This is book three in the Rowan Vale series. It does work as a standalone, but I would advise reading the others to understand more the relationships and characters.

This book sees two different stories interwoven again - the human story of Clara and Jack, and the ghost story of Aubrey. Clara is 41 and wanting to reclaim her life after bringing up her children, but her health has other ideas. Her relationship with husband Jack is suffering as a result - can they work out their problems and get their life back on track? Aubrey is desperate to see more of Rowan Vale, but wife Agnes is determined to keep them at Harling Hall. Can he persuade her otherwise?

A lovely cosy Winter story, I loved the idea of the Dickensian Christmas, Always nice to catch up with characters from previous books (I'm still holding out for a story about Harmony!), it is a wonderful light series. I really related to Clara in this book, you could clearly feel her confusion and pain, and poor Jack just couldn't understand.

Thank you to NetGalley and Boldwood Books for this ARC.

This is the third in the Ghosts of Rowan Vale series that started with Kindred Spirits at Harling Hall. I do think it's best to have read the first book as an introduction to the village and the original premise. Rowan Vale, a picturesque village in the Cotswolds, is like a living history museum: it has a steam railway, a vintage teashop, an old water mill, old fashioned shops, a vintage cinema called The Magic Lantern, a rustic pub called The Quicken Tree and an Elizabethan manor house called Harling Hall. It also has a lot of ghosts.

Some residents can't see them, some can see only related ghosts and some, including new estate owner Callie, can see them all. There is an unwritten rule that the owner of the Harling Estate that the village belongs to must have the ability to see and communicate with them, which is how Callie came to acquire the estate and fall in love with Brodie Davenport, grandson of the former owner.

This time Callie puts a lot of time and effort into organising a Dickensian Christmas weekend for residents and visitors. This book concentrates on ghosts Agnes, Aubrey and Florence, who live at Harling Hall, plus Clara Milsom, 41, who lives at Honeywell House with husband Jack and boys Ashton, Freddie and Declan. Their garden houses a model village of the Harling Estate, and Clara hopes to make a tourist attraction out of it so she can be more than just a mother. However, a suprise revelation and financial difficulties get in the way, plus a lot of secrets and lies that unexpectedly link Aubrey and Clara, come to light and cause havoc. Why is Agnes so against leaving the big house and visiting the village?

I just loved the unusual premise of incorporating non-spooky ghosts from all eras into normal village life, and I loved them all. Clara gets a first person POV and everything else is told in third person, which works well. The story is well-written, unique, atmospheric and decidedly Christmassy. It's a great story with a gorgeous cover and the ghosts really are the stars of the show and provide a lot of humour. The grumpy Reverend Silas Alexander had me in stitches!

I have to say however that two people didn't endear themselves to me who I already was iffy about in the previous books. Both Agnes' and Lawrie's past actions were despicable and selfish, and in Lawrie's case, also hypocritical. Poor Aubrey is such a kind soul and forgives way too easily, even apologising to Agnes, God knows what for. Clara also hasn't done anything wrong and was basically forced to lie, so Jack's reaction is way over the top.

However, Aubrey gets a brilliant happy ending, and the positive ghost he is, is absolutely thrilled about his happy afterlife. Good on him! Had to wipe a tear away for this true Victorian gentleman. I hope there'll be sequels as I can't get enough of this spectral-heavy community!

4.5 stars

I have really enjoyed this series. It was interesting to see more interaction with the ghosts in this story. I can’t say I was a big fan of Clara. She just annoyed me until almost the end of the book.
Looking forward to the next one

There’s festive and then there’s "let’s throw a Victorian Christmas party while everyone’s lying about something and the ghosts are beefing" festive... and “Christmas Spirits at Honeywell House” said, what if we do both? At once. In a village where the yuletide cheer is practically mandatory and even the afterlife gets seasonal depression.

This one picks up with Clara, a woman who has three kids, one very emotionally constipated husband, and what she thinks is perimenopause. Spoiler alert: it’s not. And that one not-perimenopausal twist is the first domino in a full-blown Christmas chaos avalanche. Listen. Clara is tired. She's forty-one, stuck between a crumbling model village business and the growing dread of becoming nothing but “mum” forever. I get it. She wants to claw back some sense of identity, maybe start a business, maybe not lose her mind. But unfortunately, she’s also been harboring a MASSIVE secret from Jack for, oh, I don’t know, FIFTEEN YEARS. And not a cute “I ate your Terry’s Chocolate Orange” kind of secret... this one is nuclear.

