A job decorating a Scottish castle for Christmas sounds like something you'd find in a holiday movie, not the classifieds. For Lula, though, Hollybrae Castle arrives at exactly the moment she needs somewhere new to land. There are rooms waiting for Christmas trees, more poinsettias than anyone seems able to count, a tower library I would happily disappear into, and a castle owner whose plans for the holidays are about to become considerably more complicated.
Winter Magic at Hollybrae Castle by Jaimie Admans
Genres: Romantic Comedy

A Scottish castle, a fake marriage… and one very real Christmas romance?

After a window display goes disastrously viral – thanks to a malfunctioning animatronic Santa and an unfortunate encounter with Paddington Bear – Lula Haines finds herself without a job just weeks before Christmas. So she jumps at the chance to decorate Hollybrae Castle in Scotland for the holidays.

There’s just one complication: her handsome new boss, Oliver Bracewell, needs a fake wife for the festive season. To secure a promotion that could save his family’s castle, Ollie has been pretending to be a married father-of-two to impress the family-focused firm where he works. Now his bosses are coming to stay at Hollybrae over Christmas… expecting to meet his non-existent wife and children.

At first, playing along is easy as Lula is swept up in the magic of turning Hollybrae into the perfect festive escape with Ollie. But as Christmas draws nearer and she and Ollie grow closer, Lula begins to wonder if Hollybrae could become more than a temporary escape… and if the man she’s only pretending to love might actually be the one she’s been waiting for all along.

With heaps of tartan, tinsel and Christmas magic, this uplifting romance is perfect for fans of Trisha Ashley, Heidi Swain, Cressida McLaughlin, Ellie Henderson or Jessica Redland!

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I received this book for free from in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

was my second book from Jaimie Admans, and it didn’t take long for me to start laughing. The Paddington Bear window display disaster at the beginning gave me a pretty good idea of the kind of heroine Lula was going to be, and I was ready to follow her all the way to Scotland.

After losing her job just weeks before Christmas, Lula desperately needs another one. She finds an ad for someone to decorate Hollybrae Castle for the holidays, interviews with Oliver, and soon she’s heading into the Scottish countryside to spend Christmas covering an actual castle in lights, tinsel, trees, glitter, and a questionable number of poinsettias.

The decorating job isn’t the only thing Oliver needs help with. He’s been telling his bosses that he’s a happily married father of two, and now they want to meet his family. He’s hoping for a promotion that could help save Hollybrae Castle, so he needs Lula to temporarily become his wife while two children complete their pretend family.

Yes, it’s ridiculous. I was completely willing to go with it. Lula and Oliver were so much fun together. Their banter is playful, but there’s also a lot of yearning underneath it. They’re supposed to be pretending, which naturally means every glance and little moment between them becomes more complicated. I loved watching the line between fake and real get increasingly difficult for both of them to find.

The mistletoe scene certainly didn’t help matters. I also liked that the romance takes its time. Lula and Oliver have reasons to be cautious, and neither one can simply forget the problems waiting outside their Christmas bubble. That gave the quieter moments between them more weight because I knew there were things they weren’t quite ready to say.

Hollybrae Castle itself might have been competing with Oliver for my attention. I wanted to see every room Lula decorated. Christmas trees, lights, music, movies, festive games, fires burning while it’s cold outside, and Nancy constantly making something delicious in the kitchen made the castle feel like its own little Christmas world.

And then Jaimie Admans gave me a library in a tower. At that point, I was prepared to move in. Everyone else can sort out the fake marriage while I take my cocoa upstairs and live among the books.

Nancy’s food wasn’t helping my desire to relocate either. The mince pies sounded especially good, and between those and all the other things coming out of her kitchen, I would have been hovering nearby waiting to see what she made next.

The children, friendships, and family relationships added another layer to the story that I wasn’t expecting when Lula first arrived for a decorating job. The pretend family starts creating real connections, and Hollybrae gradually feels less like an old building they’re trying to save and more like a home filled with people who matter to one another.

This book absolutely knows it’s a Christmas romance. There are parts that are cheesy and developments I could see coming well before Lula and Oliver did. I didn’t mind that. Sometimes I want the unpredictable mystery that makes me question everyone. At Christmas, I’m perfectly capable of enjoying two people standing beneath mistletoe while I wait for them to figure out what I already know.

There are also some heavier memories underneath all the sparkle. Lula and Oliver both have things in their past that affect the choices they’re making now. Those pieces kept the story from being nothing but decorations and fake-family shenanigans, especially as both had to think about whether the sensible choice was actually making them happy.

The last part got much more emotional than I expected. One minute I was laughing about Christmas chaos and the next I was tearing up. Then the epilogue came along and gave me exactly the glimpse I wanted after everything Lula and Oliver had been through.