How My Neighbor Stole Christmas by Meghan Quinn
480 pages • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ • 🌶️🌶️🌶️ (but the spice shows up like a seasonal employee: enthusiastic, then gone)
In Kringle, where cheering was practically law,
They competed with charm and a glittery awe.
Then a Grinch came to jeer at their festival night,
So he sharpened his plans till they gleamed in the light.
I’ll guard the great throne, I’ll keep Kringle on track
Because Cole and Max always know how to attack.
That vixen can’t win, not with my two in the lead,
With their wiles and their tricks and their ‘we always succeed’.”
Yes. It’s a Christmas romance loosely inspired by How the Grinch Stole Christmas. And by “loosely,” I mean: the vibe is Seuss-adjacent, but the emotional labor is pure Meghan Quinn. She does that thing where you’re laughing and then suddenly… you’re feeling feelings in a snowbank.
Meet Storrey Taylor: Californian, warm-weather loyalist, and professionally disengaged from… basically everything. Her quiet little life gets yanked into festive chaos when she has to care for Aunt Cindy over the holidays. Unfortunately, Aunt Cindy lives in Kringletown, Colorado, a place that doesn’t “celebrate Christmas,” it worships it year-round like it’s a glittering, peppermint-scented religion.
Also happening: the town’s annual Christmas Kringle contest, where someone gets crowned the Human Embodiment of Holiday Spirit. Aunt Cindy declares Storrey is competing. Storrey, who would rather bathe in lukewarm eggnog and regret.
Enter Cole Black, childhood friend turned recluse with a capital R. He remembers Storrey from the before-times, back when Christmas wasn’t a battlefield and she didn’t hate Kringletown with the passion of a woman who’s been publicly humiliated in a Santa-adjacent incident. Cole cannot stomach the idea of Storrey, the anti-Christmas icon, winning the crown… so he enters too, alongside his trusty sidekick Max. Cue sabotage attempts, forced proximity, and the inevitable “wait, why do I want to kiss the person I’m actively trying to ruin?” spiral.
You know the beats: hijinks, chemistry, mutual unraveling, third-act breakup (still my least favorite holiday tradition), and yes, a HEA.
What Quinn does really well here: grief. Cole’s loss, specifically losing his parents, is handled with care and physicality. His whole life becomes a museum of “before,” a decade-long freeze-frame where he’s not living so much as standing guard over the past like it might walk back in if he stays loyal enough. It’s tender and believable and honestly the emotional spine of the book.
Storrey’s pain is different, less catastrophic, but still real: she’s also frozen, just in a sunnier, avoidant way. Returning to Kringletown forces her to look at how small she’s made her life in the name of safety.
Now the part where I squinted: it’s cute, but it’s also a little codependent. They’re both stuck until they collide again, and suddenly love is the defrost button. I wanted just a hint that they’d started their own healing journeys before they became each other’s life raft. That said, if Quinn wrote that version, it would be 700 pages and I’d be in here yelling about pacing like a hypocrite in a festive hat. So. We contain multitudes. 🤷
Overall: an easy holiday read with enough plot to reassure your family you’re not reading open-door smut in the living room. And the cover is rom-com innocent, which is basically camouflage for your inner chaos.
Audiobook rec: yes. Duet narration, and it’s stacked:
- JF Harding as the MMC
- Vanessa Edwin as the FMC
- Shane East as the narrator, plus a lot of cheeky fourth-wall breaks between him and Cole that genuinely works
- Robert Hatchett and Emma Wilder for secondary characters
It’s a fun listen, well-acted, smooth pacing, and perfect for pretending you’re doing something productive while your brain is in Kringletown eating emotional candy canes.
Four stars. Festive. Funny. Surprisingly tender. Slightly red-flaggy in that “romance novel logic” way. Still worth the ride. 🎄✨
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