Two best friends. Ten Christmases. One happy ending.When best friends Alexandra and Lucas share a first kiss on Christmas night their senior year of high school, it feels like the best years of their lives are ahead of them. Then Alex goes off to college, and Lucas stays behind to work at his dad’s construction business in the small beach town where they grew up. Life, as they say, happens. And … say, happens. And somewhere along the way these two high school sweethearts find they don’t have as much in common as they once did.
Lucas’s life is on Beaufort Island, and Alex is all about getting away and moving on. So he makes one of the hardest decisions of his life and lets her go.
But every year when Alex comes home for the holidays, fate conspires to reunite the two former lovebirds on Christmas Day. Year after year, through good times and bad, Lucas and Alex meet up, catch up, and reconnect on the anniversary of their first kiss.
Is it too much to hope that one year they’ll find their way back to each other permanently?
Maybe even this Christmas.
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I love Susannah Nix’s writing and couldn’t wait to read her Christmas novella. I loved reading about Alex and Lucas’s relationship and how it evolved over the years. I really enjoyed how each chapter changes to the other’s POV. This is a wonderful, heart-warming read full of emotions and a wonderful second chance and getting it right.
A story of true love, breaking up, small surprises through the years when they meet up, finding the truth and much more in this poignant story, This was an ARC from the author.
Nix has quickly become a favorite of mine, an absolute one-click for me. This novella is a sweet, friends to lovers, second chance romance that truly gets you in all the feels. We follow Alex and Lucas over the span of a decade, through some ups, downs, and personal growth, as they navigate their adult world. It’s very well written and Nix touches on relationships with true to form and realistic expectations. I absolutely adored Lucas. He’s sweet, funny, and oh so caring. His tenderness and soft heart will make you swoon. I wish I could keep him! Alex came off a little self absorbed but what young adult from a small town, dying to get out in the real world after graduation isn’t? We all said we’d “keep in touch” but how often does that ring true? It was nice to see their group of friends try and keep their Christmas Day at the beach tradition alive over the years. Even though this is only a novella, it is chock full of emotion. My only wish was that there was more!
A sweet romance with all the ups, downs, and angsty feels of a second chance friends to lover story Susannah Nix is so good at writing. Alexandra and Lucas’ love story is told over a decade with each chapter providing the reader with a glimpse of their lives at Christmas each year.
Nix’s Maybe This Christmas is a sweet and angsty romance about Alexandra (Alex) Bonner and Lucas O’Hare. It starts on Christmas Day in the year 2010 as they’re seniors in high school and continues every year until 2019. It’s well written, the characters are amazing, the chemistry is there, it’s has all the feels and it’s got a great ending. I just love how the story plays out every year on Christmas Day only. Kudos to Ms Nix! I definitely recommend this book and author. A 5+ for sure!
I have voluntarily read and reviewed this advanced readers copy
I loved this Christmas novella! It was the perfect read to put me in the Christmas spirit. Nix is such a masterful storyteller that even her novellas bring out the full range of emotions – hope, joy, sadness, longing, and then back to hope. This is one sleigh ride you’ll want to take this Christmas season! 😉
Absence makes the heart grow fonder: or does it?
4.5 stars
I must admit, Alexandra, the heroine in this short romance, struck me as a bit self-obsessed and clueless when it came to how she treated long-suffering BFF and one-time boyfriend Lucas. But I really adored the patient hero and his dedication to giving Alexandra the space she needed to grow and be happy. Ultimately, a happy ending and all told in brief vignettes of Christmases dating over a decade. A well-written, sweet novella by one of my go-to romance authors.
WOW! I am still crying, both sad and happy tears. This is the sweetest, most agonising and heartwarming romance I have ever read. And what a beautiful and intriguing way to tell the story. I am in awe to this author and her ability to captivate the reader from the first letter and right through to the end.
I voluntarily reviewed an Advanced Readers Copy of this book.
This book put me in the mood for more of the holiday season. It’s as stressful as any dysfunctional family get-together, and just as sweet and magical as the season. In other words, it’s everything real life is, and also everything you wish it would be. I loved the care and delicacy the author handled one of the major direction changes in Alex’s life. It strikes me as being very accurate and true to life. Lucas is everything I want in the perfect book boyfriend – I just want to pull him out of the book and into my everyday life. He’s sweet and funny and loves with his whole heart. Now I’m kind of hoping we’ll get stories for the rest of their friends too.
I received a complimentary advanced copy of this book from the author.
Thank you for this ARC, Susannah Nix! Lucas and Alexandra a best friend in high school and then sweethearts for a brief time before college. Alex goes to college, leaving her life in Beaufort Island, and Lucas, behind. He is steadfast in her love for her, she is not, so, unselfishly, he let her go. I loved Lucas, the deepness of his feelings for Alex, his unpretentiousness, the desire to be a friend to Alex even when it hurts him. A wonderful character, a moving story!
I love small town romances – I particularly love second-chances – and this has both in one delicious, can’t-put-it-down holiday novella. Nix has such a gift of psychological insight: the jokes that aren’t jokes, why we say Yes when sometimes we mean No, and why we sometimes say No when we really want to say Yes. An absolute gem. I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
As soon as I saw the adorable cover of Susannah Nix’s latest novella, “Maybe This Christmas,” I knew I had to read it, and it did not disappoint.
