Cold Feet at Christmas

by Debbie Johnson

[Leah]

When author Debbie Johnson got in touch with me offering the opportunity to review her debut Harper Impulse novel Cold Feed At Christmas, I was quite excited to read the book. I love Christmas novels. They're something I always look forward to as the months melt away to the best time of year. So as soon as I spotted Cold Feet At Christmas on Netgalley, I quickly downloaded my copy (yay for auto approval am I right?) and I couldn't wait to get stuck in, expecting a deliciously festive novel, and getting exactly that, although I will confess the novel was steamier than expected!

It took me a little while to get into Cold Feet At Christmas. It has a cold opening (literally and figuratively) as Leah finds herself stranded in Scotland, and ends up knocking on the only house in her vicinity. From there, her and Rob have this instant chemistry and it just seemed to be too much, too quickly. She's barely in the door, and she's thinking he's God, etc. I was like "Woah, slow down you're in a wedding dress woman, how can you be thinking of another man?" but the novel won me around quickly enough. A bit more plot about Leah's non wedding and relationship with Doug would have helped a lot more for me to understand why she was so willing to hop in to Rob's bed. It's not very often you read of a bride who's okay about calling off her wedding because she caught her groom with the bridesmaid!

As the novel wore on, though, you could sort of tell that lightening up the mood was Leah's forte. Instead of letting everything in the world depress her, she would instead try and lighten the mood with a joke or try to get Rob to crack a smile. Their chemistry was insane, by the way. I wasn't sure where the novel was going after their Christmas love fest but the detour to Chicago was awesome. I admired the fact that Leah was willing to just up sticks and try to make Chicago her home, even more so when Rob instigated the friends only rule. It was quite amusing seeing them both clearly so in to each other, but clearly trying to prove otherwise, and Rob in particular I wanted to bash over the head with a baseball hat. They had the kind of chemistry that fills me up with delight, and makes me wish I had a Rob of my own (Marco, perhaps?). It was that sort of love/hate chemistry where they end up arguing and then kissing. My favourite.

Cold Feet At Christmas really hit its stride when the pair go to Chicago. After the initial wobbles, I was soon glued to my Kindle because I just adored Leah's snarky attitude. Her sass. And, of course, the fact her name was Leah. I have read 1181 books and I have never, ever come across a female main character called Leah (there's been a Leigha, and Leah's that weren't important but never an actual Leah) which absolutely made my year. So thank you Debbie for picking such an awesome (rare) name. I really, really loved Cold Feet At Christmas. Debbie's writing is fantastic and if she writes all her books this snarky, I will be scoping out Amazon regularly to find out when her next one is due. As I said in my opening chapter, the gorgeous cover is a tad misleading as the novel is definitely steamier than expected, but I loved it. I loved the Scottish, then Chicago setting, I loved Rob (despite wanting to kick his ass) and I adored Leah. This is the most wonderful Christmas novel to curl up with during the cold (or hot, I live in Tenerife) months. I loved it.This review was originally posted on Girls Love To Read