In a Nutshell: If you have read Jaimie Admans before, you know what you would expect from her, and you get exactly that from this charming book. Sweet & loveable characters, a heart-warming setting, some holiday magic, and clean romance.

Story Synopsis:

Mistletoe Gardens is a special place to the townspeople of Folkhorton. According to local legend, if you kiss your special someone under the mistletoe-covered boughs, you will have a year of happiness. But what does the local council care about

romance? It has decided to raze the gardens in the new year and make way for a housing complex.
Essie, a local baker, decides to do whatever she can to stop the demolition. Her plan involves the construction of a life-sized gingerbread house in the gardens, so as to attract a crowd and show the council that people still want Mistletoe Gardens. She coerces another local, a builder named Joss, to help her with the construction, though Joss is quite a Grinch, if rumours are to be believed.
What lies in store for Mistletoe Gardens, and to the people striving to save their romantic hotspot? Will Essie and Joss save the beloved park?
The story comes to us in Essie’s first person perspective.

I rarely pick up romances these days. Nothing against the genre, but I think I have outgrown their typical tropes. And yet, here I am, with my third Jaimie Admans novel within two years. (The Post Box at the North Pole – read in Jan 2022, and A Midnight Kiss on Ever After Street – read in July 2023) I have not read any other romance author more than once in this period. Why Jaimie Admans then?

Quite simple. She has figured out the formula that makes her books click, and that formula, barring a couple of minor hiccups, works nicely for me when I want a light read.

Here is what I can count upon from a Jaimie Admans romance: show less

Jul 13, 2025

RoshReviews 3,259 reviews

A Wonderland Wish on Ever After Street (Ever After Street, #3) by Jaimie Admans

In a Nutshell: This series is proving to be such a delight! The plot this time is quite simple but the characters and the writing approach make this a winner. Much recommended to all those who enjoy clean romcoms intertwined with some meaningful themes.

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Plot Preview:

Cleo Jordan has always dreamt of owning her own tea room. So when Lilith retires, Cleo puts in an application to lease the teashop on Ever After Street and redo it with an ‘Alice in Wonderland’

motif. To her surprise, her application is granted on a three-month trial basis. There’s only one hitch: Cleo loves baking, but baking doesn’t love her back anymore!
As Cleo figures out how to turn supermarket baked goods into whimsical wonderland offerings so that the trial gets extended into a permanent lease, there comes one more hurdle. Magician Bram, who had been running the carousel earlier, has been appointed by the Council to perform as the Mad Hatter at the new establishment. Can Cleo keep her “supermarket” secret from Bram? And why does it seem like Bram has secrets of his own?
The story comes to us in Cleo’s first-person perspective.

Jaimie Admans is probably the only romcom author whose books I have grabbed blindly. She is also the only romcom author I still read. I have long outgrown typical romcoms, but Admans always writes content that goes beyond staid love stories. More importantly, she incorporates settings into her plots like no one else can. (She would make a great cozy fantasy writer if she wishes to; she’s so fabulous at conjuring up tantalising locations!) This book is no exception.

The Ever After series has romances loosely based on a fairy tale or a classic fantasy. After tackling ‘Cinderella’ and ‘Beauty and the Beast’ in the first two books of this series, the third Ever After entry draws inspiration from the Lewis Carroll novel, ‘Alice in Wonderland’, for some of its characters as well as its key setting – the Wonderland teashop. It is not a retelling (Thank God!), but just pays a tribute to Wonderland by incorporating some of its elements into the plot line. This worked very much in my favour, because I am not a big fan of ‘Alice in Wonderland’. I love its quotes, but the story is too absurd and meandering for my taste. If this Ever After book had been written by some other author, it might not even have appealed to me. But my love for Jaimie Admans’ books triumphs over my dislike of Lewis Carroll’s works. This latest book maintains my fandom.

Bookish Yays: show less

Oct 21, 2025

theeclecticreview 1,529 reviews

Christmas Ever After: An uplifting, festive romance from Jaimie Admans (The Ever After Street Series Book 4) by Jaimie Admans

Are you Team Nutcracker or Team Snow Globe? It's a battle of wills and a whole lot of Christmas magic that makes this story shine. Enter Raff, a cinnamon roll hero who creates snow globes at his family's shop. He's the ultimate good guy who goes the extra mile. His dedication to help Franca after her unfortunate accident is a testament to his patience and wonderful character.

Raff’s charm is undeniable as he becomes Franca's biggest cheerleader, even as they compete for who will keep their show more shop at the end of the year. His selflessness shines through when he sacrifices his livelihood and takes the time to learn how to make nutcrackers to complete Franca's orders. It's commendable, and if she didn't take him, I surely would.

Franca is struggling to save her nutcracker shop after breaking her wrist. She reluctantly accepts the help of the man who left her on the ground after her accident. Her journey to accepting Raff's help is tumultuous, but his attention and cheery countenance slowly become the light to her darkness. Add in his extremely loving and supportive family, and Franca is a goner.

Franca takes some time getting used to, but her pettiness hides her vulnerability. Having been on her own for a long time, it takes her a while to relax and trust Raff. It's heart wrenching to see Franca struggle to feel wanted, but Raff and his family show her that she's enough, just as she is.

As the storyline between Raff and Franca unfolds, it’s impossible not to be drawn to the characters and the way they bring out the best in each other. Their story is a reminder that sometimes, the people who appear the strongest are the ones who need a supportive hand the most.

This delightful romance captures the essence of Christmas, offering an escape into enchanting worlds filled with love, laughter, and the promise of a heartwarming happily ever after.