This cute, sweet story features a pair of likeable main characters, Lucas and Alex, who were surprisingly well-developed given the novella’s short length. I particularly enjoyed the novella’s structure, which seemed to me more like a series of vignettes than a traditional novella. I’ve never read anything like it before, but I found it to be a great way to highlight the main characters’ development over time since they were often dealing with pretty big changes in their lives from one Christmas to the next.
Overall, “Maybe This Christmas” was a wonderful read, and I highly recommend picking it up today. It’s the perfect early Christmas present to yourself! 🙂
*ARC provided by the author via BookFunnel. All opinions expressed are my own.
This is a sweet feel good second chance romance between Alex and Lucas. The story spans ten years , starting in their senior year in high school and centers on Christmas holiday and the paths they take along the ten year span. The author does a great job building the story and describing her characters and scenes in detail. It’s told in the dual POV which shows both of their thoughts and emotions along the way. It’s a touching story and I enjoyed reading.
I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of this book. All opinions in this review are my own and freely given.
Maybe this Christmas by Susannah Nix is a truly heart warming novella!
The plot is very clever and gives glimpses into the lives of both Lucas and Alex, each Christmas Day.
We watch them grow from childhood sweethearts to estranged friends, through life’s trials and changes whilst begging for them to find their way back to each other again.
Alex and Lucas are amazing characters and I absolutely loved them.
Such a beautifully sweet read that will make your heart happy!
Love how Alex and Lucas’s story spans throughout different years. Love the connection between the two of them and how they kept in touch with each other. Their ending is beautiful.
An absolutely adorable stand alone novella from the same author who brought us the Chemistry Lessons series. It kind of reminded me of that one Christmas movie Love at the Christmas Table (2012) but this book was so much better. Christmas of their senior year Alex and Lucas finally admit they like each other and share their first kiss after knowing each other practically all their lives. The next year after graduation and Alex leaving for college Lucas realizes as much as he loves her he needs to let her go to live her life and they break up a year to the day that they started dating.The next year is awkward they haven’t talked practically that whole year but they come to realize they can still be friends and be there for each other. One year she has a girlfriend, and the next not and then Lucas has a girlfriend and then a fiance. Each year they grow closer again learning each other as adults rather than school friends and high school sweethearts until they are together, again.
I love the format of this each year is a single chapter and it doesn’t give the reader any extra information on what has happened during the past year so that way the characters have something to talk about especially when they are estranged and then they reflect on the past year. Overall, this is a quick and easy read, I really enjoyed it.
Slightly bittersweet Christmas novella with a satisfying happy end.
I really like the structure of this novella with each chapter describing one Christmas Day over the course of a decade. There is a lot of drama going on in this rather short read – not only with Alex and Lucas, but also with their families – but, somehow, Susannah Nix makes it work.
Among all that drama, we get to see Alex and Lucas grow up – and, sadly, grow apart – before they find their way together again.
To be honest, I found Lucas more relatable than Alex – but I was still rooting for the two of them to get togther (again) ever since that first swoon-worthy kiss…
Frequently with novellas, I’m left wanting more because the story feels incomplete. I definitely felt satisfied with Maybe This Christmas. Alternating between Alexandra and Lucas’s POVs, we are treated to snapshots of their lives over the course of ten years when they return to their tiny Texas beach community for the holidays.
Alexandra and Lucas’s second chance romance had all the feels. My heart ached for each of them at different times and I laughed plenty. I thoroughly enjoyed this sweet holiday romance and definitely recommend it as a quick heartwarming read to ease you into your holiday reading.
**I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
This small town romance will definitely grab you attention. It is descriptive and well written about two high school friends who share a kiss on Christmas and return each year to celebrate that first kiss. Alexandra was destined for college while Lucas remained in town to work for his father. Each year that they celebrate marks a change in their lives but will it be enough for these two to find closure and move to a happily ever after with each other or will they remain in the same dormant state repeating their first Christmas each year? I voluntarily agreed to receive an ARC of this book for an honest review.
What an enjoyable read! This book has the perfect framework for a holiday season movie. I hope someone with enough clout reads it and can do something about it. But, enough about that and back to the book…
Initially childhood friends, Alex and Lucas connect romantically during their final year of high school. Alex ends up going away to college while Lucas chooses to stay in town. Distance soon makes this fledgling relationship crumble but neither wants to sever the ties of friendship.
Each chapter in MAYBE THIS CHRISTMAS chronicles their relationship when they catch up on December 25 in their small island hometown of Beaufort Island. Each year brings surprises as they grow and mature into adults.
This book is definitely a romance, but it’s also a wonderful coming-of-age story about two individuals: The self-discovery of who they are as they grow into adults. The anguish of loving someone yet knowing you might not be what’s best for them. The confusion of realising that in growing, your goals and priorities change over time. It all comes across as highly relatable and true to life.
Even though Alex and Lucas are not romantically in sync when they meet each year, I loved their meetings. The awkwardness and hesitation of what to say and how to act is apparent, but so is the love and respect these two have for each other. I thoroughly enjoyed their unique courtship.
MAYBE THIS CHRISTMAS by Susannah Nix is definitely one to add to your holiday season reading list.