Book Review: A Jingle Bell Mingle

It’s definitely the year of book series ending for so many books I’ve read and enjoyed over the years and the Christmas Notch series is one of them. Last week I read A Jingle Bell Mingle by Sierra Simone and Julie Murphy, the last book in the Christmas Notch series. The series started with A Merry Little Meet Cute and continued on with the novella, Snow Place Like LA, and then A Holly Jolly Ever After. This novel follows Isaac Kelly and Sunny Palmer.

We have met both of these characters in the previous books. Isaac is best friends and former boyband mates with Nolan and Kallum and Sunny is Bee’s best friend. Isaac has essentially been a recluse the past few years ever since his wife and and fellow pop star sweetheart passed away. The only woman he’s been with since his wife is Sunny during a hot, one night thing. Sunny is Bee’s best friend and is a part time adult film star, director, makeup artist, etc. Currently, she’s trying to be a screenwriter after she accidentally sold a script idea to the Hope Channel based on a rumored story that took place around World War II and is something of a Christmas miracle local legend type story.

Isaac and Sunny see each other again at Bee and Nolan’s wedding and decide to spend the night together since they had so much fun the last time. But it quickly becomes evident that they are going to spend more time together when Isaac who has recently relocated from California to Christmas Notch after buying the giant mansion in town realizes Sunny is staying in a dilapidated motel while she works on her script. He opens up his home to her and they begin to help each other. Isaac helps Sunny investigate the local legend for her script and all this human interaction is helping to inspire Isaac to write his new album which he owes his record label. Can the two keep things platonic or casual or will feelings get involved?

I enjoyed this book and thought it was a great wrap up to the series. It wasn’t my favorite of the series, but I still liked it and liked the characters and the storyline for the most part. I did start to get a little annoyed with how stubborn they were both being about their feelings for one another. Like to the point where it was getting repetitive and dragged on. Other than that I did enjoy the book. It is a deeper book than the other two since there’s a lot about grief in this book and both characters have lost loved ones and even years later are still coming to terms with their grief so it is a little less comical than the other books, but not in a bad way.

I will miss Christmas Notch and these entertaining characters!

Read this if you want a spicy Christmas romcom with the forced proximity, friends to lovers tropes.

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