Charlie Goodwin is half of the hosting team of the popular baking competition show Sweet & Salty. She’s the sweet to her partner, Austin’s, salty. He is arrogant, underhanded, and overly dramatic. And Charlie is competing with him for the single hosting spot in the network’s new show, Bake My Day. So she has to be on top of everything as they finish this season. So when an intern accidentally brings a shelf of pots and pans down on her in the supply room, Charlie knows she has to recover quickly to finish the filming strong.
But she can’t. A trip to the Emergency Room introduces her to the handsome physician’s assistant Miguel, but it also shows she has a concussion. And worse, she can’t smell or taste anything. Which means, unless she has some sort of doppelganger, an almost exact copy who also knows a lot about baking, then she can’t finish filming Sweet & Salty, and she won’t get the to host Bake My Day.
That’s when Charlie calls up Cass for a huge favor. Her identical twin sister is home, getting ready for the holidays. Their family bakery always bakes a special Starlight Loaf of Woodburn Bakery’s sourdough for every family in Starlight Peak, the small town the girls grew up. Woodburn is the family bakery, so they both grew up working there. Charlie knows that if she can convince Cass to take her place in the television studio, then Charlie can take on all the holiday orders at the bakery.
Meanwhile, Cass is spending every day working at the bakery. She’s asked her longtime boyfriend Brett for some space so she can figure out what she wants next, but when he decides to buy them a house and propose, Cass is stunned. She isn’t sure what she wants, but she knows that settling for a life in her small town with her high school boyfriend isn’t it. So when Charlie calls needing a giant favor—that Cass go to L.A. and be Charlie until Christmas, Cass decides to go. She would do anything for her sister, but that break from her regular life came at just the right time.
As Cass tries to get settled in, learning all the ropes of hosting and baking on television, Charlie tries to adapt to life at the bakery. The sisters had sent their parents on an epic trip, so Charlie is there running the bakery with only her assistant Walter. But that concussion takes its toll when Charlie’s memory lapses cause major problems. Not only does she forget to email Cass the recipes she had developed for the show, leaving Cass to improvise all-new recipes at the last minute, but she puts several loaves of bread in the oven and doesn’t set a timer. She lies down on the sofa for just a minute, and the next thing she knows, the local fire department is showing up at the bakery.
Charlie is embarrassed and disappointed at losing all those loaves of bread, putting them behind on the Christmas loaves, but she feels better when fireman Jake takes a few extra minutes to make sure she’s okay and her ovens are working properly. Meanwhile in L.A., Cass runs into that good-looking physician’s assistant Miguel who helped Charlie when she went to the E.R.
With less that two weeks until Christmas, will the twins be able to pull off the ultimate swap? Will Cass be able to fill Charlie’s shoes on Sweet & Salty and win her the next hosting job, or will she head back home, having ended her sister’s television career? Will Charlie be able to keep the bakery going, complete all the holiday orders and Starlight Loaves for Christmas Eve and finally getting Brett to understand that things are over between him and Cass, or will she fail and put the bakery’s reputation on the line just to try to keep her job in L.A.?
The Holiday Swap is Maggie Knox’s Christmas gift to readers, a story of twins swapping lives and discovering what was missing in their own lives. There is humor and romance, poignancy and disappointment, delicious food and an adorable dog. As Charlie and Cass try out each other’s lives for a while, they discover what was missing in their own lives and decide to make more time for family and balance, and they start to define success on their own terms.
Heart-warming and charming, The Holiday Swap is a fun start to the holiday season. I really enjoyed this story, and I think it’s perfect for anyone who spends the year waiting for those romantic holiday movies to start up again. With lots of holiday magic and baking show fun, this double rom com brings the fun and the festivity. And like I said, an adorable dog. Also, a mischievous cat. What more could you want for Christmas?
Egalleys for The Holiday Swap were provided by G.P. Putnam’s Sons through NetGalley, with many thanks.
