In the Event of Love does four things at once. Morgan Ross is a Los Angeles event planner whose career detonates in public. She retreats to Fern Falls, the mountain town she left at eighteen, and finds the family Christmas-tree farm in trouble and Rachel Reed — now a lumberjane, still the person Morgan hurt worst — running it.
Three findings before the list.
The Christmas-tree farm is a real and repeated setting, which surprised us. There are two substantial sapphic novels built on one, and they are the first two entries here. If you want the specific texture — the season as work rather than decoration, the farm as a business that might not survive the year — that is the whole shelf, and you can read it in a week.
The family business in trouble is the strongest connective thread, and it is bigger than Christmas. An inn, a resort, a bookshop, a candle shop, a flower farm, a bed and breakfast with a clause in the will. Six books below give you a small enterprise with somebody’s history attached and a real chance of losing it. That is the engine Kae is actually running, and it is available all year round.
Christmas plus second chance together is rare. Most sapphic holiday romance pairs strangers or enemies — the season does the work of throwing people together, so an old history is redundant. In the Event of Love is unusual in doing both, and only Kiss Her Once for Me comes close, with one night rather than a childhood.
This post contains affiliate links to Amazon, Bookshop.org and Libro.fm. If you buy through them we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes which books make the list. Our full review of In the Event of Love is here, and our sapphic Christmas reading list tracks what is new each season.
All 12 Books at a Glance
| Book | Christmas | Small town | Family business | Second chance | Heat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| In the Event of Love (the original) | Yes | Fern Falls | A tree farm | Yes | Open door |
| Season of Love | Yes | Yes | A tree farm | No, enemies | Open door |
| One Walk in Winter | Yes | A resort town | A family resort | No | Cosy |
| Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail | No | Bright Falls | An inn | No | Open door |
| Delilah Green Doesn’t Care | No | Bright Falls | A bookshop | No | Open door |
| Perfect Rhythm | No | Fair Oaks | No, a family home | No | Low |
| In the Long Run | No | Faircombe | No | Childhood ties | Moderate-high |
| Count Your Lucky Stars | No | No | No | Yes | Open door |
| Kiss Her Once for Me | Yes | No | No | One night, a year ago | Open door |
| Playing with Matches | No | Yes | A shop and a B&B | No | Not verified |
| The Marriage Masquerade | No | Maui | An inherited B&B | No | Not verified |
| Late Bloomer | No | Rural | A flower farm | No | Open door |
| Cabin Fever | No | No | No | No | Rom-com |
1. Season of Love by Helena Greer
Miriam Blum inherits a share of Carrigan’s, the Christmas-tree farm her great-aunt ran, and comes back to a place she swore she was finished with. Noelle Northwood runs it now and would rather she had stayed away.
Why a In the Event of Love reader wants it: The other Christmas-tree-farm book, and the only other sapphic romance built on the same three things at once: a family business you did not ask to inherit, a town you left, and a woman there who has not forgiven you. It is also the most substantial trade-published sapphic Christmas novel there is.
How it differs: Enemies rather than second chance — Miriam and Noelle have no shared history to reopen. It is a thornier book too, doing real work on grief and on Miriam’s Jewishness against a very Christmas setting.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and Libro.fm links above are affiliate links. If you buy through them we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you.
2. One Walk in Winter by Georgia Beers
Olivia Santini has spent seven years as assistant manager of the Evergreen Resort and Spa and knows exactly how to save it. When the manager resigns, the job goes to the owner’s daughter, who has never worked a day in hospitality.
Why a In the Event of Love reader wants it: A family business over the holidays with its future genuinely in doubt, and two women who disagree about how to rescue it. Beers writes the cosy-holiday register as well as anyone and this is her best-liked example.
How it differs: No second chance and no returning-home arc — Olivia never left. The heat is gentler than Kae’s and there is no Libro.fm edition.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and Libro.fm links above are affiliate links. If you buy through them we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you.
3. Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail by Ashley Herring Blake
Astrid lands the renovation that is supposed to prove she is fine after her wedding collapsed: the Everwood Inn, a family business in trouble. Jordan Everwood, the owner’s granddaughter and the inn’s carpenter, thinks the design is vandalism against her dead brother’s memory.
Why a In the Event of Love reader wants it: A failing family inn, a small town that knows everyone’s business, and a granddaughter fighting for what the building means. If the Fern Falls tree farm was the part you loved, the Everwood is its closest cousin.
How it differs: No Christmas and no second chance. The antagonism is professional and present-tense rather than a wound from years ago.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and Libro.fm links above are affiliate links. If you buy through them we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you.
4. Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake
Delilah Green, a broke photographer, comes back to Bright Falls to shoot the wedding of the stepsister who never defended her, and falls for Claire Sutherland, who runs the town bookshop and is raising an eight-year-old.
Why a In the Event of Love reader wants it: The definitive sapphic small-town-return novel. Bright Falls is written the way Fern Falls is — a place with a memory and an opinion about the woman who left — and Claire’s bookshop is the warmest small business in the subgenre.
How it differs: No Christmas, and it is strangers-to-lovers rather than a second chance: the old wound is with the stepsister, not the love interest.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and Libro.fm links above are affiliate links. If you buy through them we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you.
5. Perfect Rhythm by Jae
Leontyne Blake is a pop star who has not been home to Fair Oaks, Missouri in years. Her father’s stroke drags her back, and the nurse looking after him — Holly Drummond, who is asexual and entirely unimpressed by fame — becomes the reason she stops planning her exit.
Why a In the Event of Love reader wants it: The strongest coming-home book on the list. A successful woman reduced to being somebody’s daughter again, a town that remembers who she was, and a family emergency she cannot delegate. That is Morgan Ross’s arc without the public career collapse.
How it differs: Low heat — the romance is built around an asexual lead and the intimacy is written accordingly. No Christmas, no second chance, and no family business beyond the house itself.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and Libro.fm links above are affiliate links. If you buy through them we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you.
6. In the Long Run by Haley Cass
Taylor Vandenberg, forty-four, is a travel blogger with no fixed address. Brooke Watson, forty, is the city manager of Faircombe, Tennessee, and someone Taylor knew growing up. A one-night stand in San Diego becomes an extended stay in Brooke’s town.
Why a In the Event of Love reader wants it: Small-town life taken seriously as a subject — budgets, zoning, the actual work of keeping a place running — with childhood history between the leads standing in for a second chance. It was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award.
How it differs: No Christmas and no family business. Both leads are settled adults in their forties, so the stakes are quieter than a farm about to go under.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and Libro.fm links above are affiliate links. If you buy through them we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you.
7. Count Your Lucky Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur
Margot Cooper plans weddings and avoids commitment. Olivia Grant, her best friend until one night in college ended that, comes back to Seattle with a collapsed marriage behind her and nowhere to live. Margot has a spare room.
Why a In the Event of Love reader wants it: The cleanest second chance here. Two people with a specific, unprocessed thing between them, forced into daily proximity and unable to keep avoiding it — which is exactly what Morgan and Rachel are doing for four hundred pages.
How it differs: Seattle, no small town, no family business and no Christmas. It is also quieter and more interior than Kae’s book.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and Libro.fm links above are affiliate links. If you buy through them we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you.
8. Kiss Her Once for Me by Alison Cochrun
Ellie Oliver used to draw graphic novels and now cannot. Broke, she fake-engages to her coffee-shop boss for half his inheritance and goes home with him for Christmas — where his sister Jack turns out to be the woman she spent one perfect night with the previous December.
Why a In the Event of Love reader wants it: The other essential sapphic Christmas book, and the one that puts the most pressure on a family gathering. If the holiday itself is what you want rather than the town, this is the sharper, more anxious version.
How it differs: Portland and a cabin rather than a small town, no family business, and a fake engagement instead of a second chance. The comedy is far more nervous than Kae’s warmth.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and Libro.fm links above are affiliate links. If you buy through them we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you.
9. Playing with Matches by Georgia Beers
Cori Stratton’s candle shop is weeks from eviction. Her ex is getting married at the Brennan family’s bed and breakfast, and Cori would rather not attend alone. Liz Brennan, her landlord’s daughter, agrees to help.