Thank you to Ms. Admans for giving me the opportunity to read this book with no expectation of a positive review. show less

Jun 27, 20251 other review

RoshReviews 3,259 reviews

A Midnight Kiss on Ever After Street (Ever After Street, #1) by Jaimie Admans

In a Nutshell: Just what you would expect from a romance novel, plus a gorgeous, fairy-tale-like setting.

Story Synopsis:

Thirty-five year old Sadie has spent most of her life following the wishes of her aunt Ebony, who has raised her after her parents’ death. ‘The Cinderella Shop’, run by Ebony and where Sadie works as a seamstress, is on Ever After Street, a cosy location where all shops are made around fairy-tale themes, and there’s even an old castle nearby. When her aunt forbids

her to go to a special farewell ball at the castle before it is sold to a supermarket, Sadie sneaks her way there in secret, never expecting to meet a charming man who blows her off her feet.
The next day, she discovers that the man is none other than a real estate agent named Witt, who is in charge of selling the castle. Even worse, he doesn’t recognise her at all as the belle at the ball. However, he has come to their shop in the hopes of finding the girl who ran away at midnight, little knowing that he is speaking to her.
Can Sadie use this opportunity to turn around the fortunes of her beloved shop, and maybe, change her own life too?
The story comes to us in the first person perspective of Sadie.

I am not much of a romance reader nowadays. In my teen/young adult years, I would have sighed and swooned over such a story and given it a wholehearted 5 stars. But with middle age comes a sense of fatigue, where almost every romance novel looks the same in plot and approach. As such, I have become very selective in picking up books from this genre. One of the few romance authors whose works I will pick without many questions is Jaimie Admans.

Admans has an amazing ability of creating magical settings for her plots. When I had read ‘The Post Box at the North Pole’, I was astounded at how well she has crafted the Christmas-themed holiday village. This time around too, she has blown me away with her beautiful fairy-tale themed nook with a lovely name of ‘Ever After Street’. Yeah yeah, fairy tales are regressive and misogynistic and what not – I get it. After all, princes didn’t bother with consent and princesses had only one task - finding their ‘one true love’ to rescue themselves. But I can’t deny how these very stories transported me into a dreamlike world in my childhood. Keeping aside the outdated elements, fairy tales sparked wonder and awe (and also some ‘awwws’.) This book recreates the same old magic.

It’s not just the presence of the castle and the idea of shops themed around fairy tales that makes a difference here. It’s how the author makes everything sound realistic without being farfetched, and in how she describes the location so well that you can picture the whole scene clearly in your head. The book is full of Easter egg references to various fairy tales (let’s be clear: the Disney version of the stories and not the original darker tales), so if you are a fairy tale movie fan, you will have a lot of fun along the way discovering the references scattered here and there.

The author also has a great ability of creating vulnerable male characters. Witt isn’t presented as the perfect Prince Charming who can’t do anything wrong. On the contrary, he stammers, he jokes, and he even helps around a dress shop without any threat to his masculinity. In other words, Witt is loveable rather than just admirable, and this makes a big difference. Though I must add one thing: he never sounded like someone who was almost forty.

I liked Sadie’s character as well. Usually, I would not buy the idea of a woman in her mid-thirties being such a pushover and so dominated by her aunt, but the plot explains well the reason for her shyness and blind conformity to Ebony’s rules, and also how she finally builds up the courage to stand up for herself. Ebony is a decent character, almost like a typical fairy-tale villain though somewhat flat in portrayal. But her daughter Scarlett is a wonderful and well-sketched secondary character. I loved how she was not sketched as a clichéd ‘evil stepsister’ kind of character. I wish she had an even greater role to play.

In terms of plot, the story is pretty straightforward and mostly predictable, though it does have a couple of surprises. I could guess these much before they popped up on the page, but I was still invested enough in the proceedings. After all, no one reads romances for surprise twists – the couple will obviously have a HEA ending. What we read romances for is the journey to that ending, and in this book, the journey is stunning. The romance being steam-free was a huge added positive for me.

Through Sadie’s and Ebony’s interactions, we also have a nice conflict about how a business is supposed to be run. Considering how much I hate the word ‘influencer’, I obviously was against Ebony’s method of buttering insta celebrities in high hopes of name and fame. Sadie’s ideas were more conservative, but they spoke better to my heart. I like how she understood her business’s core competencies and wanted to build a brand around that, rather than running behind something that may be elusive and transient. Happy customers can lead to positive word-of-mouth publicity, and that automatically generates more revenue. There! A practical business lesson from a romance book – how often do you get to say that?

Of course, the book isn’t perfect. It is a bit slow-going and gets a bit repetitive in between. The only major thing that bugged me was the number of times physical gestures and touches are brought up in the couple’s scenes – blushing, hugging, putting head on shoulders, handholding, touching noses, fingers on elbow, hand around waist…. OMG! In all fairness, it seemed like both Sadie and Witt had touch as their love language, and mine isn’t touch, so that could be one reason for my irritation with the overload. So I guess this is more of a ME problem than a BOOK problem.

All in all, if you love romances of the Hallmark kind, and would want a story with a wondrous setting and relatable characters, this book has a strong chance of providing you with satisfaction.

This is the first of a planned series of standalone stories set on Ever After Street. Count this fairy tale lover in for all subsequent books!

A shoutout to that scrumptilicious cover art – so perfect for the story and for this genre!

4 stars.

My thanks to Boldwood Books and NetGalley for the DRC of “A Midnight Kiss on Ever After Street”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

The book is available for free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers.

PS: A query not related to the book - Fellow reviewers, would you write ‘a HEA ending’ (pronouncing HEA as ‘Happily Ever After’ in your head’) or ‘an HEA ending’ (pronouncing HEA just by the letters)? This point always confuses me.

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Oct 21, 2025

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