Books Like In a Holidaze: Christmas Time Loops, Cabin Weekends & Holiday Romance With Real Heat (2026)
In a Holidaze is the Christmas book Christina Lauren fans reread every December, and on December 2, 2026 it becomes the Christmas movie, with Maddie Ziegler as Maelyn Jones and Rob Lowe among the family at the Utah cabin. If you’re looking for books like In a Holidaze, you want the same ingredients: a holiday the whole found family shows up for, a snowed-in house with too few bedrooms, a wish that goes sideways and the one person under that roof you were never supposed to want. Here are the best matches, starting with the trad holiday hits and finishing with the Fractal Enigma reads that take the same setups behind a closed cabin door and leave it open.
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What Makes In a Holidaze Work
Mae is twenty-six, stuck, and spending what might be the last Christmas at the cabin her family and their oldest friends have shared for decades. She kisses the wrong brother, wishes to be happy and wakes up on the plane to Utah, living the same holiday again and again until she gets it right. The loop is the hook, but the book runs on three things: a cabin full of people who love each other loudly, a quiet, long-held crush on Andrew Hollis, and a heroine who has to stop waiting for her life to start. The books below hit at least two of the three.
Books Like In a Holidaze: The Trad Holiday Shelf
1. Kiss Her Once for Me by Alison Cochrun
The closest match on the list. Ellie agrees to a fake engagement with her landlord to help him claim an inheritance, then arrives at his family’s Christmas and discovers his sister is the woman she spent one perfect snowed-in day with a year ago. A family cabin, a holiday that forces everyone together and a crush that cannot be acted on: it’s In a Holidaze with a sapphic heart and a slower, sweeter burn.
See Kiss Her Once for Me on Amazon →
2. The Holiday Swap by Maggie Knox
Identical twins trade lives for the twelve days before Christmas: one runs the family bakery in a snowy small town, the other is a judge on a televised baking show. Each inherits the other’s romantic complication. If the comfort of In a Holidaze is the part you want to keep, the warm house, the cocoa, the town that knows everyone’s name, this is the gentlest read here.
See The Holiday Swap on Amazon →
3. One Day in December by Josie Silver
Laurie locks eyes with a man through a bus window one December and spends a year looking for him, then meets him again as her best friend’s new boyfriend. The story unfolds over ten Christmases. It trades Mae’s time loop for ten years of wrong timing, and it delivers the same ache of wanting someone who is right there and off-limits.
See One Day in December on Amazon →
4. Window Shopping by Tessa Bailey
Stella, fresh off a bad few years, talks her way into a job dressing the windows of a Manhattan department store and into the orbit of its very large, very cheerful general manager. Bailey writes the holiday rom-com with the door wide open, so this is where to go when In a Holidaze’s fade-to-black left you wanting the scene.
See Window Shopping on Amazon →
5. A Merry Little Meet Cute by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone
A plus-size adult-film star lands a role in a wholesome made-for-TV Christmas movie opposite a former boy-band bad boy trying to clean up his image, and both of them are hiding things from the network. It is the funniest and filthiest book on this list, and it still ends with a family dinner you’ll want to be at.
See A Merry Little Meet Cute on Amazon →
6. This Time Next Year by Sophie Cousens
Two people born minutes apart on New Year’s Day keep crossing paths every year, and one of them has had all the luck. If the fate-and-timing engine of In a Holidaze is the part that got you, Cousens runs the same engine from Christmas through New Year’s Eve, with a heroine who, like Mae, has to decide what she wants before the universe will cooperate.
See This Time Next Year on Amazon →
7. Make the Season Bright by Ashley Herring Blake
Two violinists who were engaged five years ago, until one of them bolted, get stuck at the same Colorado Christmas when their families’ plans collide. Herring Blake’s sapphic second chance has the big noisy holiday household and the person at the table you can’t stop looking at, and it’s open door.
See Make the Season Bright on Amazon →
Want more Christina Lauren after the movie? Our Christina Lauren books in order guide lists every novel, and books like The Unhoneymooners covers their other reread favorite.
Hotter Books Like In a Holidaze From Fractal Enigma
Mae and Andrew get one closed door. These six keep the cabin, the holiday and the person you can’t have, and they don’t close anything.
