Kiss Her Once for Me asks four things of any book that follows it. Ellie Oliver used to draw graphic novels and now cannot. Broke and about to be evicted, she agrees to fake an engagement to her coffee-shop boss Andrew in exchange 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, unrepeatable night with the previous December.
Two findings before the list.
Sapphic Christmas romance is a real shelf, and most of it is very new. There is a genuine seasonal category now, but the substantial, well-reviewed, trade-published entries you can rely on are still only a handful. The three at the top of this list are the ones with the readerships to back them; below that, winter starts standing in for Christmas, which is a different thing and we have marked it in the table.
The mistaken connection is the rare part. Fake engagements are everywhere. Second chances are everywhere. A woman falling for someone she has already slept with, without knowing who they were to each other, is close to unique — the nearest anyone comes is The Fiancée Farce, where Tansy has been in love with a photograph. If that specific gut-drop is what you are chasing, temper your expectations.
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 Kiss Her Once for Me is here, and our sapphic Christmas reading list tracks what is new each season.
All 11 Books at a Glance
| Book | Christmas | Fake engagement | Second chance | Mistaken connection | Heat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kiss Her Once for Me (the original) | A family Christmas | Yes | One perfect night | His sister | Open door |
| In the Event of Love | A tree farm | No | Yes | No | Open door |
| Season of Love | A tree farm | No | No, enemies | No | Open door |
| One Walk in Winter | A holiday resort | No | No | No | Cosy |
| Written in the Stars | Holiday deadline | Fake dating | No | No | Open door |
| The Fiancée Farce | No | Yes | No | A photograph | Open door, high |
| D’Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding | No | Yes, on television | No | No | Open door |
| Accidental Honeymoon | No | Fake, then real | No | No | One scene |
| Count Your Lucky Stars | No | No | Yes | No | Open door |
| Snowed Under | Winter, not Christmas | No | No | No | Explicit (our estimate) |
| Snowbound | Winter, not Christmas | No | No | No | A thriller |
| Cabin Fever | Winter, not Christmas | No | No | No | Rom-com |
1. In the Event of Love by Courtney Kae
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.
Why a Kiss Her Once for Me reader wants it: The closest overall match. Christmas is structural rather than decorative, the second chance is the engine, and the small town has opinions about the woman who left. If Kiss Her Once for Me‘s combination of a cold season and an old wound is what you want, start here.
How it differs: No fake engagement and no mistaken connection — everyone knows exactly who everyone is from page one. It is also warmer and more earnest than Cochrun’s brand of anxious comedy.
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2. Season of Love by Helena Greer
Miriam Blum inherits a share of Carrigan’s, the Christmas-tree farm her great-aunt ran, and returns to a place she swore she was done with — where Noelle Northwood, who runs it now, would very much prefer she had stayed away.
Why a Kiss Her Once for Me reader wants it: A tree farm, an inheritance, a woman coming back to a Christmas she has been avoiding, and a Jewish protagonist navigating all of it. It is the most substantial trade-published sapphic Christmas romance there is.
How it differs: Enemies rather than second chance, and there is no fake relationship. The family history is thornier and the book is doing real work on grief and Jewishness alongside the romance.
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3. 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 someone else — the owner’s daughter, who has never worked a day in hospitality.
Why a Kiss Her Once for Me reader wants it: A snowbound resort over the holidays, forced proximity, and two women who start on opposite sides of a grievance. Beers writes the cosy-holiday register better than almost anyone and this is her best-liked example of it.
How it differs: No fake engagement, no second chance, and no mistaken connection. The comedy is gentler than Cochrun’s and the anxiety that runs under Kiss Her Once for Me is absent. No Libro.fm edition.
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4. Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur
Darcy Lowell is an actuary who does not believe in feelings. Elle Jones writes horoscopes and believes in most things. After a disastrous blind date, Darcy lies about how it went and then needs a girlfriend for the holidays.
Why a Kiss Her Once for Me reader wants it: A fake relationship with a holiday deadline and a family to convince — the same trap Ellie walks into, with the same escalating-lie comedy and a much lower anxiety floor. It won the Lambda Literary Award.
How it differs: Fake dating rather than a fake engagement, and there is no prior connection between the leads to be mistaken about. Seattle rather than a snowbound cabin.
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5. The Fiancée Farce by Alexandria Bellefleur
Tansy Adams invented a girlfriend to stop her stepfamily asking questions, using a romance cover model’s photograph. The model, Gemma van Dalen, turns out to be real, needs a wife to satisfy her grandfather’s will, and proposes on the spot.
Why a Kiss Her Once for Me reader wants it: A fake engagement built on a mistaken idea of who somebody is — Tansy has been in love with a photograph — which is the closest anyone gets to Ellie’s particular problem. It is also the hottest book on this list.
How it differs: Not a Christmas book, and no second chance. Seattle, no snow, and the family being deceived is a stepfamily rather than a fiancé’s.
