Eight Nights of Flirting

Starred review from September 1, 2022

Gr 7 Up-In this lush and cozy holiday romance, Reynolds (The Summer of Lost Letters) brings readers to Nantucket and the raucous and loving Barnabel family. Shira Barnabel is looking forward to spending Hanukkah with her extended family in her grandparent's sprawling Nantucket home, but then a snowstorm leaves her whole family stranded on the mainland. Instead of a house full of cousins, Shira finds herself lighting the first candle with sworn enemy Tyler Nelson, the boy responsible for her first and only broken heart. Shira decides to turn the situation to her advantage and talks the charming Tyler into giving her lessons in flirting, in the hopes of attracting a new intern in her family business. Reynolds takes readers through the paces of Hanukkah, Christmas, and general winter traditions of a wealthy Nantucket social circle-all perfect set pieces for Tyler to administer lessons in seduction. A mystery involving Shira's family and an old Nantucket whaling ship brings the two into each other's orbit more and more often, and the line between flirting lessons and actual flirting becomes blurred. Reynolds's narration is smart, warm, and full of plenty of well-earned swoony moments. The evolution of Shira and Tyler's relationship, as well as a subplot about Shira's grandparents, thoughtfully explore the ways hurt feelings can affect perceptions of and openness to love and affection over time. A companion to the author's debut novel, this can be read as a stand-alone. VERDICT Absolutely delightful.-Beth McIntyre

Copyright 2022 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2022
Meet the Hanukkah rom-com. In this stand-alone companion to The Summer of Lost Letters (2021), Shira Barbanel is driven, intelligent, attractive, and the kind of rich that has a family mansion in Nantucket where extended family gathers for Hanukkah each year. She's also lost, lonely, and socially awkward. This year, she wants a Hanukkah miracle of her own: to win the heart of her great-uncle's intern--but she's terrible at flirting. Shira works for her successes, so after spending the first night of Hanukkah snowed in with Tyler Nelson, her romantic nemesis and Nantucket neighbor, she strikes a deal: He'll teach her to flirt in exchange for an intro to her media mogul great-uncle. It's a rom-com, so readers will know what's coming next--and the book delivers. Contemporary Jewish life, complete with a loving but fractious extended family (the triplet cousins are comedy gold), Chinese food on Christmas, and a little bit of history (researching a mystery box hidden in the attic), underpins the story, and while Shira is a bit shallowly drawn, watching her grow serves as a nice leitmotif for this cocoa- and snow-dusted holiday classic: If there was a Hallmark Hannukah movie tradition, this would be optioned in a heartbeat. The previous book establishes Shira and family as Sephardic; Tyler is White and Christian. Cozy and cute. (Romance. 12-18)

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September 12, 2022
Jewish high school junior Shira Barbanel’s plans to woo her crush go awry in this spirited Hanukkah rom-com, a standalone companion to Reynolds’s The Summer of Lost Letters. Shira and her extended family spend every Hanukkah at her grandfather’s sprawling Nantucket estate. This year, she plans to overcome her previous “disastrous attempts at romance” and win over 19-year-old Isaac Lehrer, intern to her media CEO great-uncle. When bad weather strands her overnight with neighbor Tyler Nelson—Shira’s former crush, “who would hook up with anyone, except for me”—she asks him for flirting lessons. He agrees, in exchange for three career-oriented meetings with her great-uncle. As the rest of her family arrives and the festivities commence, Tyler conducts
the lessons, and Shira’s old feelings for him resurface. While Shira’s awkward demeanor can sometimes feel stiffly rendered, Reynolds expertly strips away Tyler’s generic playboy charm to uncover a love interest worth rooting for. Shira’s bighearted Jewish family is also distinctly—and hilariously—drawn, and the group’s traditions, which include ordering Chinese food on Christmas, combined with Shira and Tyler’s endearing enemies-to-lovers romance, makes for a cheerful holiday jaunt. Characters read as white. Ages 12–up. Agent: Tamar Rydzinski, Context Literary.

November 28, 2022
Grades 8-10 Arriving at her grandparent's home on Nantucket for her large, convivial family's traditional Hanukkah gathering, Shira has a purpose in mind: she wants a boyfriend. Two years ago, when she was 14, she had the painful, humiliating experience of rejection immediately after telling 16-year-old Tyler that she loved him. Ever since, she has felt awkward about romance. Now, drawn to Isaac, a more career-focused potential suitor, she decides to enlist Tyler's help in learning to flirt, since it's clearly one of his strengths. His tutoring works, up to the point when she kisses Isaac and feels nothing. On the other hand, she realizes that she's not over Tyler and he's clearly attracted to her as well. The cast of characters is large and made up of believable individuals, from the grandparents having marital problems to the many cousins with individual personalities and concerns. Offering an alternative to the rom-com movies set during the Christmas season, Reynolds' novel uses Hanukkah festivities in a grand house on wintry Nantucket as a backdrop for this appealing holiday romance.

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