A Curse for Christmas Past: Your Next Holiday Obsession?

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Comparing any holiday romance to Good Spirits is a big comparison around here. I loved that book, and if you haven’t read it yet, you absolutely should (and yes, you can read my review when you’re done). So when A Curse for Christmas Past was pitched as a holiday romance for fans of Good Spirits, Hallmark Christmas movies, and witch shenanigans, obviously I was listening.

Hayleigh has had the kind of year that would make you wonder if she was on the universe’s shit list. She’s lost everything. Her job, her relationship, her savings, and when something happens to her beloved horse Red, she has to come to terms with the possibility that her streak of terrible luck is more than just that- bad luck.

Hayleigh is cursed.

With a wintry small-town setting, a heroine whose streak of terrible luck may actually be a curse, a handsome witch who agrees to help her break said curse before Christmas, and a romance woven through all of the holiday magic within, this sounded like exactly the kind of book I’d want to disappear into. And considering how much readers seem to love it, I went in expecting a very good time.

But did it actually live up to everything I expected?

Well…that’s where this A Curse for Christmas Past book review gets interesting.

Title: A Curse for Christmas Past

Author: Morgan Lockhart

Publisher: Dutton

Format: eARC

Genre: Romance, Holiday Romance, Paranormal

Release Date: September 22, 2026

Pages: 318

Star Rating: 3 stars

Spice Rating: 1 chili pepper

A Curse for Christmas Past Starts With More Questions Than Answers

Here’s the thing: I didn’t dislike A Curse for Christmas Past. My problem was that I kept waiting to fall in love with it.

And part of that started with the fact that, when this book begins, almost nothing makes rational sense.

We’re dropped directly into Hayleigh’s life, her card declining and her being embarrassed. We know that something is very wrong, but without enough information to understand why. There’s an old woman who keeps mysteriously appearing (it’s creepy AF; she spends so much time staring her down) and following her around. Hayleigh is convinced she’s cursed; she just has no proof of it.

True, terrible things keep happening to her. And meanwhile, I’m sitting here thinking: Okay…but what the hell is actually going on?

Now obviously, some of the confusion could be intentional. This is a story about unraveling a curse, so I don’t expect the book to hand me every single answer in chapter one. The problem wasn’t the need for answers; it was how long it took for those answers to actually show up.

We do eventually learn more about the woman, the curse, and how Hayleigh ended up in this situation, but those details come far enough into the story that I spent a significant portion of the book feeling less intrigued by the mystery and more like I was missing information I should already have.

And there’s a difference between I need to know what’s happening and I don’t understand what’s happening.

For me, A Curse for Christmas Past spent a little too long on the wrong side of the line.

Hayleigh Wasn’t Always an Easy Character to Love

In spite of my confusion, some parts of me completely understood Hayleigh. The girl is cursed; her life has been falling apart piece by piece, and her parents are assholes.

I mean…I would be bitter too.

And honestly, some of her frustration felt utterly justified. When it seems like everything that can go wrong will, in fact, go wrong —and the people who are supposed to be in your corner aren’t exactly making things any easier — being angry at the world, of course, makes sense.

But when we find out it’s been a year since she was fired, and she’s still carrying around so much anger and bitterness over it that at some point I wanted to reach into the book, grab her by the shoulders, shake her, and say, Girl, get a grip.

Because sure, you understand her motivations, but understanding why a character feels the way she does doesn’t necessarily make spending hundreds of pages inside those feelings remotely enjoyable.

And that push and pull pretty much defined my relationship with Hayleigh throughout the book.

I could totally understand her. I could even sympathize with her. There were moments when I genuinely felt for her. But there were also plenty of moments when I desperately (and I mean desperately) needed her to get out of her own damn way.

Where This Witchy Christmas Romance Really Shines

Thankfully, while Hayleigh and I were having our differences, the world around her was doing a much better job of winning me over.

One thing A Curse for Christmas Past does beautifully is its setting. Elk Ridge feels like the kind of town you could stumble into on a snowy December morning and immediately understand why the people never want to leave. Between the lodges, lush woods, wintry scenery, and all of the little details woven throughout the story, there’s a richness to the setting that makes it incredibly easy to picture.

But the Romance Left Me Wanting More

And then there’s Stephan.

This is where my relationship with Hayleigh became even more complicated, because the woman the narrative initially introduces to us is resourceful, determined, clever, and willing to work for what she wants. She has been knocked down endlessly, and bitter or not, she keeps getting back up.

But once her relationship with Stephan begins pushing against everything she believes about magic, some of that characterization starts to unravel rapidly.

Hayleigh does not like that Stephan is a witch. And to the book’s credit, it does attempt to explain where some of that aversion comes from. The problem is that I never completely understood the dislike. Not really.

Her feelings about witchcraft are strong enough to influence how she sees Stephan and what she believes a future with him could look like, but I never felt as though the story gave those feelings enough weight to justify how deeply they affect Hayleigh’s decisions. There’s no obvious religious component to her beliefs, and without wandering into spoiler territory, what we learn about her childhood didn’t entirely bridge the gap for me either.

Instead, Hayleigh sometimes comes across as someone who doesn’t particularly understand witchcraft but has already decided she wants nothing to do with it simply because it’s, well, witchcraft.

And that becomes frustrating when Stephan enters the equation.

Because when a belief is powerful enough to stand between a character and something (or even someone) she clearly wants, I need to understand where that belief came from so I can connect with it. I don’t necessarily need to agree with it just for the sake of belief, but I need to believe that she believes it.

With Hayleigh, unfortunately, I wasn’t always there.

So, Is A Curse for Christmas Past Worth Reading?

So, did A Curse for Christmas Past live up to everything I expected?

Not really.

There is a lot here that I genuinely enjoyed. The setting is beautiful, the premise immediately caught my attention, and there’s enough Christmas magic woven through the narrative to make this an easy book to reach for when you want something pure winter magic.

I should have loved A Curse for Christmas Past, and maybe you will.

But for me, it wasn’t my next Good Spirits.

The magic was there. I just wish I’d felt more of it.

Thank you to Dutton Books and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of A Curse for Christmas Past to read and review.

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