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6. D’Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding by Chencia C. Higgins
Two strangers are cast on a reality show called Instant I Do. Six weeks to convince their families they are engaged, then a wedding, then a hundred thousand dollars if the families believed it.
Why a Kiss Her Once for Me reader wants it: The funniest fake engagement in the subgenre, and the one where convincing the family is genuinely the whole job. The reality-show confessionals give it the same knowing comedy as Cochrun’s best scenes.
How it differs: No Christmas, no snow, no second chance. The pressure is a television deadline rather than a week trapped in a house with people who already know you.
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7. Accidental Honeymoon by Miranda MacLeod
Monica, a wedding blogger, hires handywoman Ray to pose as her girlfriend for a visit to her dying grandmother. The performance works so well that the grandmother rewrites her will: the vineyard goes to the two of them, if they marry.
Why a Kiss Her Once for Me reader wants it: The lie escalating out of control in front of a family is exactly the machinery of Kiss Her Once for Me, and the screwball register is the same. It starts as fake dating and ends as an engagement nobody planned.
How it differs: A vineyard rather than a Christmas cabin, and the heat is much lower — reviewers report a single explicit scene. No Libro.fm edition.
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8. 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, arrives back in Seattle with a collapsed marriage and nowhere to live. Margot has a spare room.
Why a Kiss Her Once for Me reader wants it: The second-chance axis on its own, done properly — one perfect night years ago that neither of them has processed, and a forced proximity that will not let them keep avoiding it. That is Ellie and Jack’s whole problem.
How it differs: No Christmas, no fake relationship, and no third party being deceived. It is also the quietest of Bellefleur’s three — less farce, more ache.
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9. Snowed Under by Nicolette Dane
Novelist Emma Doughty spends her winters alone in a cabin on a quiet Northern Michigan lake, where most of the surrounding houses sit empty. She is newly forty and struggling to finish the latest book in her series. Then Marian Taggart, fresh out of a cover marriage, moves into the summer house across the road for the winter.
Why a Kiss Her Once for Me reader wants it: The snowbound cabin, the enforced stillness, and a creative woman whose work has stalled — three of the specific textures of Kiss Her Once for Me without the farce. If what you liked was the setting more than the lie, this is the one.
How it differs: No fake engagement, no second chance, no family Christmas. It is a quieter, slower book with a thin plot, and much steamier than its cover suggests. There is a paperback but no audiobook.
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10. Snowbound by Cari Hunter
Heavy snowfall cuts the small English village of Birchenlow off from the outside world. A wounded police officer and a doctor end up trapped together, with a violent crime unresolved and no backup coming.
Why a Kiss Her Once for Me reader wants it: For the snowed-in half of what you liked, taken seriously. Hunter writes the cold and the isolation better than any comic novelist will, and the enforced proximity has actual stakes attached to it.
How it differs: This is a thriller. There is a romance in it, but the engine is a crime and the tone is nothing like Cochrun’s. No holiday, no fake relationship, no comedy. No Libro.fm edition.
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11. Cabin Fever by Tessa Vidal
Two women and one cabin, with 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 Kiss Her Once for Me reader wants it: The purest snowed-in-together book on the list. If the part of Kiss Her Once for Me you keep thinking about is the house full of people you cannot escape, this strips it down to two.
How it differs: No Christmas machinery, no fake engagement, no family. It is a much smaller book by design. No print or audio edition.
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If You Only Read One
Read In the Event of Love. A Christmas-tree farm, a woman coming home to the person she hurt, and a small town with opinions. It is the closest overall match.
For the fake engagement: The Fiancée Farce, which also gives you the closest thing to the mistaken-identity problem.
For the snowed-in house: One Walk in Winter if you want cosy, Cabin Fever if you want it stripped to two people.
For a bigger Christmas book: Season of Love, which does more with family, grief and Jewishness than anything else on this shelf.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the best sapphic Christmas romances?
In the Event of Love, Season of Love and One Walk in Winter are the three we would hand someone first. Below those, most of the shelf is winter rather than Christmas — a cabin, a snowstorm, a village cut off — which is a different pleasure. We keep a running list of new sapphic holiday releases that updates through the season.
Is there another sapphic romance where she does not know who the other woman is?
Not really. The Fiancée Farce gets nearest — Tansy invents a girlfriend out of a cover model’s photograph and then meets her — but the specific shape of Kiss Her Once for Me, where a one-night stand reappears as a member of the family you are lying to, appears to be unrepeated in sapphic romance.
Which of these has a fake engagement rather than fake dating?
The Fiancée Farce, D’Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding and Accidental Honeymoon, which escalates from a fake girlfriend into a will requiring an actual marriage. Written in the Stars is fake dating, one rung down.
Are any of these not romances?
Snowbound is a thriller with a romance inside it — a wounded police officer and a doctor trapped by snow with a violent crime unresolved. It is very good and it is nothing like Kiss Her Once for Me in tone, so know that before you buy it.
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.
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