Disclaimer: I received an eARC for review consideration through NetGalley, on behalf of the publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This story is a bit messy, but not in a bad way. When you mix a workaholic with a probable concussion with a well-meaning doctor (who happens to be her ex-husband), add in rehearsals for a live musical performance (that are not necessarily going to plan), plus 8 Hanukkah ghosts revisiting the past, and you have to expect the mess.

I did not like Evelyn in the beginning. She’s brusque, irritable, and rather bitter, especially towards David. She is hyper-focused on work to the exclusion of all else. As the story goes on, and we start to see some of her past, I came to understand her motivations a bit more and started warming up to her.

David, on the other hand, was likeable from the beginning. And even though he was the one who left their relationship, it was obvious that he still cared deeply for Evelyn.

As David and Evelyn are thrown together while she tried to work on the musical, their animosity slowly evolves into a kind of friendship, though both are still hurt by the other at different points.

And then there are the ghosts, each of them someone from Evelyn’s past, showing her what she believes to be all of her heartbreaks, one for each night of Hanukkah. And David is there in every memory, going all the way back to her childhood and her parents’ divorce. It’s not until she works through the eight nights that she realizes that maybe the heartbreaks she was seeing weren’t her own.

There are definitely some sad moments in the story (CW for death of a parent and pregnancy loss), but there is a lot of humor in the story as well.