Wrapped Around Her Finger — Riley Kendra
A fake engagement between Madison Prescott and Renee Lawson that has to survive a Newport family Christmas, from a Brooklyn kitchen to a Rhode Island mansion dressed for the holidays. The ring is pretend. The guest room has one bed. By New Year’s, neither of them can remember which parts were the act. The closest thing on this list to Kiss Her Once for Me with the heat turned all the way up.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Fake Engagement, Holiday Romance, Family Christmas, Only One Bed, Sapphic Rom-Com
Start reading Wrapped Around Her Finger →
Snowed In with My Brother’s Best Friend — Jace Wilder
Nolan Calloway needs a fake boyfriend to get through his family’s Vermont holiday trip, and his best friend’s younger brother, all six foot three of him, volunteers. Then the snow closes the roads and the pretend relationship has to hold through a week of board games, bunk rooms and a family who notices everything. Mae’s cabin Christmas with the Hollis brothers, told MM and with nothing faded to black.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Fake Dating, Holiday Family Trip, Brother’s Best Friend, Snowed In, Forced Proximity
Start reading Snowed In with My Brother’s Best Friend →
Snowed In with My Ex’s Mother — Blair Lennox
Emery is twenty-nine, Celia is forty-eight, and Celia is the mother of the woman Emery used to date. A dead car battery, three feet of snow and five days of pretending the tension in the house is the weather. If the part of In a Holidaze you loved was wanting the one person under the roof you absolutely should not want, this is that feeling with the brakes cut. Free with Kindle Unlimited.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Age Gap, Ex’s Mother, Snowed In, Only One Bed, Forbidden Romance, Praise Kink
Start reading Snowed In with My Ex’s Mother →
Knot on My Watch — Jace Wilder
A grumpy former firefighter, an anxious wedding planner, one winter lodge and a fake engagement neither of them planned to announce. Add a rescue dog, a single shared room and a blizzard that cancels every exit, and the pretend version of them starts beating the real one. For readers who wanted Andrew Hollis to be a little grumpier and a lot more hands-on.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Fake Engagement, Grumpy/Sunshine, Winter Lodge, Only One Bed, Blizzard, Rescue Dog
Start reading Knot on My Watch →
The Winter He Learned to Stay — Milo Hart
Eighteen years ago he left without a goodbye. This winter, the storm won’t let him leave. Milo Hart’s MM second chance is the pick for readers who felt the sadness under In a Holidaze, the last Christmas at the cabin, the life that didn’t turn out as planned, and wanted the emotional payoff as big as the snow.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Second Chance, Snowed In, Small Town, Hurt/Comfort, Winter Romance
Start reading The Winter He Learned to Stay →
Snowed In with the Stepbrother — Isla Wilde (free)
She has spent three years running from him. A blizzard just locked the door. One cabin, one bed and three years of wanting in a full-length MF romance that costs nothing: it’s one of the free books we publish, so it’s an easy first taste of the heat the rest of this list runs at.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Stepbrother, Snowed In, Forced Proximity, Only One Bed, Forbidden Romance
Read Snowed In with the Stepbrother free →
Want more of the snowed-in shelf? Our guides to the best queer holiday and snowed-in romances and the best snowed-in romance books go deeper.
FAQ: Books Like In a Holidaze
When does the In a Holidaze movie come out?
Netflix releases In a Holidaze on December 2, 2026, with Maddie Ziegler as Maelyn Jones alongside Rob Lowe, Graham Phillips and Elias Kacavas.
Is In a Holidaze spicy?
Lightly. There’s real chemistry and an on-page romance, but the sex is mostly off the page, around 2 out of 5 on our chili scale. Every Fractal Enigma pick above runs at Inferno; our spice levels guide explains the ratings.
Which book is most like In a Holidaze?
Kiss Her Once for Me has the cabin, the family Christmas and the crush you can’t act on. Wrapped Around Her Finger is the same setup with a fake engagement and much higher heat.
Are there other Christmas time-loop romances?
Holiday loops are rare in adult romance; This Time Next Year and One Day in December scratch the fate-and-timing itch, and our list of books like The Seven Year Slip covers magical-timing romance more broadly.
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