Holiday Book

 Write Before Christmas by Julie Hammerle 

This was a cute Christmas story. Not quite a Hallmark level, but close. My favorite thing about it was that the main characters were in their 40s, which is not something you see very often in romance novels, and is even more rare in a Christmas romance. My least favorite thing is that the chapter titles on the audiobook didn't match with the character names. The FMC is Dani, but when it was her perspective the chapter title would say Tanny. That is just sloppy production, especially since it had real people recording the voices and not AI, presumably it would have a real person doing post production and taking care of things like that. DANI is recently divorced and because she was a stay at home mom, she has no money and no skills. She is forced to move back in with her parents. Her 19 year old daughter has been living with them for college, so now everyone is under one roof. Her sister in law and her twins are also there for the holidays, but this story takes place over six weeks and there is never any mention of any of the kids going to school which is weird because college doesn't let out after thanksgiving and neither does high school. But, that's irrelevant to the story. Matt is a famous-ish author who is renting a house so he can finish writing the third and final book in his trilogy. He has to get it done before Christmas because season 2 of the show will be premiering and they are reading to start production on season 3. His assistant Jane encourages him to hire someone to cook and clean, enter Dani. They have met twice while she has been walking the dog and he's been running. She gets the job without realizing who her boss is going to be, which ends up being awkward when she shows up at his house the day after making out with him in the street. They decide to start seeing each other casually, knowing that it's only temporary, because he's leaving after New Years. She ends up being his muse and he gets the book done and it's his best work yet. But the studio is unhappy and they want a bunch of changes. He has to do a lot of rewrites. He breaks up with her because of said rewrites. She caters the premier party, arranges a new job with the head of the hotel, and then leaves. He realizes he doesn't want to make the changes, tells the studio he is leaving the project and writes the book his way, the tries to climb out of his window to get to her but falls and breaks his ankle. The star of the show puts him on the back of his motorcycle and takes him to her parents house, but her daughter answers the door and tells him she's out at dinner. Matt and the actor go to the hospital then the actor takes the daughter to the restaurant to get Dani and then the actor takes her to the hospital. They reconcile and return to the premier, where the daughter and actor are now making heart eyes at each other. The epilogue is one year later and it is perfect. The family has a gift exchange and Matt has it orchestrated with the entire family so that he gets the last exchange so he can make sure Dani gets the gift he wants her to have; an engagement ring.  This was everything you expect a Christmas book to be.