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The Christmas We Built
by Kelly Collins
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A Christmas shop owner. A developer with plans for her block. One festival neither can save alone.
Eight years ago, Nora Winters arrived in Holly Creek with two suitcases and found a family on Main Street. Now she owns Winters Wonderland and protects every merchant who gave her a place to belong. When Griffin Cole buys her building and five others, she rallies the town before he can redraw the future they fought to build.
Structural engineer Griffin Cole has six months to prove community-first redevelopment can work. Nora sees a threat. Griffin sees failing foundations, fading storefronts, and a town worth saving. Then the council forces them to co-chair Holly Creek’s Christmas Festival, turning every argument into another reason to wonder what might happen if they stopped fighting.
But the money behind Griffin’s project comes with strings, and Nora’s shop depends on a festival already slipping toward failure. As old wounds collide with new feelings, saving Main Street will require them to risk the one thing neither handles trust.
Welcome to Holly Creek, where found family shows up with hammers, casseroles, and room for one more.
Come home to Holly Creek today.
✓ Enemies to Lovers
✓ Forced Proximity
✓ Small-Town Holiday Romance
✓ Found Family
✓ Save the Town
✓ Redeemable Developer Hero
✓ He Falls First
✓ Slow Burn
My Rating:
Favorite Quotes:
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Making sense was a dirty trick, I preferred him when he was wrong and easier to dislike.
You look like something the cat declined to drag in.
She interrogated me at six this morning through a screen door… I’ve been threatened with a filleting knife by a woman holding a tray of scones.
It’s a blanket, Griffin, not a merger. You can share it without filing paperwork.
He told me a town isn’t buildings. It’s the people who keep showing up to the same place on purpose.
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My Review:
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Ms. Collin never fails to put a smirk on my face by slipping clever snark and wry wit into unexpected places in her heartfelt, small-town tales. I can usually whip right through her easy-to-fall-into storylines, although this one was more complicated and difficult for me to follow, as I’m not business-minded or knowledgeable about loans and permits, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
ABOUT KELLY COLLINS
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Kelly Collins is a bestselling, award-winning author of feel-good small-town romance filled with heart, heat, and happily-ever-afters. Her books are perfect for readers who crave heartwarming contemporary love stories, sassy heroines, and slow-burn romances with cinnamon roll heroes you’ll wish were real.
With humor, charm, and emotional depth, Kelly brings to life tight-knit towns, unforgettable characters, and the kind of love that feels like coming home. When she’s not plotting her next happily-ever-after, she’s sipping strong coffee and dreaming up heroes who are tough on the outside and gooey in the middle.
Come for the charm, stay for the swoon—and don’t be surprised if you fall in love with the whole town.