Title: 26 Ways to Come Home for the Holidays

Author: Jennifer Joy

Publisher: Foxburg & Stern 2023

Genre: Holiday Romance

Pages: 164

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges: COYER; Holiday Reads

Where I Got It: Goodreads Contest Winner

Spice Rating: 3.5

It’s Thanksgiving 1942, and Stella West, the first-ever head of holidays for Hanover's Department Store is left in a bind when her lead window designer runs off days before the grand unveiling of the store’s Christmas windows—the city's most-beloved holiday tradition. With only 48 hours left until the windows' ribbon-cutting ceremony, Stella scrambles to gather together a rag-tag team of store employees to finish the job, including their picky luxury stylist, two flirtatious personal shoppers, a handful of delivery boys, and Stella's best pal, Hector.

As the group races to complete the store's twenty-six 'Home for the Holidays'-themed Christmas windows, Stella is stunned to discover that Hector is newly single and realizes the feelings she’d buried for him long ago may run deeper than she ever imagined. Dodging a baker who's sweet on her, the store kiss-up who's after her job, and the store owner who wants an early preview — Stella has more than enough to worry about without her love life adding to the mix. But with the ribbon-cutting approaching (and the news of Hector's epic bachelor status swirling through the store), Stella realizes that telling him how she feels might be now or never—even if it means risking losing him entirely.

I won this book through a Goodreads contest. It’s a cute very sweet holiday romance novella. We follow Stella as she deals with a massive problem at her department store job. We’re taken back to the 1940s as we see the characters overcome the problems and come together for Christmas. Overall, it was a cute story with light romance. I did find it slightly odd that there were a few sexual scenes that seemed strange within the tone of the book. But it was a decent read.

Next up on the TBR pile: