The Christmas Catch Review — Is It Worth Reading?

Verdict: A warm, genuinely funny British Christmas road trip with a long-held crush at its centre and more heat than the cover suggests, held back by a run of travel mishaps that starts to repeat and a final act that loses the momentum.

Best for: Readers who want a cosy, lighthearted festive comfort read with open-door scenes, and who will forgive a predictable shape and a few Hallmark-sized helpings of cheese for the sake of the journey.

Heat level: ★★★★☆ (4/5 — explicit open door)

Rating: ★★★★☆ (3.6/5 — a 3.90 Goodreads average where a quarter of all ratings sit at three stars)

Tropes: Road trip, only one bed, forced proximity, unrequited crush, best friend’s little sister, childhood friends to lovers, stranded at Christmas, going home for the holidays, dual POV, comedy of errors.

The Christmas Catch by Clare Lydon is a standalone British contemporary lesbian romance from Custard Books, a Christmas rom-com that strands two women in a Glasgow snowstorm and sends them the length of the country towards Devon — Morgan Scott, who wants nothing more than to get home, and Ali Bradford, her best friend’s little sister, who has been quietly in love with her for most of her life.

It holds a 3.90 average across 2,212 Goodreads ratings, sits at 4.5 stars on Amazon, and is one of the most-read titles in a long Lydon backlist. Few readers dislike it; many found it pleasant and then forgot it, for consistent reasons. Both halves of that are worth knowing before you pack it for December.

What Is The Christmas Catch About?

The Christmas Catch is a holiday romantic comedy first and a road-trip novel second, and both labels do real work. Christmas-central means a deadline everyone understands — be home by the big day — plus jumpers, mistletoe and family waiting at the other end. The road trip means a string of set pieces, a rotating cast of strangers, and two people who cannot get away from each other.

Morgan is the one with somewhere to be and no patience left for getting there. Ali is the one with a secret — a crush on Morgan that dates back to when she was the kid trailing after her older sibling and their friend. Morgan, as far as Ali knows, has never noticed. The book alternates between them in third person, which lets you watch Ali manage her feelings and Morgan slowly discover she has some of her own.

What Makes This Sapphic Christmas Road Trip Romance Work

The road trip from hell: The comedy of errors is the most-praised element across the positive reviews. Readers describe it as entertaining and fun, and one compares it to Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
The long-held crush: Ali carrying a torch for her sibling’s best friend since childhood is the hook readers name most after the travel chaos. It gives the friends-to-lovers setup a pinch of yearning.
The strangers on the way: Several reviewers single out the eccentric people the pair meet en route as memorable, and one blogger names a character called Mrs Claus as her favourite.
Only one bed, repeatedly: Every stop seems to come with a shortage of beds, and readers who came for the proximity trope say it delivers.
The festive mood: StoryGraph readers tag it lighthearted at 93% and funny at 59%. As a cosy seasonal read, it does exactly what it says.

Book Synopsis

A few days before Christmas, Morgan Scott is sitting on a plane in Glasgow, counting down to the moment she lands and the holiday can begin. Then the aircraft develops a fault, the weather closes in, and every passenger is turned back into the terminal with a blizzard settling over Scotland. Among the stranded crowd is a face Morgan has not seen in years: Ali Bradford, her childhood best friend’s younger sister, now very much grown up and heading for the same small corner of Devon.

Teaming up is the sensible thing to do. Two people can share the work of rebooking and keep each other going when the departure boards go red. What Morgan does not know is that Ali has been in love with her for most of her life — and has had a lot of practice at keeping that to herself. Ali is fairly sure she can keep it up for a few hundred miles. She is less sure once the beds start running short and the two of them keep ending up in one.

As the snow keeps falling and the route south keeps collapsing, the journey turns into a chain of detours, odd strangers and small disasters. Each one pushes Morgan and Ali a little closer, and each one forces them to talk about the things they have both been avoiding — family, the past they share, and what they actually want. Christmas is getting closer. The question is whether they will reach Devon in time, and whether what is happening on the road can survive the arrival.

My Review

The premise is the best thing here, and Lydon knows exactly how to use it. Stranding two people in a snowstorm with a hard Christmas deadline is a simple engine, and it runs well for most of the book. The early stretch is brisk and funny: the grounded plane, the scramble for alternatives, the first realisation that this is going to take days, not hours. The humour is warm and very British, and even readers who disliked the book concede it made them laugh.

The second strength is the shape of the crush. Ali has loved Morgan quietly for years, Morgan has never really looked at her, and the road trip forces that imbalance into the open one shared room at a time. That gives the romance a pleasant ache underneath the slapstick, and the forced proximity is handled with a light touch. The people they meet along the way keep the middle of the trip from being only two voices in a car, and they are the thing reviewers remember most fondly.

Where it struggles is repetition, and that is not my personal gripe — it is the most repeated complaint in the negative reviews. The mishaps follow a pattern: a plan, a setback, a new plan, another setback. Around that sit three more recurring issues. At least three low-star reviewers found the switches between Morgan and Ali confusing because the two voices sound too alike, and a StoryGraph reader who stopped halfway said the same. At least three found it hard to care about the leads. And several readers, including some who rated it well, say the final third — once the pair are home — trades festive momentum for relationship doubts that feel engineered.

One expectation to reset: the marketing promises riotous chaos and red-hot attraction, and it half delivers. The heat is real — more than many readers expected from the cover. The riot is gentler than advertised, closer to a feel-good TV Christmas movie than a farce, and “cheesy” is a word that comes up from both fans and critics. If you want a cosy afternoon film in book form, that is a feature. If you wanted sharp comedy, adjust.

My honest note: A charming premise and a real spark, stretched over one detour too many and softened by a last act that stalls. If you want a cosy, steamy December read and do not mind a predictable route, it is good company; if repetition bores you quickly, you will feel every mile.

Element	In The Christmas Catch
Central relationship	Morgan Scott & Ali Bradford — a hometown friend and the best friend’s little sister who has loved her for years
Core tropes	Road trip, only one bed, forced proximity, unrequited crush, best friend’s sibling, stranded at Christmas
Setting	The UK in a December blizzard — from a grounded flight in Glasgow south towards home in Devon
Heat level	4/5 — explicit open door
Series	Standalone — complete story with a happy ending
Content notes	Explicit sexual content, death of a parent and grief, a car accident; single reader reports of infidelity and a toxic relationship

How Spicy Is The Christmas Catch?

A 4/5. romance.io rates the steam level “explicit open door,” one band below its top tier, though it rests on only 22 ratings there. I Heart Sapphfic files it as medium heat with mildly graphic description. Readers back that up: one calls it steamier than expected, another says the spice is just right, and Lez Review Books notes that the temperature rises as the trip goes on rather than arriving all at once.

The one thing worth flagging is the mismatch with the packaging — the cartoon cover reads closer to sweet than spicy, and the heat surprised at least one reader. No reviewer I found flags consent issues or specific kink content. For the same open-door band in a holiday setting, Yours for the Season and When You Least Expect It both sit at 4/5.

Who Should Read This Book?

You’ll likely love it if: you want a cosy Christmas comfort read, you enjoy travel-chaos comedy and quirky strangers, you like a long unrequited crush finally paying off, and you want open-door scenes in your festive romance.

You may want to skip it if: repeated setbacks wear on you fast, you need two leads with sharply different voices, you find Hallmark-style sweetness cloying, or you dislike a late relationship wobble that exists mainly to be resolved.

In short: good company for a December evening, as long as you want comfort more than surprise.

What Readers Are Actually Saying (October 2026)

There is no viral moment behind this book, and web searches turned up no BookTok footprint for it. [Reddit could not be checked for this review — the search was unreachable on the day of the sweep.] There are no trade reviews either: no Kirkus, no Publishers Weekly, nothing in the library journals. What it has is the launch-week blog circuit — Lez Review Books, The Lesbian Review, Sagacious Sapphic and Kitty Kat’s Book Review Blog all supplied the praise quoted on Amazon, and the Lez Review Books five-star review was written from an advance copy. Since then, discovery has come from somewhere quieter: Lydon’s established readership (this is her sixth most-rated book on Goodreads), a seasonal return every December, and library access through Hoopla in both ebook and audio. The audiobook arrived in 2023, narrated by Claire Storey and running 8 hours 14 minutes. Listeners split on it: two Goodreads reviewers praise Storey’s reading, while one StoryGraph listener says she did not separate the two leads’ voices enough.

Prefer audio? Listen to The Christmas Catch on Libro.fm — the audiobook shop that supports independent bookstores.

