A Heart for Christmas

Advent Romance

By: Sophie Jomain

Narrated by: Fleur De Wit

A New York Times bestseller!

A teen reclaims her independence and opens her heart to Christmas with the help of a handsome ski instructor in this swoon-worthy young adult holiday romance told in a groundbreaking advent calendar format, with chapter-a-day reading making it a true slow-burn!

When eighteen-year-old April heads to the foothills of Mont Blanc in the Alps to spend her first Christmas at her father’s chalet, she’s hoping for a change. Ever since her heart operation two years ago, she’s lived as carefully as possible. Supervised exercise, green tea, rice cakes, focusing only on her studies. But now, she’s healthy and there’s a world out there that she’s missing.

When April’s ski instructor turns out to be her best friend’s older brother, Augustin, it feels like a sign. As Augustin encourages April to build up her strength, April feels drawn to him in ways she wasn’t expecting. Augustin is daring and gorgeous, and April doesn’t want to let her life pass her by any longer. But is her just-healed heart ready for a Christmas miracle?

With this book’s unique advent calendar format, each of the twenty-four chapters is sealed by its own perforated enclosure that readers can gently tear open—by hand or with the help of a ruler—to read a chapter a day in the weeks leading to Christmas!

The Meaning

Each chapter was well written and flowed into each other! The meaning at the end put such a smile on my face!

Advent Romance With a Sweet Heart but a Rushed Finish

Heart for Christmas by Sophie Jomain was a sweet little 24 chapter advent calendar style book, it was adorable. The concept itself is charming, and reading one chapter a day leading up to Christmas, I genuinely enjoyed the tone and warmth of the story. It felt cozy, romantic, and gentle, exactly what you want from a holiday read.

That said, the ending really felt rushed. By the final chapter, there was so much story trying to happen all at once that it honestly should have been a 25th chapter. Everything felt crammed into that last section when it deserved more space to breathe. I also wish the chapters themselves had been longer. When you’re committing to one chapter a day, and each one only takes about four minutes to read, it starts to feel a little underwhelming. I would have loved chapters that ran closer to 30 minutes to an hour, something that felt more substantial.

As an immersive reader, this book frustrated me because the audiobook and the text did not fully align. The audiobook said Christmas Day while the book said Christmas Eve, and there were other small but noticeable discrepancies. Words were changed back and forth, sometimes feeling like they were written for a European or UK audience and then shifted for a US audience, and vice versa. The changes were minor, but they were distracting, especially when you are listening and reading at the same time. It left me wondering why make those edits in the first place they were completely unnecessary.

I also wanted more depth overall. There was so much potential here, especially with Augustin and April. I wanted more context, more development, and more emotional weight. Even the parents’ love story felt like something that could have been explored further. This book could have easily been expanded, given more detail, and turned into something even more special.

That said, it’s clearly written as a YA romance, and within that scope, it does what it sets out to do. As an adult reader, I still enjoyed it, and the sweetness carried me throughout the daily reading. With a longer format, an extra chapter, and better consistency between the audiobook and text, this could have been a standout holiday read that I would have read year after year. As it is currently it’s cute, cozy, and enjoyable, just a little too rushed and cut short for what it could have been. Happy to have read it this year but probably won’t revisit it again next year.

loved the accent

i enjoyed listening to it and hearing a true accent. It was nice to hear the words pronounced correctly.

The Worst Book I've Ever Read

Honestly, this was awful. The narration was fine. It's not her fault the story was so terrible. The worst/cheesiest book ever.