To the outside world, Imogen is a marketing dynamo. Her colleagues don’t know that while her high-achieving professional image is real, the happy childhood stories she spins are as fake as her pretend enthusiasm for Christmas.

Working 24/7 has always been her solution to surviving the festive season—until burnout leads to a catastrophic blunder. Suddenly, Imogen is handed a holiday gift she definitely doesn’t want: enforced time off work to recuperate.

Then an invitation arrives from her favorite client, Dorothy, to stay at her guest cottage in the Cotswolds. From the thatched roof to the cozy open fireplace, Holly Cottage is a picture-perfect haven… Can it provide the fresh start Imogen so desperately needs?

For Dorothy, helping Imogen offers a longed-for chance to make reparations for her own past. But as her daughter Sara keeps reminding her, it brings risks, too. Yet Dorothy knows that only a leap of courage will allow her family to grow and heal.

And perhaps this Christmas, with Dorothy’s help, the new life that Imogen is slowly piecing together could be better than anything either of them could imagine…