CHRISTMAS :: The Christmas Swap by Sandy Barker

The majority of Christmas romance/romcom novels I read are from the UK or the US, so I am always on the look out for Aussie authors and stories. The Christmas Swap was one of the Aussie Christmas books I highlighted in my post about the 2020 Christmassy releases I was most excited to read, and it did not let me down! It was fun and funny (there were a few laugh out loud moments for me), and the alternating perspectives meant I kept on wanting to read ‘just one more chapter’.

What is Sandy Barker’s The Christmas Swap about?

Christmas is coming and best friends Chloe, Jules, and Lucy are needing change… so swapping homes for the holidays could be the perfect present for all of them!
Australian Chloe spends her Christmas in a sleepy village in Oxfordshire, England. She is totally star-struck when she discovers who lives across the road.
Lucy, who has jetted off to snowy Colorado for her dream-come-true white Christmas, is taken into the fold of Jules’s loud and brash family, discovering more about herself in a few short days than she has in years.
And Jules leaves the cold climes of Colorado to spend her Christmas on a beach with Chloe’s friends in Melbourne, finding that time away is just what she needed.

My review of The Christmas Swap by Sandy Barker

I loved the premise of this one – three close friends all wanting to try something different than their usual Christmas. This also meant we got three sweet festive romances in the one book, as well as the friendship tying them together. The couples that emerge, and their respective Christmases, were all fun and enjoyable to read. Each woman has only a few days to spend in their Christmas setting, so there is a bit of instalove, but I really felt like this worked. I think my favourite story was Lucy’s – Christmas in snowy Colorado sounds absolutely divine to me, and there was something charming about the description of Jules’s big chaotic family.

I really liked, that we got to see people celebrating Christmas in different ways – the ‘orphan Christmas’ in summer-time Australia, a huge, noisy family celebration in freezing Colorado, and something between those two in Oxfordshire. I love that this draws upon the fact that everyone has their own way to celebrate, and that there is no one right way to Christmas, and there was no focus on ‘the perfect Christmas’ – everyone was having fun doing something different to usual.

I know this is a big call, especially in mid-October, but I feel like if you are going to read one fun Christmas romance this year, then The Christmas Swap is going to be the one to pick up – it has all my essential Christmas bases covered, with snow and Christmas cake and the beach, and three lovely love stories in one, which makes it an absolute Christmas star for me!

xo Bron
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The Christmas Swap by Sandy Barker
Out now in ebook form from Harper Collins Australia and Harper Collins UK One More Chapter.
Source: Review e-copy provided to me by One More Chapter (thank you!) via Netgalley. All views are my own.
Category: Contemporary cosy Christmas romance.

The Christmas Swap on Goodreads.
Find Sandy Barker online here.
Check out my review of the sequel to The Christmas Swap, The Christmas Trip, here and a Christmassy Q&A with Sandy Barker here.