief rearranges our priorities. Sometimes the hardest person to forgive is the one looking back at us from the mirror. There’s a lovely sense of possibility here, particularly for readers who understand that beginning again can require considerably more courage at fifty than it did at twenty-five.
Lest all this talk of emotional growth make the book sound terribly solemn, rest assured that the romantic chemistry generates considerably more heat than the beverages being served at Wellcombe’s holiday festivities.
Stuck with You for Christmas offers a welcome reminder that the season’s greatest gifts don’t always arrive wrapped in ribbon, and that there’s no age limit on finding someone who makes the future look bright again.
Goes well with: a steaming mug of mulled wine and a generous slice of gingerbread cake, preferably beside a crackling fire while snow falls outside.
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