11.21.2025 | Friday

Winter Wishes

Item: Winter Wishes
Rating: 3.5
Author: Kim

category: Book Reviews

tag(s): adult

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book notes

title: Winter Wishes
author: Elle Adams
series: Winter Witches of Holiday Haven #4
published: 11.11.2020
publisher: self-published
genre(s): cozy mystery, holiday/seasonal
pages: 158
format: eBook
buy/shelve it: Amazon | BookBub | BookHype | StoryGraph | Goodreads
rating:

| series rating:

the blurb

Have yourself a very Merry Witchmas in Holiday Haven, where the magic and mystery of Christmas is snow joke!
After five years of running the Holiday Haven Inn, Carolyn Highcrest thinks she can handle anything. She and her best friend Mercy are determined to make their festive weekend celebrations the best they can possibly be, despite being surrounded by scheming rivals, melodramatic theatre group members and overenthusiastic carollers.
What Carol didn't anticipate was a visit from her eccentric family, whose knack for trouble and attachment to their cringeworthy custom-made hats threaten to derail her focus. To make things worse, a magical wishing box intended for the weekend's event disappears, and soon after, a string of inexplicable pranks hits the inn, seemingly a result of the box's powerful magic.
Carol is inclined to blame both the theft and the pranks on her long-term business rival, Janice, but all too soon, events are spiralling out of control. Can Carol fix the trouble before the holiday cheer is ruined?

a few notes

POV: 1st person
setting: Holiday Haven
keywords/phrases: holiday, ambition, feuds
tropes: magical creatures, interpersonal relationship conflict, family drama
spice: 0/0
language:0/0

mood reading: in the mood for cozy reads set in wintry places.

my review

This installment is focused on two best friends who run one of Holiday Haven’s inns. They’re planning for big events during the holiday season, but things quickly devolve in magically inconvenient ways clearly meant to sabotage their plans. They are quick to blame their usual source of angst, who has complaints of her own. Most of the story revolves around getting to the bottom of it all.

This one felt a little less light than the others thus far in the series, which made it feel a little out of place. It could have used a little more humor to lighten it up a little.

About Elle Adams

Elle Adams lives in the middle of England, where she spends most of her time reading an ever-growing mountain of books, planning her next adventure, or writing. Elle’s books are humorous mysteries with a paranormal twist and tons of magical mayhem.

She also writes urban and contemporary fantasy novels as Emma L. Adams.

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