A Winter In New York by Josie Silver
Stars: 4
Spicy: PG, mostly behind closed doors
Will you like this book? You might if you like:
A serious tug on your heart strings and a good cry
New York City in the fall and winter
While You Were Sleeping
A bit of a mystery
Gelato
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.
Josie Silver is definitely one of my automatic buys and it started with One Day in December. Silver doesn’t get the hype that Emily Henry does, but I feel like they have a lot in common. Both are writing romance novels but in their books, the growth of the heroine is just as important, if not more sometimes, than the love affair. These are mature people, finding love again after loss and trauma.
Iris is a British chef who fled to New York City a year ago at Christmas to escape her life in London. She is finally breaking free of an abusive relationship and decides to go to the city her late mother loved. Iris brings along her mother’s gelato machine and a recipe passed on to her, written on an old napkin. In the Fall following her arrival, she finds herself in front of Belotti’s, a cafe famous for their vanilla gelato. Sadly, they aren’t making it at the moment because only two family members can ever know the recipe and one has just suffered a stroke and the other is off traveling. Iris is shocked to find that her mother’s napkin is the secret family recipe and she is not sure how to give it back without causing some serious family drama.
Silver draws on a lot of rom-com references in the book, especially Moonstruck, but i think the real homage is While You Were Sleeping; Iris is the only child of an only child and being welcomed into the Belotti family is like when Sandra Bullock finds herself surrounded by Bill Pullman and his family for the holidays. The one person that can blow the thing wide open is off in a hospital. And for Iris, finding a home for herself gives her the courage to face her demons and go for what she wants AND deserves.
Silver has a way of just tugging at your heart, making you feel all the feels. And as I mentioned, though this is a romance, the love of family, of a parent for a child, of friends, are just as important as the chemistry simmering between the MCs. Iris and Gio are not naive 20 year olds embarking on first love, they have been through tough times and they know they need to embrace happiness where they can. Plus there are a host of great secondary characters, including the city of New York itself. But I love Gio’s sister, Sophia, and Iris’ best friend, Bobby. They both act as perfect foils to the MCs and help move the story along. Smirnoff isn’t so bad either.
A Winter in New York just came out last week, but it will be the perfect holiday book to pick up when you want something just a bit serious but totally heartwarming.
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