Picture-Perfect Christmas Review: Is It Worth Reading?

Verdict: A snowy, good-natured second chance romance between two photographers in Glenwood Springs, with a lovely supporting cast and a real sense of place, held back by a jealous heroine most readers struggled to like and a final reconciliation that comes too fast.

Best for: Readers who want a small-town sapphic Christmas with hot springs, ski trips and a warm friend group, and who can forgive a lead who repeats her teenage mistake as an adult.

Heat level: ★★★☆☆ (3/5: no romance.io band yet, filed as Medium heat by I Heart SapphFic)

Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3.2/5: a 3.43 Goodreads average from only 7 ratings, a 3.28 on StoryGraph, and one complaint that nearly every reviewer repeats)

Tropes: Second chance, high school rivals, forced proximity, workplace romance, small town, Christmas romance, homecoming, found family, grand gesture.

Picture-Perfect Christmas is a 2022 standalone from Charlotte Greene, published by Bold Strokes Books, and it’s a contemporary lesbian romance set over one holiday season in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, where a photographer who left town almost twenty years ago comes home for a tourism job and finds out she has to share it with the high school rival she once kissed and never forgot.

The numbers are small. Goodreads has it at 3.43 from just 7 ratings, StoryGraph at 3.28 from 16 with a 12% did-not-finish rate, and Amazon at 4.0 from 14 ratings with not a single one or two-star score. A good share of the written reviews come from advance copies. Read past the stars, though, and the reviews agree with each other to a surprising degree: people like the town and the friends, and they have a problem with Quinn. Both halves of that are worth knowing before you start.

What Is Picture-Perfect Christmas About?

This is a second chance romance first and a Christmas book second, and the holiday mostly works as a calendar. It gives the two women a deadline, a run of seasonal shoots to work on together, and a town that’s at its prettiest. The small-town setting means what it usually means: everyone knows everyone, and there’s a friend group ready to adopt the newcomer.

Nicole Steele has the career everyone back home assumed she’d have. She’s a working photographer who has travelled the world, but what she actually wants now is to move home and be near her mother. Quinn Zelinski stayed. She’s a local photographer, she has a tight circle of friends, and she’s carried a grudge since senior year, when Nicole won the photography scholarship Quinn wanted too. Readers describe both women as having had a crush on the other the whole time, which is the setup the whole book runs on. Two people who never said the thing, and a second chance to finally say it.

What Makes This Sapphic Christmas Romance Work

The friend group: The most consistently praised thing in the book. Eight separate reviewers single out Quinn’s friends or the wider supporting cast, and several note how warmly the group takes Nicole in.
Glenwood Springs itself: Readers who know the town say it’s easy to picture, and others call the scenery sensory and snowy. Doc Holliday’s grave, the hot springs and a ski day in Aspen all show up.
The holiday activities: Sledding, hot chocolate, skating and seasonal photo shoots give the book its cozy texture. A couple of reviewers name these as highlights.
Nicole and her mom: Nicole is the easy one to root for, and her relationship with her mother gets real affection from readers. One reviewer also enjoyed a side romance between Quinn’s dad and Nicole’s mom.
The photography angle: Making both leads photographers turns the old rivalry into a professional one, and readers found the shoots themselves interesting to read about.

Book Synopsis

Nicole Steele hasn’t really lived in Glenwood Springs since she left for college. She visits her mother for a week here and there, but her life is planes, assignments and somewhere else. So when the town hires her to shoot its new holiday tourism campaign, she takes it at a lower rate than she’d normally ask, because it means a whole Christmas season at home.

Then she finds out the city has split the contract. Her partner on the job is Quinn Zelinski, the girl she circled for all of high school and never quite reached. They shared photography classes, overlapping friends and one kiss, and then the scholarship went to Nicole, and whatever was starting between them ended in a fight that wasn’t really Nicole’s fault. Quinn stayed in town and built a life there. Nicole left and built one everywhere else. Now they have a month of shoots to plan together, a town full of people who remember them as teenagers, and a lot of things they never said.

Working side by side forces them to talk about the past, and the attraction turns out to have survived almost two decades intact. Quinn’s friends start pulling Nicole into their plans, the holiday calendar fills up, and the old crush starts to feel like something more grown up. The question hanging over every outing is whether Quinn has actually let go of the resentment that broke them up the first time, or whether it’s still waiting for the right moment to come back.

