THE EIGHT HEARTBREAKS OF HANUKKAH Book Review

The Eight Heartbreaks of Hanukkah¹ by Jean Meltzer, eBook, 368 pages

Synopsis from GoodReads: Can these exes rekindle their love this Hanukkah? Evelyn Schwartz has the perfect Hanukkah planned: eight jam-packed days producing the live-action televised musical of A Christmas Carol. Who needs family when you’ve got long hours, impossible deadlines, and your dream job? That is, until an accident on set lands her in the medical bay with one of her chronic migraines, and she’s shocked to find her ex-husband, David Adler, filling in for the usual studio doctor.

It’s been two years since David walked away from Evelyn and their life in Manhattan, and his ex-wife is still the same workaholic who puts her career before everything else—especially her health. But when Evelyn begins hallucinating “ghosts” tied to her past heartbreaks, and every single one leads to David, he finds himself spending much more time with her than he anticipated. And denying the still-smoldering chemistry between them becomes impossible.

As Evelyn revisits her ghosts of Hanukkah past, she and David both begin to wonder if they can have a Hanukkah future. But with a high-stakes production ramping up the pressure on Evelyn, and troublesome spirits forcing them both to confront their most difficult shared memories, it might just take a Hanukkah miracle for these two exes to light the flame on their second-chance at love.

BOOK REVIEW: I have spent the last several years since starting my book club (sign up for our email list or join our FB group through this link) looking for a book centered around Hanukkah. I don't know if it's because I'm not Jewish so I don't know any Jewish authors and I'm terrified of picking a dud...and then this one came to me via NetGalley and I'm so glad that it did because it will definitely be a read for my book club next year! This book has "heartbreaks" in the title but I will preface that one of those heartbreaks touches on child loss so proceed how you see fit.

This book gave me all the feels! I laughed, I cried, I groaned (annoyed), and I wanted to punch Jared in the face multiple times (you'll understand once you read this)! It's ironic that Evelyn is producing A Christmas Carol and is living it out in real life except over the eight nights of Hanukkah. Can you imagine? I think my favorite scene might be at the very beginning. Evelyn has a literal run in with a piano and is knocked out cold. When she comes to, she has a migraine and is talking to the studio doctor and thinking that the man smells good and familiar and when she sees him she thinks he is hot only for it to dawn on her that it is her ex-husband that she hasn't seen in 2 years. I'm not giving away anything that wasn't in the synopsis. This was so funny because she goes from having some warm and fuzzy/hot and bothered feelings and the switch flips to irritation and annoyance in a second!

This was so good! I definitely give this a 5 star rating. The author had done a great job building the tension between our two main characters Evelyn and David. The ghosts of Evelyn's Hanukkah pasts are wonderful and add to the over charm in this book plus some of the awkward ways Evelyn comes to after her visits with her ghosts are hilarious (like the lamp — a little nugget for ya). She does a wonderful job with the imagery for both the Christmas production and the ghost flashbacks. I did think it was funny that Evelyn mentions reading a book that is written by this author and I only found that out when I went to add it to my TBR. I was like...oh girl that is sneaky! This book is out today and available in all formats wherever you get your books. I have included a link above to Bookshop if you want to purchase and support Indie bookstores around the country.

5/5 Stars

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