Book Review :: Kiss her Once For Me by Alison Cochrun

Kiss Her Once for Me by Alison Cochrun
ISBN: 1982191139
on 1 November 2022
Genres: LGBTQ+, Romance
Goodreads

One year ago, recent Portland transplant Ellie Oliver had her dream job in animation and a Christmas Eve meet-cute with a woman at a bookstore that led her to fall in love over the course of a single night. But after a betrayal the next morning and the loss of her job soon after, she finds herself adrift, alone, and desperate for money.

Finding work at a local coffee shop, she’s just getting through the days—until Andrew, the shop’s landlord, proposes a shocking, drunken plan: a marriage of convenience that will give him his recent inheritance and alleviate Ellie’s financial woes and isolation. They make a plan to spend the holidays together at his family cabin to keep up the ruse.

But when Andrew introduces his new fiancée to his sister, Ellie is shocked to discover it’s Jack—the mysterious woman she fell for over the course of one magical Christmas Eve the year before. Now, Ellie must choose between the safety of a fake relationship and the risk of something real.

Last updated on 21 January 2024

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What is Kiss Her Once for Me about?

Kiss Her Once for Me by Alison Cochrun is about Ellie Oliver, a recent resident of Portland, Oregon, and her encounter with a beautiful woman in Powell’s Bookstore one Christmas. They spend the whole evening and night together and go their separate ways.

Now, a year later, Ellie has lost her dream job in animation, she’s struggling to pay rent, her coffee shop job is not fulfilling in anyway, and she still dreams of Jack, the girl she met in the bookstore the year before.

“Your trauma is something that happened to you; it’s not who you are.”

Then things start happening. Andrew, the man who owns the coffee shop and technically her boss, and Ellie start hanging out, and while sparks don’t really fly between them, Andrew proposes an interesting idea: a fake marriage. Not just fake dating, a fake marriage. Andrew gets to sort out his inheritance that way, giving Ellie a cut of the money (which is strapped for), and after an agreed amount of time, they can divorce and go their separate ways.

And then Ellie needs to attend a family holiday at their cabin. And suddenly she’s thrown into a life that is not her own, meeting people who are supposed to be her inlaws and siblings-in-law and then she walks in. Andrew’s sister is Jacqueline or Jack. The girl Ellie met a year ago in Powell’s and who she doesn’t stop thinking about.

This can only end badly.

My thoughts on Kiss Her Once for Me by Alison Cochrun

Kiss Her Once for Me by Alison Cochrun was a lot of fun! I love reading Christmas books at Christmastime, or a bit of romance around Valentine’s Day, and even will read books that are, for example, autumn-themed in the fall. I’m a bit of a seasonal reader. So when I read this one in the Christmas of 2023, it was the perfect Christmas love story that I needed.

The family cabin in the snowy mountain was an interestingly-timed location for me in my reading, as I had recently read Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson and that book is also set on a mountain in the snow. I have to be honest and say that if the genres weren’t so completely different, I might have started getting my characters muddled. 🙈

But same-same location aside, this was a really enjoyable read. The characters were vast in their personalities and how the interacted with one another, and while Ellie, our protagonist, was incredibly annoying at times and you wanted to just bang her head on a wall and knock some sense into her, I enjoyed most of the characters and their storylines.

“I guess maybe that’s how it works in families that love each other unconditionally. You can fight without fear of losing them, and be honest without consequences or repercussions.”

Reading about family dynamics, especially in ‘new’ situations like a marriage (whether fake or otherwise) is always interesting. Cochrun does a brilliant job (as she has done in other books) at ensuring that there are a good number of tensions, but also that there are things like sides being taken, or people who get on a lot more than others, or the quirky aunt or uncle that people love but also get frustrated at. They’re the classic things we find in families in stories, but also in read life.

Ellie and Andrew’s relationship, while fake, was sweet most of the time, and Ellie and Jack, when they reconnected was a combo of absolute horror to the fact that Jack was Andrew’s sister, and those feelings that were there a year ago. There’s unspoken tension, too, and the reason that they didn’t continue seeing each other the year prior hanging over them too.

In classic book form (and real life too), communication is lacking and that’s often the downfall of many a relationship in this story.

Overall, I really enjoyed Kiss Her Once for Me. It was a light-hearted (with some tension!) Christmas read, with a bit of romance, beautiful friendships, fraught family dynamics and more.

Have you read this book? What did you think? Let me know in the comments!