Title: The Holiday Swap
Author: Maggie Knox
Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks
Genre: Christmas, Romance
Pages: 352
My Rating: 7.5/10
Amazon link: The Holiday Swap
The Holiday Swap
Cassie and Claire are twin sisters, identical twins to be exact. In the past, they swapped lives to trick other people. But they have never done it as adults. When Claire hits her head on set, she has to slow down. Only Claire does not have the time to slow down. She has to film the new episodes of Sweet and Salty and she is hoping to get a new role in this new tv series. She asks her sister Cassie to swap lives for a week. Claire goes back to Cassie’s life. Cassie broke up with Brett, but apparently, he does not accept it. He clearly thinks they are perfect for each other and Claire has to end that. She also has to take over the family bakery. But swapping lives used to be so much easier when there were no guy troubles.
Review
I used to love ‘the parent trap’ movie as a kid, but I had never found a book about twin sisters swapping lives until now. When I heard this book was about twin sisters swapping their lives, I was sold.
Apparently, Maggie Knox is the pen name for Karma Brown and Marissa Stapley. I find it impressive when two authors work together on a book. Sure, maybe it is easier to find new ideas for a new book, but when you have two different opinions about how the book/story should end it gets more complicated. But working together as Maggie Knox was definitely smart because I definitely enjoyed reading this book.
I knew I would like this book from the first chapter. And the whole book did not let me down at all. It had everything I needed: the swapping lives, falling in love, and humor. I also got the Christmas vibes from this book too, which was another reason I picked this book. I am really in the mood to read more Christmas romance books right now.
There was one thing that I sort of was expecting. Claire got a concussion when she hit her head on set and she had to slow down. Back home at the bakery, she was forgetting things and I was waiting for the moment she had to go back to the doctor. And that Miguel (Cass’ love interest) would find out that they swapped lives. In fact: Claire did not slow down at all. I’ve had concussions before and it is hard to do anything at all when you have a concussion. I mean, Claire lost her taste and smell, that does sound pretty serious. So maybe that part wasn’t realistic. But I forgive the authors because the book would be extremely boring if Claire would sleep all day long.
The swapping lives were my favorite part of this book obviously. It was so much fun to read about how they struggled sometimes to pretend to be someone else. They constantly made mistakes and said the wrong things sometimes, but they immediately corrected themselves. And only one person noticed they swapped lives.
But other than that, I really liked the story and setting. It is definitely giving winter/Christmas vibes and with the whole romance aspect, it makes it just perfect to read. The chapters were pretty long and normally that would have been a problem for me, but not this time. I flew through the chapters like it was nothing. It was very easy to read. It was hard to put it down too.
I found out they wrote another Christmas book this year ‘All I want for Christmas’ and it is definitely on my list. There are still many books I want to read before Christmas, so hopefully, I can read ‘All I want for Christmas’ this year, otherwise, I will put it on my list for next year.