The numbers tell a consistent story. Goodreads sits at 3.90, StoryGraph lower at 3.66 across 682 ratings, and Amazon at 4.5 across 1,203. Only 6.5% of Goodreads ratings are one or two stars, and StoryGraph’s did-not-finish rate is just 2% — people who start it finish it. The real signal is the middle: 550 three-star ratings, a quarter of the total.

Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The road trip, first and by a distance — “fun” and “entertaining” are the recurring words. Then the crush: readers who love a character pining for an older sibling’s friend say this one scratches that itch. The quirky strangers on the route come up again and again as memorable. The heat earns its own mentions, sometimes with surprise attached. StoryGraph readers rate the leads loveable at 85%, which is notable given that a vocal minority found them hard to care about — the reaction is taste-dependent rather than a craft failure.

What readers argue about and complain about: Repetition, above everything. The single most repeated criticism in the low-star reviews is that the chain of travel mishaps becomes boring once the pattern is clear, and at least one reader gave up at the hundred-page mark because the stranded setup did nothing for them. The second theme is voice: at least three two-star reviewers found the POV switches confusing because Morgan and Ali sound alike. Third: the leads themselves, whom at least three readers could not invest in. Fourth, and the one that crosses into the positive reviews: the last third. Once the travel stops, several readers say the festive energy drains away and is replaced by relationship doubts that feel manufactured, and at least one found Ali’s reasoning about a future with Morgan frustrating. Running through all of it is the word “cheesy” — critics call it a Hallmark movie as a complaint, while one of the launch blurbs calls it a better alternative to one. Same comparison, opposite verdicts — the most honest summary of who this is for.

The standalone question worth asking first: it stands alone, resolves fully and ends happily, with no sequel needed and no cliffhanger. If you finish it wanting more Lydon, her other Christmas romance, Christmas In Mistletoe, rates almost identically at 3.88 across 1,568 Goodreads ratings. The stronger move is A Taste of Love, which sits at 4.18 — nearly 0.3 higher — and The Princess Match (4.12 across 3,138 ratings) is her best-rated recent book.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does The Christmas Catch have a happy ending?

Yes. Reviewers report a happy ending for Morgan and Ali, and none describe a cliffhanger. Several readers found the late relationship wobble before the resolution unnecessary, but the book closes the romance completely.

How spicy is The Christmas Catch?

A 4/5. romance.io rates it “explicit open door,” and I Heart Sapphfic calls it medium heat. Readers describe it as steamier than expected for a festive rom-com, with the heat building as the trip goes on.

Is The Christmas Catch part of a series?

No. It is a standalone Christmas romance with no series listed on Goodreads. You can read it without having read any other Clare Lydon book.

Is there an audiobook of The Christmas Catch?

Yes. It is narrated by Claire Storey, runs 8 hours 14 minutes and was released in 2023. Some listeners praise the narration, while at least one found the two leads hard to tell apart in audio.

Is The Christmas Catch really friends to lovers?

Loosely. Morgan and Ali grew up together, but the engine is a one-sided crush: Ali has loved Morgan, her older sibling’s best friend, for years. They reconnect by chance on a cancelled flight rather than as close adult friends.

If You Loved The Christmas Catch, Read These Next

For the same British Christmas warmth with a fake-dating engine and lower heat, Make You Mine This Christmas is the closest match. If the best-friend’s-sibling crush was the draw, Yours for the Season runs that exact dynamic at the same open-door heat in a small-town hockey setting. And for a slower, more grown-up holiday burn at the same spice level, When You Least Expect It opens on Christmas Eve and takes its time.

For more seasonal reads, browse our sapphic holiday romance favorites or the full Book Reviews collection.

The Bottom Line

The Christmas Catch wants to be a feel-good festive road trip with a love story hidden in the luggage, and for most of its length it is. The stranded-in-a-blizzard premise is fun, the long-held crush gives it real warmth, and the heat is more generous than the cover lets on. It is also repetitive in the middle, thin on distinction between its two narrators, and weaker once the journey ends. Whether that trade works depends on what you want from December reading — if it is comfort, laughs and a guaranteed happy ending, this is easy to recommend. Check The Christmas Catch on Amazon →

The Eikna Overall Ranking

On the Eikna scale, The Christmas Catch ranks as a cosy mid-tier British sapphic Christmas rom-com — warm, funny and steamier than it looks, held back by repetition and a soft final act, and best approached for the journey and the crush rather than the destination.