“Magic happens at Christmas”
When Charlie loses her senses of taste and smell after getting hit on the head while on the set of her baking show, she asks her identical twin sister, Cass, to temporarily switch places with her. Cass, needing a break from running the family bakery while her parents are on vacation and needing to escape her persistent ex-boyfriend, readily agrees to the swap. But the switch turns out to be way more complicated than the twins anticipate! Cass must deal with Charlie’s sabotaging co-host and ensure that Charlie gets the big promotion that she’s up for. Meanwhile, Charlie must deal with a chain bakery moving into town, providing unwanted competition for the family bakery, and finish baking all of Cass’s finicky Starlight Loafs before the town’s holiday festival. Additionally, both twins get distracted by new love interests whilst pretending to be each other.
The Holiday Swap is a feel-good holiday rom-com filled with delicious recipes, drama, adventure, and true love. This book is a unique and contemporary take on the classic twins switching places trope that is ideally suited for adults, especially those who love movies like The Princess Switch, The Parent Trap, and It Takes Two as well as books like The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren, It Won’t be Christmas Without You by Beth Reekles, and All I Want for Christmas by Beth Garrod. The Holiday Swap deals with themes such as love and heartbreak, change versus tradition, identity, escapism, female roles, appearance versus reality, quest for power, overcoming fears, technology, and man against nature. After physically and emotionally walking in each others’ shoes, Charlie and Cass learn that you must be true to yourself, you need to deal with your own problems, and you should go after what you want (and what’s important) in life—no waiting or settling. I want to share a comical piece of advice that one of the side characters gives to Charlie because I really liked it: “Time heals all things. If time fails, try cake.”
Even though I enjoyed this book, I found a few things unsettling. First, Charlie’s co-host and Cass’s ex-boyfriend both shower Charlie and Cass respectively with unwanted physical and emotional attention. This was somewhat frustrating to read and it was disappointing that no one tried to stop or prevent this harassment. Second, I was frustrated by the fact that, instead of adhering to medical advice by taking time off work after suffering the concussion and losing her senses of taste and smell, Charlie choses to work full-time running the family bakery (which arguably is just as gruelling as working on her baking show and similarly requires the ability to taste and smell). Lastly, it was odd and unrealistic that none of their close friends realised that the twins switched places (you would think that at least Cass’s ex-boyfriend, whom she has know for 10 years, would have noticed that he was talking to Charlie and not Cass).
On the plus side, I found that The Holiday Swap was very engaging; I wanted to keep reading to find out if or when the twins got caught in their lie! It was also great to see how Cass stood up for her twin by questioning management on the inequality between Charlie’s image and her male co-host’s image on the show; while Charlie was unfairly given “sweet” dresses and heels to wear on the show, her co-host Austin got to look like a serious and confident chef while wearing his chef’s whites. I loved how The Holiday Swap included two holiday romance stories; Charlie and a handsome firefighter who frequents the family bakery as well as Cass and the gorgeous physician’s assistant who treated Charlie’s concussion. Again, I was very invested and wanted to keep reading to see what happens when the gentlemen inevitably find out that Charlie and Cass aren’t who they say they are. Lastly, all of the Christmas elements included in this book were fantastic, such as snowy hikes, Christmas baking, festive television specials, holiday tunes, unexpected presents, mistletoe kisses, and family traditions.
Overall, this book was a cute, fun, and heart-warming read that I would highly recommend adding to your holiday TBR list!
The Holiday Swap is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of October 5th 2021.
Will you be picking up The Holiday Swap? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
A feel-good, holiday-themed romantic comedy about identical twins who switch lives in the days leading up to Christmas–perfect for fans of Christina Lauren’s In a Holidaze and Josie Silver’s One Day in December.
All they want for Christmas is a different life.
When chef Charlie Goodwin gets hit on the head on the L.A. set of her reality baking show, she loses a lot more than consciousness; she also loses her ability to taste and smell–both critical to her success as show judge. Meanwhile, Charlie’s identical twin, Cass, is frantically trying to hold her own life together back in their quaint mountain hometown while running the family’s bustling bakery and dealing with her ex, who won’t get the memo that they’re over.
With only days until Christmas, a desperate Charlie asks Cass to do something they haven’t done since they were kids: switch places. Looking for her own escape from reality, Cass agrees. But temporarily trading lives proves more complicated than they imagined, especially when rugged firefighter Jake Greenman and gorgeous physician’s assistant Miguel Rodriguez are thrown into the mix. Will the twins’ identity swap be a recipe for disaster, or does it have all the right ingredients for getting their lives back on track?
