This is a lovely romance with great characters. There telling and revealing of information is done slowly and gently and really adds to the plot and unveils the characters through the chapters which works well. Charlie and Julian meet in a retirement home where Julian works and Charlie is moving in her gran. Both have troubled pasts and whilst they had a fling a good few years ago that isn’t enough to get them together now. Charlie is torn between her life before tragedy strikes and where her next steps might take her and Julian is bruised by his upbringing and his previous relationship to be able to commit. All of this adds up to a lovely tale and of two people., a gaggle of elderly folk and friends and hangers on all getting together to sign in a beautiful amateur choir.

"Shut up," she finally said, fighting a grin. He dropped his hand. "We need to focus on the choir."

A second-chance romance with a sweet, festive storyline about setting up a choir in a retirement village & entering a Christmas competition. I enjoyed the sparky dialogue and warmth/affection between the leads. A fun, fast-paced read. 🎄💖

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance copy.

Elizabeth Hrib’s The Best Christmas Choir Ever is a warm, festive, and delightfully quirky holiday romance that harmonizes second chances with comedic chaos. Professional soprano Charlie Ward, still grappling with grief after her brother’s death, is unexpectedly drawn into directing a retirement village choir—a group more enthusiastic than skilled. Into this merry fray steps Julian Guerrero, Charlie’s past summer flame, reigniting sparks amid gingerbread houses, Christmas lights, and eccentric seniors determined to win the Annual Christmas Choir Competition.

Hrib excels at combining heart and humor, balancing tender romantic tension with the lively antics of the choir residents. The forced proximity trope is handled with charm and clever twists, creating a cozy and uplifting narrative. Fans of holiday romance, musical mayhem, and endearing second-chance love stories will find themselves fully captivated.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – A joyful, lighthearted, and heartwarming festive read perfect for the holiday season.

This was a quick, cosy and fun read with the added bonus of being set during Christmas in a retirement village in a small town - Hallmark movie vibes (but with some spice)!

It’s a second chance romance featuring Charlie, a professional soprano and graduate of Julliard and Julian, the events coordinator for her grandmother’s new retirement home, who happens to be the boy she spent one romantic summer with several years ago. They butt heads to begin with (Julian rather inanely decides to pretend he doesn’t remember her) but then they have to work together to create a Christmas choir to win a competition for the retirement home. The choir is full of interesting and memorable residents of the retirement home and I found this fun and entertaining.

I didn’t really feel like Charlie and Julian’s relationship was the focus in the book and some of the scenes felt tacked on to make sure there was spice in the book. So I felt a bit of a disconnect with the main characters.

i love this time of year when we get little snippets of Christmas. its the only time i look forward to Christmas coming early! they somehow make you feel comforted and snuggly even if the months are hot and humid. they always hold a special place in my heart because there have been a fair few time these novels have helped me through. and i also know that time of year is tough for so many. these book although might bring a semi"oh i wish it could be like this" to proceeding, you almost are living it. its comforting,company.. and more than that they are just really good stories. especially when you know you favourite authors will be bring their Christmas themes novels out. i literally cannot wait for them.
this book was fun, loving and filled with cuteness and that weave of wit throughout.
this book also has the feisty spice element we like and im not just talking about the cinnamon!
we also have music, singing, choirs. yes please.
oh and not forgetting our must have, makes the best, small town feel to it. and the residential home which just adds cockles of warmth to the heart.
its also fresh and as always with brilliant authors they take these themes and run with it in their own unique ways.
this book is truly a tune for the heart and soul.
in this book we meet Charlie who's Gran has decided its time to seek more help and more into a retirement village. this is where Charlie runs into her one time ex Julian. they only spent a summer together but both left it as that and went back to their lives. hes now fully involved in the residents lives as hes the music man there.
and now its down to Charlie to help too as shes roped into putting a choir together for the Christmas choir.
but they both still have feelings. they have pasts. they have things they need to hash out. but they definitely need to be together if you ask me.
can they work it out, talk it out, sing it out and find their perfect duet?
you are going to love this book. you will smile almost all the way through and even at the moments of growth and emotional parts it will lift you, and somehow you will still come out smiling and feeling better.
loved it.

The Best Christmas Choir Ever was possibly my most anticipated festive read of 2025, however, it will not be making it into my favourites. It’s a little savage to say but this was so boring I couldn’t finish it.

As a lover of all things singing, The Best Christmas Choir Ever sounded right up my street. Unfortunately, I didn’t like either of the main characters and I thought the pace was far too slow for the shorter length of the book.

A lot of this review is my jumbled thoughts I wrote down while reading, so apologies if it’s a little all over the place.

The ‘romance’ was just plain bad. Charlie was visibly upset about her brother and for some reason Julian saw this as an opportunity for a cheeky little kiss. They’d been bickering back and forth and he literally pretended to not know her so this was very strange

Also I didn’t find their previous romantic relationship very believable. If we were given a flashback that would have been good. I’m not a fan of “you should believe this because I’m telling you”. I want you to show me why I should want them together.

I think if meeting again years later was a complete surprise to them both I would have gotten more excited about it. But Charlie already knew Julian worked at the home so it was a bit meh. There was no spark for me, but I will admit they do have good witty banter, I just don’t think it was the romantic kind.

Including spice in a book about a Christmas choir made up of geriatrics is a little weird to me. I only read one slightly steamy scene but it was genuinely jarring. It felt so out of place, especially as there has been no development of their relationship between the inappropriate kiss I mentioned before.

The residents of the home were brilliant though. I loved how they all had very distinct personalities and the choir was pure chaos. Charlie’s gran and the other workers at the home easily outshone the main characters.

Also, Charlie was embarrassingly horrible to them to begin with. She treated them like they were Broadway professionals so any mistake, even tiny ones, were blown way out of proportion. I do get that doing anything musical without her brother was hard for her, but this was too much in my opinion. You can’t be shouting at elderly residents of a retirement home.

I don’t really have much else to say as even though I made it more than halfway through The Best Christmas Choir, not a lot happened. They’d barely begun the choir and the book didn’t feel festive at all.

I received an Arc in exchange for an honest review.

This was an okay read but I couldn’t engage with Charlie. I found her boring and insensitive. I liked Julian.

This book was so good. I loved everything about this book. It's the perfect festive read. I loved the easy to follow story and the great mix of characters. I can't recommend it enough. I look forward to reading more by the author.
🩷 Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publisher for my arc ebook copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.