The Christmas Wish - Lindsey Kelk

Title: The Christmas Wish
Author: Lindsey Kelk
Genre: Christmas, chick-lit
Rating: 4/5
# pages: 352
Date read: January, 2023

Newly single lawyer Gwen Baker is hoping that a family Christmas—countryside, a mountain of food and festive films—will salve the sting of her career hanging by a thread and her heart being trampled on. Because everyone else has their life sorted: even Dev, her boy-next-door crush, is now a tall, dark and handsome stranger with a fiancée. She can’t help wishing her future was clearer.

Then Gwen wakes up to discover it’s Christmas day all over again. Like Groundhog Day but with eggnog. And family arguments. On repeat.

As she figures out how to escape her own particular Christmas hell, Dev is the one bright spot. He might be all grown-up but underneath he’s just as kind and funny as she remembers.

Maybe, just maybe, her heart can be mended after all.

But how do you fall in love with someone who can’t remember you from one day to the next?


I know the timing is off, but when your interlibrary loan comes through on January 13th - what's a girl gotta do?

This is another take on the "Groundhog Day at Christmas time" trope (is it a trope yet? Not quite sure if it's common enough, but it'll do), much like Christina Lauren's "In a Holidaze". It starts out somewhat less charming, as Gwen's family is more than a little toxic at times, but as the day repeats itself, the reasons for the internal tensions become more fleshed out and nuanced, as Gwen decides that the only way to move out of the loop, is to figure out what makes her family tick.

So where the first loop is almost a stereotype of a strained family, the later loops dive deeper into the relationships between Gwen and her father, mother, nan and semi-estranged sister, and turns it into a very enjoyable read about finding yourself, your place in your family and your compassion for others.