My Review

The premise is good, and I’ll say that first. Two photographers who wanted the same scholarship, now hired for the same job, in a mountain town at its most photogenic, is a clean and clever way to drag an old rivalry into the present. It keeps the leads together every day and makes the rivalry about something concrete.

The second strength is the world around them. Greene clearly loves Glenwood Springs, and readers feel it. The hot springs, the trip to Aspen, the walk up to Doc Holliday’s grave, the friend group with its open door: this is where the book is warmest. Quinn’s friends are honestly better company than Quinn for a lot of the book, and they tell her when she’s wrong. If what you want from a Christmas romance is atmosphere and a sense of belonging, the book delivers it.

The problem is Quinn, and that isn’t just me. It’s the single most repeated criticism in the reviews, raised by around eight independent readers on Goodreads, Amazon and StoryGraph, including several who liked the book overall. The original falling out was her doing, and as an adult she repeats it. When it looks like Nicole might be the better photographer, the jealousy comes back and she takes it out on Nicole again. Readers call it immature, childish and hard to watch in a woman in her thirties. Tied to that is the ending. The late breakup is predictable, and the fix is quick. Five reviewers say the reconciliation felt rushed, that Nicole forgives too easily, or that the grand gesture didn’t feel grand. One reader put it neatly on Amazon, saying they “would have traded skating or bird watching for some real conversations.” That’s my read too. There’s plenty of holiday filler and not quite enough of the two of them actually working through it.

So reset your expectations a little. The cover and title sell a light, cozy Christmas book, and the tone mostly is light, with StoryGraph readers tagging it lighthearted two times out of three. But the emotional engine is jealousy, not banter, and it isn’t the “everyone’s lovely” low-angst read the packaging suggests. If cozy is what drew you, you’ll get the snow and the cocoa. If a jealous love interest is a dealbreaker for you, know it going in.

My honest note: A charming setting and supporting cast wrapped around a lead who keeps getting in her own way. If you can forgive Quinn, it’s a pleasant Colorado Christmas. If you can’t, the friends won’t be enough to carry you.

Element	In Picture-Perfect Christmas
Central relationship	Nicole Steele and Quinn Zelinski: high school rivals and photographers, reunited after almost twenty years
Core tropes	Second chance, rivals, forced proximity, workplace romance, small town, Christmas
Setting	Glenwood Springs, Colorado, over one holiday season, with trips to the hot springs and Aspen
Heat level	3/5: not banded on romance.io, filed as Medium heat by I Heart SapphFic
Series	Standalone, with an epilogue and an HEA
Content notes	Sexual content, jealousy and insecurity aimed at a partner, a late breakup. No crowd-sourced warnings are listed on StoryGraph yet

How Spicy Is Picture-Perfect Christmas?

I’d call it a 3/5, and I want to be clear about where that comes from. romance.io doesn’t have a steam band for this one yet; it has only two ratings there. The sapphic catalogue I Heart SapphFic files it as Medium heat, which on that site means sex scenes are included and may be described in mildly graphic terms. None of the reviews I read talk about the heat at all, either to praise it or complain about it, which tells me it sits inside the story rather than driving it.

Nobody flags anything on the page that needs a warning beyond the jealousy plot itself. If you want the same cozy Christmas mood at a similar open-door level, Christmas Mouse sits at a mild 3/5. If you want the small-town Christmas with a lot more heat, Decking the Halls is the much spicier option.

Who Should Read This Book?

You’ll likely love it if: you want a snowy small-town Christmas with plenty of seasonal outings, you love a friend group that adopts the newcomer, second chance stories with a long history behind them are your thing, and you’re happy with a moderate amount of heat.

You may want to skip it if: you want pure low-angst holiday fluff, a jealous love interest makes you want to throw the book, you need a long and earned reconciliation after the breakup, or you prefer your heat either fully closed door or turned all the way up.

In short: lovely place, lovely friends, and a heroine you’ll have to forgive.

What Readers Are Actually Saying (October 2026)

This is a quiet book, and I want to be honest about how small the conversation is. Across Goodreads, Amazon and StoryGraph I found about sixteen distinct written reviews, and a few of those are the same reader posting on two sites. There are no trade reviews, no blog reviews I could find beyond a catalogue listing, no Reddit thread and no BookTok footprint. A noticeable share of the written reviews came from NetGalley advance copies around the December 2022 release. So the Amazon 4.0, with every rating between three and five stars, leans on that advance-copy crowd. The more spread out picture on Goodreads (3.43 from 7) and StoryGraph (3.28 from 16) is closer to how it actually lands. StoryGraph’s 12% did-not-finish rate is high for a short, gentle book. I couldn’t find an audiobook edition anywhere, so this one reaches readers mainly through the Bold Strokes catalogue and holiday lists, four Christmases after release.

Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The supporting cast, by a long way. “Friend group” is the phrase that keeps coming back, and readers talk about Quinn’s friends the way you’d talk about people you’d want to spend Christmas with. Next is the setting. Readers praise the snowy landscapes and the holiday outings: sledding, the hot springs, Aspen. Nicole gets a lot of goodwill, and so does her mother. One advance reader especially enjoyed the parents’ romance running alongside the main one. Another reader found it a little nostalgic, with its references to grunge clothes, period music and zip drives. One reviewer calls it well written, with some tearful moments.

What readers argue about and complain about: Quinn, above everything. Around eight reviewers, from two stars to five, say she was hard to like. The specific mechanism is the same in almost every review: she started the original fight and blamed Nicole for it, and as an adult she does the same thing when her insecurity about Nicole’s talent flares up again. Other characters call her on it, which helps, but readers still didn’t enjoy watching it. The second theme is the ending. Five readers say the final conflict was easy to see coming and the resolution came too fast, especially after a slower middle, and two specifically say the grand gesture didn’t feel big enough to make up for what Quinn did. Third, the drama itself. Readers describe it as childish, repetitive and predictable, and at least one says the characters act younger than their age. There’s a genuine split here, though. One StoryGraph reviewer found the lovesick-teenager energy endearing and sweet rather than immature, so this is partly a taste call. One Amazon reviewer alone says the epilogue crowds in extra friends.

The standalone question worth asking first: You don’t need anything else to read this. It’s a complete standalone with an epilogue, and readers agree the couple ends in a good place. One advance reader even hoped for a sequel following them abroad, which tells you how settled the ending feels. If you like Greene’s style, her Bold Strokes backlist includes Gnarled Hollow, From the Woods, On the Run, Pride and Porters and The Wedding Setup. I haven’t compared their ratings, so treat that as a list rather than a ranking.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Picture-Perfect Christmas have a happy ending?

Yes. Nicole and Quinn get their HEA, and there’s an epilogue. Several readers felt the final reconciliation was rushed, but nobody disputes that it ends happily.

How spicy is Picture-Perfect Christmas?

Around 3/5. romance.io hasn’t given it a steam band yet, and I Heart SapphFic files it as Medium heat, meaning sex scenes are included with mildly graphic description.

Is Picture-Perfect Christmas part of a series?

No. It’s a standalone from Bold Strokes Books, first published in December 2022, and it doesn’t need any other book to make sense.

Is Picture-Perfect Christmas enemies to lovers?

Not really. It’s a second chance romance between former high school rivals who both had a crush on each other, so the friction comes from old hurt and jealousy rather than real hostility.

Is there an audiobook of Picture-Perfect Christmas?

Not that I could find. I found no audio edition in my research, and the Libro.fm title with a similar name is a different book by another author.

If You Loved Picture-Perfect Christmas, Read These Next

For the same cozy, tradition-heavy holiday mood at a similar open-door heat, try Christmas Mouse by Rachel Spangler. For a woman coming home to the place she left and falling for someone she used to clash with, All Is Bright does it in a shorter, sweeter Welsh village version. For years of pining finally paying off in a small town at Christmas, with much more heat, Decking the Halls is the one. You’ll find more in our second chance lesbian romance guide, the cozy Christmas romance list, and the full Book Reviews archive.

The Bottom Line

Picture-Perfect Christmas wants to be a warm homecoming romance about two women getting a second shot at what they missed as teenagers. The town is lovely, the friend group is the best thing in it, and the photography rivalry is a smart engine for the plot. But Quinn’s jealousy wears out a lot of readers, the breakup is easy to see coming, and the apology resolves too quickly to feel earned. It’s worth it if you want a snowy Colorado Christmas and can give a flawed heroine some grace. Check Picture-Perfect Christmas on Amazon →

The Eikna Overall Ranking

On the Eikna scale, Picture-Perfect Christmas ranks as a modest small-town sapphic holiday romance. It’s warm in its setting and supporting cast, held back by a heroine whose jealousy most readers couldn’t get past. Read it for Glenwood Springs and the friends rather than for the central couple.