Meanwhile, over at Harling Hall, our favorite spectral duo, Agnes and Aubrey, are going full drama llama. Agnes is clinging to secrets like they're her last pearls, and Aubrey, literal ghost cinnamon roll that he is, just wants to put on a scarf, wander the Dickensian festival, and support their ghost-daughter like the king he is. But Agnes says no, and not just no, but passive-aggressive, steely-eyed, Regency-era absolutely not. And you just know when the ghosts start bickering, the living aren’t safe either.

Here’s the thing. This book wants to be a cozy slice of haunted holiday cake, and sometimes it really is. When it leans into the setting... the frosty air, the village-wide festivities, the quiet love between exhausted parents who’ve forgotten how to look at each other... it shines. But emotionally? We’re trapped in a snow globe of poor communication and suppressed resentment.

Clara’s choices… I want to hold her hand and slap her gently with a mitten at the same time. Her lie wasn’t just big... it rewrote her whole relationship. And Jack? Let’s just say his reaction is... complicated. Like, “Sir, why are you apologizing?” complicated. It’s giving, “I’ll suppress all my emotions and forgive you because it’s Christmas” and that’s romantic, sure, but also deeply unhealthy. Still, their dynamic did feel painfully real... messy, layered, weirdly codependent... and you know I live for that chaos.

But the real heartbreak? Agnes. Girl. GIRL. You had decades... literal decades, like, since the Victorian era... to come clean, and you still chose the dramatic martyr route. I felt for her, I did. But watching her project her trauma onto everyone around her while Aubrey kept being a damn saint about it? I wanted to shake her until her bonnet fell off. Aubrey deserved better. I’d haunt a better manor house for him.

Also, bonus drama points to the side characters who popped in just to drop emotional bombs or deliver judgmental glances like plot grenades. Lawrie, specifically, can go stand in a snowbank and think about what he did.

Is it perfect? Nope. The resolution feels a bit too tidy given the level of betrayal involved. Some forgiveness gets handed out faster than mulled wine at a village fair, and I’m not totally sold on the emotional math. But did it give me enough ghost angst, marital drama, and Christmas chaos to keep turning the pages? Absolutely. Three stars, would visit Rowan Vale again, but maybe bring a therapist.

Big thanks to Boldwood Books and NetGalley for the ARC. I haven’t screamed “MA’AM?!” at a fictional ghost and a mother of three since I accidentally watched "The Others" on wine night. This book had me decorating my imaginary tree with passive aggression, repressed trauma, and the tinsel of marital distrust. Bless you for letting me unwrap that emotional grenade early.

As someone who loves Christmas, I was so excited to read about Rowan Vale at Christmas, and it did not disappoint. Rowan Vale sounds magical at Christmas and makes the perfect backdrop for the story.

Book three of the Ghosts of Rowan Vale series starts us off with our FMC Clara. She's a 41-year-old woman, married, with 3 kids. Clara is super relatable in that she is TIRED, thinks she's going through perimenopause, and feels like she's lost a little bit of herself as a stay-at-home mom. Christmas is already a busy time of year and she's in for a few surprises and new additions this Christmas. Clara has a secret she's been hiding for her entire marriage that is about to be revealed and could change her family's future in Rowan Vale.

The ghosts of Rowan Vale also have some buried secrets, and this book focuses on the story between Agnes and Aubrey. Agnes is hiding something that could destroy the family she's created and after 15 years, it's about to come out.

*I received a copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for this opportunity*

The next installment of the Ghosts of Rowan Vale series (and definitely my latest guilty pleasure series!), CHRISTMAS SPIRITS follows new, but familiar, families during their most stressful holiday season yet.

Clara arrived in Rowan Vale over fifteen years ago to be with her long-distance boyfriend, Jack. Now, the couple are the proud (if a little exhausted) parents of three boisterous young boys and Clara is interested in re-entering the workforce (and have a different title than 'mum); however, Jack is hesitant to give up his stable job on the railroad to pursue Clara's dream of self-employment. But when a surprise changes everything, Clara and Jack will have to lean on each other more than ever to not only get through Christmas, but also to stay together.

Across town and in the big house, ghosts Aubrey and Agnes (a Victorian gentleman and Regency lady) are also at odds. Aubrey is increasingly desperate to return to the village to experience the upcoming Dickensian Christmas weekend and support their daughter, Florence-- and Agnes' argument to avoid the town due to a judgmental rector is growing less convincing by the day.

Just as charming and fun as the previous books, CHRISTMAS SPIRITS is a joyful and festive read. While not my favorite in the series overall (I have issues with Agnes), I still can't wait for the next one!

2.5 ⭐

While I absolutely love this world and I really enjoyed the first two books, I didn't particularly liked this one.
The village was even more enchanting than before and I did love it, but I couldn't get behind either of the main couples. This simply wasn't for me. 

