Audio: The Christmas Dress by Courtney Cole

Narrated by: Bailey Carr

Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins

Release date: 10-26-21

Publisher: HarperAudio

Women's fiction

To review

A magical dress that fits everyone, and that still looks great decades later. More women's fiction than romance.

Meg inherits a building that is crumbling. People are upset when she does show up, cos hello, things to fix. But Meg is the sweetest, nicest person ever ( I would just have sold that money pit at once.) She tries to help, to fix, and to figure out what to do with her life.

She is also very self sacrificing. She meets this great guy, but is ready to give him up because she thinks she knows best (she does not). She broke up with someone (he was not for her), and she seems very cool with her best friend seconds later asking if she can date him. Wait until the body is cold. That feels like a really strange friendship.

But yes Meg is really nice, she would be the best friend anyone could have.

A little sidestory about the dress and its previous owner, Ellie is in here too.

But is mostly about saving this building, falling for someone (not a romance book though.) And meeting a new family.

A nice little Christmas book.

Good narration, and good voices for the whole cast.

When hopeful fashionista Meg Julliard must return to her hometown of Chicago to manage her late father’s apartment building, she thinks her dreams of making it in the fashion business are over. Add in her father’s eclectic roster of tenants who all need Meg’s attention (ASAP!), a host of building related disasters, and a handsome handyman she keeps embarrassing herself in front of, and this has all the makings for the worst Christmas she’s ever had.

Ellie Wade, one of the building’s longtime residents, is also not feeling the Christmas Joy this year. She is preparing to move into a nursing home (reluctantly), and is in the process of sorting through her belongings to downsize. Every corner of her apartment holds memories, some good, some bad. But there’s one dress she hesitates to pack up as it represents both the best and worst night of her life.

Ellie and Meg strike up an unlikely friendship and the story of Ellie’s dress comes out. Ellie gifts the gorgeous dress to Meg, hoping that it will bring her more luck, on the condition that she wear it to the building’s Christmas party.

The dress magically fits, and while it eventually leads to the best night of Meg’s life, it also acts as inspiration for Meg to follow a life-long dream of her own, a dream that will help save the crumbling Parkview West, and restore it to its former glory, and keep it as a safe home for all of the current tenants. The dress and the magic of the holiday season helps both Meg and Ellie find their own happy endings