Caroline is a cynic career woman living the high life in Manhattan where love and relationships are but a distant memory of the past.
But after a freak accident on Christmas Eve, Caroline receives a visit from a cheeky spirit of Christmas Past, Present, Yet to Come, and—most importantly—Christmas That Could Have Been. When she wakes up on Christmas Day suddenly married with three kids and living two doors down from her parents in New Jersey, Caroline has a chance to experience the life she would’ve had if she’d made a different choice.
Will small-town life as a mother and a wife make her rediscover what’s really important in life?
A modern-day retelling of A Christmas Carol…
You Can Purchase the Book: Amazon / Apple
Camilla is an engineer turned writer after she quit her job to follow her husband on an adventure abroad.
She’s a cat lover, coffee addict, and shoe hoarder. Besides writing, she loves reading–duh!–cooking, watching bad TV, and going to the movies–popcorn, please. She’s a bit of a foodie, nothing too serious. A keen traveler, Camilla knows mosquitoes play a role in the ecosystem, and she doesn’t want to starve all those frog princes out there, but she could really live without them.
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[Fool Me Twice at Christmas (#1) Review]
Similar to the first novel in the series, Fool Me Twice at Christmas, each novel can be read as a standalone. The stories in the series are tied together with a central Christmas theme. This novel follows along with the main character Caroline, who, as the synopsis states, goes through her own journey of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Similar to the source material, there are lessons of love, friendship, and family with a fun modern twist. While the novel is on the shorter side at less than 300 pages, the author managed to put enough information in to make me care about both the story and characters. I was planning on spreading this novel out over a few days, but I ended up reading it in a single sitting!
Caroline is a New York career-driven woman, who is the co-founder of a publishing company and is determined to follow through with her holiday obligations with her family as quickly as possible. When she tries to slip out of the celebrations at her sister’s house on Christmas Eve, she ends up slipping on the ice and ends up on a journey to see what life could be with different choices. She is visited by a Christmas Spirit and guide, Melodie, who shows Caroline her past, present, and future. The story then throws Caroline into an alternate reality where she is married with three children. The plot follows Caroline as she adjusts to this new reality and begins to question if she wants this kind of life for herself or if she wants to stick with her old ways.
As Caroline is thrown into an unfamiliar life, there is a lot of humor in her adjustments. Sam, her alternate husband, and her children were all a delight and I loved how they all worked together. There is a lot of heart-warming moments tied in with the humor, making this a cozy and feel-good read perfect for the holidays or anytime you want a good book to curl up with. As the story follows Caroline, it was fantastic seeing her grow and re-evaluate her life. It’s an interesting concept as it can make the reader wonder about different alternate realities for themselves and what they would look like if given a chance, like Caroline. The character is not super likable in the beginning, but it works well with her journey. She grows a lot as a character as the story moves forward and I love that it was not an incredibly straight-forward path. While the reader hopes Caroline will change to this alternate version, she has many steps to go before it would even be possible. The writing of this path gave a nice realism to the story and relatability to the reader.
Overall, this was a lovely read perfect to get me into the holiday spirit! It was a very fun take on the source material and I loved this second installment of the series. While it makes a perfect standalone, I would recommend reading both stories as they are each filled with love and joy. The pacing of the novel works well as the reader first gets to know the present version of Caroline before her life is flipped upside-down where the reader connects to her journey to see other possibilities. This is the second novel by this author and it will not be my last. So far, I am loving this series and definitely plan to continue reading the future installments!
**I give a special thank you to Rachel @rararesources,, the publisher, and the author for the opportunity to participate with this enjoyable novel. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.**
Giveaway to Win 3 x e-copies of A Christmas Caroline by Camilla Isley (Open INT)
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Thank you. Looks great and worth a read.
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