The Christmas Inn

by Pamela M. Kelley

Riley Sanders left the Cape Cod area after high school graduation for the big city. After college she settled into life as a website content creator and manager in Manhattan. Her boyfriend works an obscene number of hours for a law firm. She thinks she has it all until life circumstances return her to the town  of Chatham—at least temporarily. There she finds the family, friends, and community that she hadn’t realized she missed.

Her mother Beth is trying to manage a gradually failing inn with a broken leg. Riley is needed to help run the inn physically but also to expand the inn’s presence on the web to increase exposure and entice new visitors. There are lots of interesting characters in the story with several people reuniting with old flames.

The Christmas Inn is a clean, sweet romance with all the Christmas vibes. Between divorces and deaths, several people have difficult memories associated with Christmas, but they put on a happy face each year and muddle through.  Riley’s former boyfriend has a sweet little boy who is excited about Christmas. He and his dad are staying at the inn while extensive repairs are being done on their house. His presence adds youthful enthusiasm to the extensive festivities in the community.

The book is replete with descriptions of the food and drink the characters consume. Everyone likes hot chocolate, and it goes well with the many cold, snowy events. The adults also enjoy a variety of wines and cheeses chosen from a local shop which is located near a bookshop in the friendly town. Riley has some big personal and professional decisions to make in this relaxing Christmas story, so grab a cup of cocoa and enjoy the plot.

I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Rating: 4/5

Category: Romance, Fiction, Women’s Fiction

Notes: clean

Publication:  September 24, 2024—St. Martin’s Press

Memorable Lines:

“We do use some AI here, but not at the expense of anyone’s jobs. We use it to enhance what we are already doing. I don’t believe in replacing people with machines.”

It was a mix of attorneys and financial types. The traders had a certain air about them, a cockiness that swarmed around them. They were incredibly impressed with themselves and expected everyone else to be equally impressed. Riley found it tiresome.

She’d thought they were on the same page. But maybe they were reading a very different book.