Finding your soul mate is a dream Adeline Hamilton thought was just that … a dream. After several failed relationships, she realizes she’s not capable of falling in love. The only passion she’s ever had is teaching U.S. History at the local high school.

A week before Christmas, Adeline is all set for her best friend’s wedding, even though she dreads having to go to it alone. But when she’s given a Christmas wish that could change her future forever, she’s whisked away to the past, to a completely different place and time. It’s also when she meets him, William Blair, the man who steals her heart.

As their relationship grows, Adeline realizes that true love does exist. What she doesn’t know is that her wish can’t last forever, that soon she’ll have to leave the past behind. Will Adeline and William find their way back to each other? Or will their love have to stay where it all began . . . in 1865? With mistletoe and Christmas magic, anything’s possible.

Adeline is a bit frustrated with her family and friends.  They keep wanting to set her up on dates and so far nothing has panned out.  Sure, she wants to get married and have a family but striking out time and again gets frustrating after a while. Her best friend Jessica (who is getting married) now wants to set her up with her fiancé’s brother, Will, who is moving back to Asheville from California. She agrees but he ends up missing his flight so she doesn’t meet him at the wedding rehearsal dinner.

During the rehearsal dinner she speaks with the wedding planner, Margaret, who gives her her wedding gift from Jessica.  It’s an antique locket with mistletoe inside.  Adeline thinks it’s odd but Margaret assures her that mistletoe is magical.

When Adeline falls asleep that night she wakes up and is in 1865.  Everyone thinks that she is Adeline-Jane.  Since Adeline is a history buff she’s fascinated with everything but knows it’s all a dream.  She meets William Blair while in 1865 and they fall in love.  When Adeline awakens the next morning and meets Will, she finds he’s the same guy – only he doesn’t remember the “dream”.

This was a cute story.  I liked the semi-magical aspect of it as we really didn’t know if Adeline was dreaming or if she had really been transported into 1865.  Since she was supposed to be Adeline-Jane she met her (fifth) great-grandparents and she was thrilled.  (In real life Adeline -Jane had died in a carriage accident on the way to visit.)  The history part of the story, for Adeline was wonderful.  I thought that Dover did a great job of showing us the time period and the lovely family traditions that the Hamilton family had.

Adeline and William’s relationship grew quickly which I thought was a bit strange, but Dover made it work.  William loved that Adeline was different from the other women of 1865.  When Adeline returns to present day and meets Will it’s hard for her as she fell in love with William and Will has no idea who she is.  She also has no idea if he was the will in her “dream” or not.  I liked how Dover worked things out between Will and Adeline and in the end they got their HEA.

Now my mind started going all over the place once I finished the book because of questions.  In the dream that Adeline had she had given money to one of her great-grandmother’s servants to start her own dress shop.  Of course the real Adeline-Jane never made it to the house for the visit so there would have been no one to give the servant money in real life.  Of course when Adeline looked up the servant to see if she was real a newspaper showed her in front of the dress shop she purchased.  If it was all a shared dream, and not real, how did the servant get the money?  Gah!  Things like this make me crazy! Lol

Despite that odd question I enjoyed the book and thought it was a lovely Christmas romance.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5