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I had no words when I finished Sugar Pine Trail by RaeAnne Thayne; however, I had a big dopey smile plastered to my face. Sugar Pine Trail is everything that contemporary romance Christmas themed books should be! It’s a small town setting that hits all the right buttons for me. It was also completely relatable.

Julia Winston is a librarian so I really connected with that. I wanted to be a librarian so badly when I grew up. She also doesn’t have an over abundance of self-esteem, is a bit of an introvert, things of others, and protects herself with a surface of no nonsense.

Jamie Caine was the bachelor who didn’t want to settle down. Of course he had some emotional baggage to work through as did Julia. I loved this book so much! Julia’s facing down her first holiday season alone and with the help of a list meant for Julia’s eyes only and a rather desperate situation, all of her plans are upended. This one hurt my heart on so, so many levels! I had tears in my eyes more than once.

Sugar Pine Trail deeply involves children so it may not work for some readers. Personally the children added a lot of Christmastime lessons to the story and it added depth to the story. It was wonderful to watch Jamie and Julia fall for each other and try to fight it for self-preservation. I will never get tired of quiet reserved women winning over the hottest guy in the room. I read this through Netgalley but I’ll definitely be buying my own copy.