Amanda Radley

Ellie Pearce adores Christmas so much she celebrates all year round, earning herself the nickname Christmas Girl. If only she liked her job as much as eggnog lattes and mistletoe. Stuck as a marketing analyst for London-based recruitment company Caldwell & Atkinson, Ellie is desperate for a career change but afraid to take a chance. CEO Rosalind Caldwell needs a new personal assistant after the last one quit, putting the extremely important corporate Christmas party in jeopardy. Christmas Girl is just the holiday miracle Rosalind needs, and Ellie is quickly promoted to the top floor of the Canary Wharf skyscraper. Ellie isn't a PA, has never planned a party in her life, and is terrified of heights. If things weren't bad enough, she then goes and develops a ridiculous crush on her totally intimidating new boss. With the festive season fast approaching, what could possibly go wrong?

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Lucia Correa

Note: I actually wrote this review back in Jan 2022, but I didn't realize until now that I didn't post it!

I really liked this Christmas novel. The two main characters are Ellie Pearce, who is a statistician by training. She was unable to find a job in statistics and ended up as a marketing analyst at a Recruitment company. As a marketing analyst, she is asked to use data to prop up what her boss wants to promote. Opposite from what she was trained to do as a statistician, who analyses data and reports it as is. As brilliant as she is and as much as her job frustrates her, she lost her desire to search for a new job. Ellie is also known as Christmas Girl. She celebrates it year-round with her desk filled to overflowing with Christmas décor.

The second main character is the CEO, Rosalind Caldwell. I didn't think of her as an Ice Queen, but rather a very busy, head of a large company. Rosalind's PA quit and so she comes down from her twenty-second floor office to tell Ellie that she will report immediately to be her new PA. Ellie is shocked. She doesn't want to go up there. Not because of the job itself or having to work for Rosalind, but because of the floor it is on. Ellie has very severe acrophobia (fear of heights) so she avoids any height, barely adjusting to her second-floor office cubical. She also avoids elevators. But now she has no choice. The main reason that Rosalind sought out "Christmas Girl", was that the company's annual Christmas party for clients and employees is to be in a few weeks. This is the most important event of the year for the company, and it has a reputation of being THE party not to be missed. The problem - Rosalind's ex-PA cancelled all the arrangements before she left. So, who else to plan a Christmas party last minute, but the Christmas Girl? 

Two other significant characters are Ellie's office mate and best friend, Will and Rosalind's twelve-year-old daughter Ava. Both help Ellie execute her Christmas party plans and help her hide her debilitating acrophobia from Rosalind. Ellie really needs their help, because the only venue she was able to find was a rooftop outdoor garden venue. In the middle of winter.

I enjoyed watching Ellie blossom into a very efficient and effective PA and party planner. I did like the boss-employee romance between Ellie and Rosalind. However, if you are looking for a steamy romance, its not here. I didn’t miss it. This story has made it onto my annual Christmas re-read list.

I received an ARC from Bold Strokes Books via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

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