Maisie Smart had an uncharacteristic one-night stand with Nick King, whom she later finds out is a professional hockey player. Despite the fact that Nick was gone when Maisie woke up the next morning, she’s been having trouble moving on. Six months later, Maisie arrives at Tickle Tree Farm to spend the holidays with her family, only to find out that Nick is also there spending the holidays with his nephew and sister (who owns the farm). Nick is recovering from an injury, has been experiencing anxiety and panic attacks, and is dealing with some major life changes. He also has a good reason for bailing on Maisie six months ago and is determined to earn a second chance with her. But, with Nick set to return to the ice after the holidays, Maisie worries that he will unexpectedly disappear from her life again in the new year.
You Make It Feel Like Christmas is a second chance, holiday-themed hockey romance perfect for fans of Christmas romances like The Christmas Tree Farm by Laurie Gilmore, It Happened One Christmas by Chantel Guertin, A Little Magic by Lindsey Lanza, Matching All the Way by Veronica Eden, or Return to Virgin River by Robyn Carr. You Make It Feel Like Christmas deals with themes and topics like injury, retirement, mental health (including on-page panic attacks), long distance, loneliness, divorce, parenthood and parent-child relationships, definition of success, death of a parent, found family, fame, and change versus tradition.
I loved the cosy and festive smalltown vibe of Tickle Tree Farm, where the first chunk of the book is set. It was super fun to read about all of the holiday mischief that Maisie and Nicks’ families got into at Tickle Tree Farm, including an epic photo scavenger hunt competition and a late-night snowball fight/ hide and seek game. There was a lot of delightful secret mutual pining between Nick and Maisie as well as spicy (fade to black) sneaking around as Nick and Maisie tried to hide their budding relationship from their families, who are all staying in the same house for the holidays. I also really enjoyed reading about Maisie’s passion for photography; I don’t know a lot about the subject, but it sounded really cool. Lastly, I really appreciated that, even though there were lots of obstacles to being together that Nick and Maisie had to overcome throughout the course of the book, there wasn’t any big third act break-up in their story.
Maisie’s brother is married to Nick’s close friend, and the two families are close enough that they’re spending the holidays together, so it didn’t make sense to me that Maisie and Nick hadn’t realized their mutual connection before the events of the story. There was a ton of family drama in You Make It Feel Like Christmas, which was relevant to Maisie’s story but wasn’t my favourite to read about. There were also some descriptions of Nick’s panic attacks on-page, which again were relevant to the story but were challenging to read and could potentially be triggering to some readers. Finally, there were quite a few long, sappy speeches at the end of the book, which aren’t my favourite, and I personally could have done with less of them (but other readers may love all of these sweet moments).
I personally feel like I would have been even more excited to read this book closer to the winter holidays, in November or December (instead of September)—so I highly recommend adding You Make It Feel Like Christmas to your holiday TBR or wish lists!
You Make It Feel Like Christmas is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of September 23rd 2025.
Will you be picking up You Make It Feel Like Christmas? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis
All bets are off when a single-minded photographer and a professional hockey player are forced to spend a week together on his sister’s Christmas tree farm, perfect for fans of Jenny Holiday and Maggie Knox.
Maisie Smart doesn’t look back. Not on the choice she made to be a photographer, and not on the one-night stand she had six months ago. But sleeping with a professional hockey player who bolted the morning after is a whole new level of embarrassing. Now she’s about to spend the week at Tickle Tree Farms with her family this Christmas—and then the universe throws a Grinch in her festive plans.
Nick King is a mess. After a significant injury benches him, he has more time to dwell on his anxieties and the one-night stand he can’t get out of his head. With the holidays around the corner, he figures visiting his sister and nephew at their Christmas tree farm will be a good way to sort himself out. That’s impossible when he learns Maisie is there, still beautiful and justifiably angry about the way he left. But Christmas is the time for second chances, and the forced proximity may help Nick and Maisie unwrap feelings neither of them can walk away from twice.
