Twelve Days of Christmas: A Christmas Novel

Twelve Days of Christmas is this year’s Christmas novel by Debbie Macomber. Julia Padden lives across the hall from grumpy Cain Maddox. Julia has been cheerful and polite, but Cain does not respond to her cheerfulness (besides asking if she is always so cheerful in the morning). Then he steals her newspaper, and Julia catches him at it. That is the last straw. Julia talks about her neighbor with her best friend, Cammie. Cammie suggests that she kill him with kindness. She also suggests that this would be a great thing to blog about. Julia is trying to get her dream job in social media. Harvestware (major software developer) has an opening. Julia applied and it is down to her and one other applicant. They both have to blog during the month of December and the person with the biggest following will get the position. It is twelve days until Christmas. Julia uses that as the title of her posts. Julia starts out by bringing Cain his newspaper and then buying him coffee. Slowly Julia starts to see a change in Cain. It turns out that Cain can be quite charming. To see how her experiment turns out, you will have to read Twelve Days of Christmas. Twelve Days of Christmas was entertaining. I knew how the romance would play out (predictable), but it was a fun story. I found the characters engaging and I liked the humor in the story. Twelve Days of Christmas is easy to read and has a quick pace (it can be finished in under three hours). I thought the idea of killing someone with kindness was good idea and more people should follow the practice (we would definitely have a better world). The ending will leave you laughing. I give Twelve Days of Christmas 4 out of 5 stars (I liked it). There is an excerpt from Dashing Through the Snow at the end of the books. I cannot wait for Debbie Macomber’s next book. I received a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an honest review. The comments and opinions expressed are strictly my own.

This is a love story that starts with a blog. Julia has a neighbor, Cain, who seems a bit grumpy and very unfriendly. Julia's smile in the morning rivals the sun. They both leave for work at approximately the same time, so they share the elevator several days a week. She always greets him with Good Morning! and he mostly grunts at her and departs the elevator as soon as he possibly can. But the day he stole her newspaper was the final straw as far as she was concerned. Her best friend made a suggestion .. kill him ... kill him with kindness. It just so happens that for a job, she must start a blog and run it for a month. She's in competition with someone else, and now is the perfect time to start that blog. Titled The Twelve Days of Christmas, Julia starts blogging about her neighbor, Ebeneezer, and imparts her plan to kill him with kindness. Day by day, she writes about her attempts to get him to smile, to say Good Morning, to just be a more agreeable person. But Cain has trust issues, and not knowing about the blog for a job, he assumes she just wants something .. and her Miss Pollyanna attitude is driving him crazy. Slowly but surely she chips away and finds a totally different man underneath. He does have a heart ... he is caring ... and she's falling for him in a big way. And even if Cain returns her feelings, what will happen when he learns that he's been used to gain a job? This was a fast, fun romp. I haven't read a Christmas-themed romance in a very long time and I'm really happy to have chosen this one. I liked the characters, although at times Julia's shiny personality shone a little bit too bright and Cain was a tad too dark. But I did enjoy the way they played off of each other. I know it's a bit early for Christmas, but this author writes stories from and for the heart. In the mood for some romance ... try this one. You won't be disappointed. Many thanks to the author / Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine / Netgalley who provided a digital copy in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

How can you not love a book that has kindness and Christmas in it. The perfect start for my holiday season of reading. Kindness can go for such a long way. Julia had to figure a way to get along with her neighbor, Cain (Mr Scrooge), shower him with kindness and then write about it on her blog. Will her kindness/blog back fire on her though. I really enjoyed this book, showing how a little bit of kindness can change a person. I believe we all need to show a little bit more kindness in our everyday life. I sure hope this will be a movie. I received this book from netgalley for an honest review.