In this one, we're getting to know more about Clara and Jack. Fifteen years together, three sons and a plan to finally start a business, something that will finally let Clara find herself outside of being a mother and a wife, but some unexpected news puts everything in question.. And Clara is guarding a secret that might destroyed them.. 
And we finally get a long awaited glimpse into Agnes and Aubrey, their relationship, the tension that has been raising between them and the reason they don't venture into the village anymore. But there is much more than meets the eye, a secret that's close to unravelling..

I really liked the settings, it's my favourite yet. It was such a cozy atmosphere, the snow, the Christmas cheer, the Dickensian-themed weekend, absolutely perfect. And I do love Callie and Brodie and the ghosts, well most of them, but I couldn't connect to the couples at all and I didn't really liked how Clara and Agnes handled things... 

I really liked Clara in the first two books, so I was excited for her story and I'm sympathetic towards her, I couldn't imagine how hard it can be, but that doesn't make what she did right. I can understand why she didn't say anything later, even do I feel she should have, but there's absolutely no excuse for her not saying anything at the very beginning and all the lies she told later were far too much.. And Jack feeling guilty about his behaviour when he found out is unacceptable. His reaction was absolutely warranted!! 

Aubrey was the best character here, so kind and sweet, and he deserved better, especially after everything he had to endure when he was alive. He's the only reason I'm not giving this two stars.. What Agnes did was unforgivable.. I'm sorry, but it was incredibly selfish.. You don't get to project your fears and insecurities to the people you love, hiding things and making decisions for them, under the guise of protecting them.. It's unacceptable. She did it for herself and I personally would have never forgiven so easily.. And Aubrey still put her feelings first, he was far too good and a far better person than they all deserved!!! 
And Lawrie had no right, not to do what he did and certainly not to speak the way he did!! 

I was honestly annoyed and frustrated most of the book, we got over what was done far too quickly and far too easily. But, that's just my opinion! 

I still love this series as a whole and I can't wait for more books. And while I didn't enjoyed this one, you still might.

Thank you to NetGalley and Boldwood books for giving me the chance to read this book, I enjoyed it. This is book 3 in the series and is set at Christmas time in the lovely Cotswold historic village where there are lots of spirits around.
This book is built around Clara and Jack and the secret she is hiding. It kept me interested to the end.

Christmas Spirits at Honeywell House is the third book in the Ghosts of Rowan Vale series!
I loved the first two, so I was really looking forward to reading this one, and it did not disappoint at all!!

Just like the others, this installment is a cozy, easy read and perfect for when the weather turns colder in a few months.
I really enjoyed more christmassy theme in this one alot.

I absolutely love this series and I’m really hoping for maybe another book in this series!

Thank you to NetGalley and Boldwood for this ARC!

I really loved book one and two in this series as they were cozy and fun, however this one? Not so much. I don’t have any issues regarding the writing or the plot because it’s super easy to read, all my issues lie with the main couple. In the first few chapters I already should have put this down, because how am I supposed to root for a couple like this? I got to 40% before putting this down because I wanted to give it a fair chance and wanted to believe the dynamic might get better, but it seriously got on my nerves so much so that I couldn’t bring myself to go on with the story as intriguing as it was. If there are more books in the series I’d still love to check them out since I love the town and the people’s dynamics, but unfortunately this was a miss for me. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an e-arc copy in exchange for an honest review.

The book took awhile to get going, with a lot of character development exploring Jack and Clara’s relationship, children and family. Once the spirits get involved, this book takes on the great feeling of the rest of this series. There are relationship issues in the spirit world as well as human and all are explored quite sensitively as well as with a little bit of tongue in cheek. The hidden truths secrets and meanings all inevitably have a way of coming out and hurting people and this theme flows through the whole book and awaiting the denouement is part of the charm of the book. It is all unpacked quite quickly which is almost a shame as more time on this would’ve really added to the plot..

A charming addition to the series, with Christmas in the air. Even the ghost are excited. I think you would want to read the others first or some of the story might be confusing. I am looking forward to more.

I adored books 1 and 2 of this series and had really high hopes for this one. It was a lovely read that was a nice addition to the stories of the first two books.

It was a lovely story and I really liked learning more about characters we had met before briefly. The lovely atmosphere of of the vintage village sat so well with the Christmas season. A Victorian market and steam engines, ghostly plays.

My favourite element was what felt like a realistic financial depiction of Christmas and its pressure on a family already struggling to make ends meet. I really felt for Clara throughout and adored getting the backstory to some ghosts we thought we knew well from previous books.

I would wholeheartedly recommend this book to readers of cosy fiction, with an awareness that some topics still feel really deep and prescient, but with a little bit of of festive sparkle sprinkled on top. I have spotted more in the series to come and I'll be keeping my eye out.

