Maggie Knox is the pen name for writing duo Karma Brown and Marissa Stapley. Brown is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author of five novels, including the #1 national bestseller Recipe for a Perfect Wife, as well as the nonfiction bestseller The 4% Fix: How One Hour Can Change Your Life. Her writing has appeared in publications such as Self, Redbook, Today's Parent, and Chatelaine. She lives just outside Toronto with her family and a labradoodle named Fred. Stapley is a former magazine editor and the internationally bestselling author of four novels: Mating for Life, Things to Do When It's Raining, The Last Resort, and Lucky. Marissa's journalism has appeared in magazines and newspapers across North America, including The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Elle, Today's Parent, and Reader's Digest. She lives in Toronto with her family and a precocious black cat named Oscar. You can find Maggie Knox online at MarissaStapley.com, KarmaKBrown.com, on Twitter @MaggieKnoxBooks or on Instagram @MaggieKnoxAuthor.
When chef Charlie Goodwin gets hit on the head on the L.A. set of her reality baking show, she loses her critical ability to taste and smell. Meanwhile, Charlie's identical twin, Cass, is frantically trying to hold her own life together back in their quaint mountain hometown while running the family's bakery and dealing with the breakup that just won't end. With only days until Christmas, a desperate Charlie and Cass do something they haven't done since they were kids: switch places. But when rugged firefighter Jake Greenman and gorgeous physician assistant Miguel Rodriguez are thrown into the mix, will the twins' identity swap be a recipe for disaster, or for getting their lives back on track?
The stories of Cass and Charlie were disarmingly distinct—that is, of course, once I was able to keep the two of them straight! It is such a feat for a romance novel to have two couples, with two female leads, and this if of course achieved by Maggie Knox's writing team duo. It has to be much easier to write two main characters when there are two authors writing! Having two main female leads is not commonly seen in the contemporary romance genre, and I was here for it. It was fun to watch Cass and Charlie grow into their own by learning from the other. It was definitely inspiring—I say this as a sister (not a twin, thankfully) who loves learning from my younger sister, and I can absolutely say that Maggie Knox nailed this element of The Holiday Swap.
I've read quite a few books that had food as a principal element over the past few weeks, but none that made me quite as hungry as I felt while reading The Holiday Swap! Maybe because this book features predominantly baked goods (my weakness!) and Italian dishes, but I was starving for some of the goodies this book talked about. So much so that I even considered making bread—which I haven't even done before! I wish the publisher had included some recipes at the back of this one—I would have convinced myself to spend hours in the kitchen trying to recreate some of the treats that appeared in this novel! Alas, I am left with only my imagination, and it tells me that Cass's and Charlie's bakery is one that I absolutely wish was in my town.
The authors both have some journalistic experiences, and I felt in the first few pages that definitely showed. Once the backgrounds of Charlie and Cass were laid down quickly and efficiently, the use of journalistic-feeling language lessened, but there were some elements of figurative language I wished the authors had leaned into a bit more! Charlie lost her sense of smell, and there was a great paragraph near the end of the novel that could have been extended on that would have had brilliant implications for the theme of home and returning home. There were similar moments throughout the novel where I felt like had the authors leaned in a bit more to the use of figurative language (not metaphors or flowery language, but just diving deep into language that wasn't always so factual or straightforward), the novel's overall language would have been heightened.
The contemporary romance genre is more of a guide map than a blueprint. Meaning, if you love books in their genre, you have to know that no two books are going to be alike on any level, even if there are publishing industry standards. I was pleasantly surprised by how Hallmark-y this one was! I love Hallmark movies, and spend a lot of time over winter breaks binging these with my sister, so something about this novel was nostalgic for me. I was also glad to see that there weren't any incredibly spicy scenes—while this genre is full of novels that have a few of those scenes to cater to the audience base, I am always glad to find that there are some that don't play into that, because it is these books that will get younger readers in the audience base to get invested in the genre, and keep them as readers of adult fiction.
Maggie Knox is already working on another holiday contemporary romance novel, titled All I Want For Christmas, to be released in October 2022. For more Maggie Knox, go online at MarissaStapley.com, KarmaKBrown.com, on Twitter @MaggieKnoxBooks or on Instagram @MaggieKnoxAuthor.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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