I don’t read a ton of rom-com type books but I liked Josie Silver’s first book and much like Beth O’Leary I keep reading her subsequent books and they are fine but never quite as good. A Winter in New York seemed like a good seasonal read. I don’t like reading about Christmas or snow outside of cold weather days here so I knocked it out before Thanksgiving.

I thought the book was cute but I was not surprised to read in the end that the author had never been to NYC before. Something in the day-to-day life and how she described that pastrami sandwich at Katz’s seemed off. And why would a chef be impressed by how people were cutting up sausage and peppers at a street fair?

I thought there were some timeline issues. Does no one notice these things but me? I find it so distracting.

Unless Santo was supposed to be a decade or more older than her mother, which didn’t seem to be the case, he’d only be in his mid-fifties. But he and his wife are portrayed in a way that makes them seem elderly and a relic of an earlier time.

Gio was supposed to be 39 but repeatedly talked about how old he was. Iris must have been about 36 but also talks about how he is older than her. They are basically the same age! I guess Santo, at about 15 years older than Gio, could be a father figure but you’d think they mention how close in age they are and how it makes it even more special that he stepped up when his dad basically abandoned him.

Was everyone else in the band much older than Iris’ mom? She also would have been in her mid-50s but Gio’s father (her bandmate) was supposed to be in his mid-to late 60s. Why would an 18-year-old be in a band with people pushing 30? I don’t feel like they made this clear at all.

I don’t see how Iris’ mom could have thought Gio was Santo’s child when she went back to NYC when Iris was a toddler but it’s heavily implied she did. Gio is older than Iris by enough that he would have been born by the time she met Santo and he is the child of her bandmate. Surely she’d know if he a child at any point and guess that’s who she is seeing?

I feel like if you are going to put firm dates and ages in the book they should make sense. The whole book could have been more vague and there would have been less of a glaring issue.

I think we could have done without the bad ex storyline, there was enough going on between her being a chef, her mom’s death, Gio’s family and also being a singer. She didn’t need another reason to be NYC and he seemed like a comic book villain. While he seemed awful, why would he fly across an ocean just to verbally abuse her? Are there no other women in London?