Book Review - Christmas at Honeycombe Bay by Lilac Mills

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Title: Christmas at Honeycombe Bay

Author: Lilac Mills

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: One More Chapter

Publication Date: 29th September 2026

Rating: 5 Stars

An uplifting, heartwarming seasonal romance set in a quintessential seaside village in Devon, perfect for fans of Holly Martin and Sarah Morgan.

Two Scrooges come together for a festive-free holiday season by the sea and find all their anti-Christmas plans going up in smoke when they decide to play Santa for a single mom and her child.

Eloise Garrett thinks Christmas is overpriced, overhyped, and overrated, and without any family to share it with, she feels sad, lonely and isolated. The “season for giving” is just a constant reminder that she's single, sixty(ish), and staring down retirement. But not this Christmas. Determined to avoid the most magical time of the year, Eloise decides to spend Christmas in Honeycombe Bay. Surely a seaside village in the middle of winter won't be too festive?

Ever since his wife passed away, Bartholomew Knott hasn't felt up to welcoming visitors to his guest house. With the prospect of another long, lonely winter, and having become more Scrooge than Santa over the years, Bart is dreading Christmas. However, when he's contacted by someone who dislikes decking the halls just as much as he does, Bart has the brilliant idea of opening the guest house to people who want to escape all things festive.

Christmas isn't easy to ignore, though, not even in off-season Honeycombe Bay. So when fate forces Bart to give shelter to a single mother and child whose holiday has been devastated by a terrible fire, Eloise finds herself playing Mrs. Claus to Bart's Santa-dragging the house's other guest, a heartbroken teacher looking for a break during the holidays, into the action as well. But holiday cheer isn't the only thing sparking under the mistletoe. Will the guests at Honeycombe Bay realize that, sometimes, the best way to escape Christmas is to let it into your heart?

Oh this was so totally and utterly heartwarming, and made so feel rather festive too.  I feel this at it's heart really does show the true meaning of Christmas, and it's not the presents, lights etc.. but it's how you can make other people's lives a bit better for the festive period at least. 

Eloise is determined to avoid Christmas this year, she is recently unemployed and was never a big fan of the season anyway, plus her best friend is in a new relationship and she doesn't want to intrude. so will be alone. 

Impulsively she decides to book into a B&B in Honeycombe Bay, a place she has some fond memories of, and assumes that it will be quiet and not full on xmassy, given it's out of season.  Something Bart the owner agrees with.  Bart hasn't opened the B&B since his wife passed over a year ago, but needs the money, so not only agrees to Eloise but promptly decides to offer it as a non Christmas break to others. 

I enjoyed getting to know Eloise, Bart and the other guest Mitch, even though it turns out Honeycombe Bay was putting on a week of Christmas activities.  But it's when Bart takes in a young mum and child after they have no where else to go, that he decides the little boy needs to have good Christmas memories, even if the other guests leave. 

But instead they all agree and from then there is a real sense of found family between them all, and I'd say the second half of the book with all the characters in place is just a sheer pleasure to read.  

It really gave me all the festive feels, and I loved all the various Christmas activities that were undertaken, including the local panto, 

There are also some fledgling slow burn romances, if only the characters can actually learn to communicate and not just guess what the others are thinking, which was a bit frustrating but true to life. 

This is another wonderful book from Lilac Mills, and it left me feeling warm and fuzzy. 

Thank you to Aria and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.