Very slightky spoilery: I had a couple of little niggles, but they were related to plot points, the negative connotations about putting on weight and one character falling for someone they had 'known' growing up felt uncomfortable.

When Clara married Jack she moved into his cottage in the living museum village of Rowan Vale. But moving there meant she had to hide something from him, the only time she ever has.
Now 15 years and 3 sons later, Clara has just begun to make plans that could give her a bit of independence but her body seems to be letting her down at the worst possible time.
As Christmas approaches everyone is excited for the Christmas Market and the upcoming Dickensian weekend, including the ghosts. But Agnes and Aubrey at Harling Hall are at odds about visiting it, Aubrey would love to have a walk into the village and see the stalls and the lights but Agnes is refusing. Could it be that Clara isn’t the only one hiding something from her loved ones.
Full of romance, friendship and family, throw in the Christmas setting and you have a perfect warm, cosy festive read.

Christmas Spirits at Honeywell House by Sharon Booth is a warm and witty festive tale filled with charm, heart, and just the right sprinkle of ghostly mischief. Clara’s journey of self-discovery and the delightful antics of Agnes and Aubrey make for a cosy and uplifting read. I enjoyed this book and rated it five stars.

This is a delightfully festive book! I adore the resident ghosts and Clara is someone I'd be best friends with!

Christmas Spirits at Honeywell House is a delightful blend of festive warmth, gentle humour, and ghostly charm. Sharon Booth has created a world that feels both magical and familiar, where the twinkling lights of Rowan Vale illuminate not just the village, but the hearts of its residents—living and otherwise.

Clara’s story is beautifully relatable: a woman navigating motherhood, identity, and the quiet ache of dreams deferred. Her journey toward rediscovery is tender and empowering, and her relationship with Jack adds emotional depth that feels earned and real. The paranormal twist—courtesy of the spirited duo, Agnes and Aubrey—is whimsical without ever tipping into absurdity. Their antics bring levity and a touch of mischief that perfectly balances the more grounded emotional themes.

Booth’s writing is warm and inviting, with a seasonal atmosphere that wraps around you like a favourite scarf. The Dickensian weekend, the village market, and the gentle unfolding of secrets all contribute to a story that’s as comforting as a mug of mulled wine by the fire.

Fans of cozy fiction, found family, and a sprinkle of supernatural sparkle will adore this heartwarming tale. It’s a festive escape with soul—and one I’ll be recommending all season long.

My thanks to Sharon Booth, the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

Haven’t read the first two books in the series, but managed to follow the story without too many problems. At first I was confused with Aubrey, Agnes and Florence, but soon got into the swing of things. Clara and Jack have been married for fourteen years, but Clara wants to restart her career instead of being a stay at home mum to the three boys. Life becomes complicated when the secret Clara has kept from Jack and her friends is revealed. A very nice Christmassy book.

I am thoroughly enjoying this series. I think that the way the interactions between the characters is written is very well done, especially as not all those living in Rowan Vale are able to see or interact with the ghostly residents! Clara is a very worn out mum of three boisterous boys but is excited at the prospect of starting a new business with the opening and running of the model village. However fate has other ideas and she soon finds herself arguing with husband Jack. Meanwhile Aubrey and Agnes, who are resident ghosts at Harling Hall, are also finding things tricky when daughter Florrie wants them to go into the village to take part in the Dickensian themed weekend, Agnes is adamant that she will not leave the grounds of Harling Hall. The question is why and has this got anything to do with the secret that Clara has been hiding ever since she meet Jack? I really like how this flows and how there is just enough drama to keep it you engaged. There is enough background covered for you to be able to know who is who and how they are all connected. I’m very much looking forward to and hoping that there is going to be another book! Thanks to Boldwood Books and Netgalley for the ARC

This is the third in the Rowan Vale cosy romance series, focusing not only what is happening between the residents (living and ghosts!) at the Big House, but also on Clara and Jack and their family, who own the Miniature Village at Rowan Vale.

There is enough background story to understand what has already occurred in the first books, with no spoilers (apart from the obvious romantic element expected in a cosy romance,) and plenty of new, and unexpected events and explanations about the characters who, for followers of the series, are becoming familiar friends to us readers.

I liked Clara because she isn't young (as in most cosy romances) and is struggling as many a harassed Mum is... makes a change to meet someone 'normal' in a romance! I found myself with her all the way for wanting to break out of the family rut she was in - the school run, kids, housework the drudge of boredom. But no spoilers - there's a lot more to her story to discover.

Up at Harling Hall there's more tension going on between the resident ghosts and the relationships between those who are alive - and all the hard work required for running the Hall and the tourist attraction village, which is preparing to organise a Dickensian Christmas.

A highly entertaining read, with some unexpected twists, some superb characters ... would make an ideal Christmas Stocking filler!