Why a In the Event of Love reader wants it: Two small family businesses on either side of a lease, in a town where the wedding everyone is attending is the ex’s. The scale is exactly Fern Falls: nothing enormous is at stake except somebody’s whole life.
How it differs: Fake dating rather than second chance, no Christmas, and no Libro.fm edition. It is a lighter book with less family history behind it.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and Libro.fm links above are affiliate links. If you buy through them we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you.
10. The Marriage Masquerade by Toni Logan
Taylor Braxton inherits her grandfather’s bed and breakfast on Maui, then reads the rest of the will: the deed does not transfer until the day after her first wedding anniversary. She has a year to be married and nobody to marry.
Why a In the Event of Love reader wants it: An inherited family business with a condition attached — the same structural problem Morgan walks into, where the property comes with obligations rather than freedom. The B&B is a real place with real running costs.
How it differs: Maui rather than a mountain town, and a marriage of convenience rather than a second chance. Small-press with a modest readership, no Libro.fm edition, and we could not find a heat rating we trust.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and Libro.fm links above are affiliate links. If you buy through them we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you.
11. Late Bloomer by Mazey Eddings
Opal Devlin wins the lottery and immediately spends it on a flower farm she has never seen. She arrives to find Pepper Boden already living there, furious, and legally entitled to be. Neither of them leaves.
Why a In the Event of Love reader wants it: A working farm with two women who both believe it is theirs, in a rural setting written with real texture. If the Christmas-tree farm was the thing — the land, the season, the labour — this gives you all of it in flowers.
How it differs: No Christmas and no second chance. It is a heavier book than Kae’s, doing sustained work on chronic illness, neurodivergence and grief.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and Libro.fm links above are affiliate links. If you buy through them we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you.
12. Cabin Fever by Tessa Vidal
Two women, one cabin, and weather that is not going to let either of them leave. A snowed-in rom-com with a 4.39 Goodreads average behind it.
Why a In the Event of Love reader wants it: For the winter without the machinery. If what you actually want is the cold, the enforced closeness and two people who cannot walk away from a conversation, this strips the season down to its useful part.
How it differs: No Christmas, no town, no family business and no second chance. It is a much smaller book by design, and there is no print or audio edition.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and Libro.fm links above are affiliate links. If you buy through them we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you.
If You Only Read One
Read Season of Love. The other Christmas-tree farm, the other inherited business, the other woman who does not want you back. It is the closest match and the biggest book.
For the small town: Delilah Green Doesn’t Care, then Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail for the failing family inn.
For the coming home: Perfect Rhythm, with the warning that it is low heat by design.
For the second chance: Count Your Lucky Stars, which does nothing else and does it well.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are there other sapphic romances set on a Christmas-tree farm?
One other that we would vouch for: Season of Love by Helena Greer, in which the lead inherits a share of a tree farm she has been avoiding. Between them, In the Event of Love and Season of Love are essentially the whole shelf.
Which of these have a family business at the centre?
Season of Love (a tree farm), One Walk in Winter (a resort), Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail (an inn), Playing with Matches (a candle shop and a bed and breakfast), The Marriage Masquerade (an inherited B&B with a condition in the will) and Late Bloomer (a flower farm).
Which are actually Christmas books rather than winter books?
Season of Love, One Walk in Winter and Kiss Her Once for Me. Cabin Fever and the rest are winter or year-round — snow is not the same as a holiday, and the table marks the difference.
Which one has the lowest heat?
Perfect Rhythm, which is written around an asexual lead and keeps intimacy low by design. It is an excellent book and a real mismatch if you came for what Kae delivers. For Playing with Matches and The Marriage Masquerade we could not find a heat rating we trust, and we would rather say so than guess.
What if none of these is quite right?
Tell us the book, not the trope. Our Books Like directory takes a title and routes you to the closest read-alike list we have — and if we have not written that one yet, it points you at the trope pages that get nearest and records what you searched for, so it gets built next.
Looking for read-alikes for a different book? Browse the full Books Like directory — search any sapphic title and we will point you at the closest match we have.