Sophie Bartow’s A Tree, Mistletoe & A Sunset is a warm and playful holiday romance set in Swan Harbor, a town where Christmas traditions, family connections, local mysteries, and a touch of the unexplained are all woven into everyday life. Professor Harper Taylor returns to the holidays carrying some hard-earned caution about love, while fellow professor Aiden Jones has his own reasons for keeping parts of himself guarded. Their relationship develops alongside a wonderfully odd mystery involving stolen underwear, Swan Harbor’s history, and the town’s habit of making the improbable feel strangely normal. The result is a story that feels busy in a good way, with romance at its center and a whole community moving around it.

Harper and Aiden are especially enjoyable together because their attraction grows through small moments. Their teasing, nervousness, misread signals, and repeated almost-kisses give the romance an easy sense of anticipation. Aiden’s habit of calling Harper “Angel,” Harper’s uncertainty about trusting what she feels, and their increasingly obvious pull toward each other make the relationship satisfying because the emotional groundwork is laid out instead of a quick whirlwind romance.

Swan Harbor itself gives the book much of its personality. Harper and Aiden are surrounded by parents, siblings, cousins, friends, newlyweds, grandparents, investigators, pets, and townspeople who seem to know that everybody’s business eventually becomes community business. The mystery of the stolen underwear continues throughout the story, giving readers a look at Swan Harbor’s unusual history and local legends while adding a touch of comedy. Bartow moves freely among members of the larger cast, so the book feels less like an isolated romance and more like another chapter in the town’s ongoing life. Those scenes also give the story its particular mix of silliness, sentiment, family affection, and local legend.

I recommend A Tree, Mistletoe & A Sunset most to readers who enjoy small-town romance with a large recurring cast and who like their Christmas stories sweet, funny, lightly mysterious, and a little magical. It’s especially suited to someone who enjoys watching two cautious adults gradually recognize that the person they’ve been looking for may already be standing right in front of them. More than anything, this is a story about listening when your heart finally becomes difficult to ignore, surrounded by the kind of eccentric, affectionate community that makes Swan Harbor feel lived in.

Pages: 276 | ASIN : B08NHTPB27