When Iris decides to move to New York to restart her life, she realizes she underestimated how big the Big Apple really is—all the nostalgic movies set in New York she’d watched with her mom while eating their special secret-recipe gelato didn’t quite do it justice.

But Bobby, Iris’s best friend, isn’t about to let her hide away. He drags her to a famous autumn street fair in Little Italy, and as they walk through the food stalls, a little family-run gelateria catches her eye—could it be the same shop that’s in an old photo of her mother’s?

Curious, Iris returns the next day and meets the handsome Gio, who tells her that the shop is in danger of closing. His uncle, sole keeper of their family’s gelato recipe, is in a coma, so they can’t make more. When Iris samples the last remaining batch, she realizes that their gelato and her gelato are one and the same. But how can she tell them she knows their secret recipe when she’s not sure why Gio’s uncle gave it to her mother in the first place?

Iris offers her services as a chef to help them re-create the flavor and finds herself falling for Gio and his family. But when Gio’s uncle finally wakes up, all of the secrets Iris has been keeping threaten to ruin the new life—and new love—she’s been building all winter long.

On the BOTM editorial team we have a tradition. When we encounter a tough case of the Mondays or are struggling with a critical project, we all take a quick trip to the gelato shop around the corner from our office. I have yet to see this method fail. So it doesn’t surprise me that in her new novel, A Winter in New York, Josie Silver spins a holiday romance bound together by a secret family gelato recipe as satisfying and refreshing as a scoop of the good stuff.

Iris moves to New York City to get a fresh start. She is in a funk and misses her departed mother dearly. Growing up she saw sepia-toned photos of a gelato shop in Little Italy and wondered what its connection to her family was and if it was the source for her mom’s incomparable vanilla gelato. Then one day her best friend, working overtime to pull her out of her doldrums, drags Iris to a festival where she discovers the shop for the first time. Only, she learns it may go out of business because the one family member who knows the recipe is ill . . . Can Iris help save this gelato shop and maybe find love with its handsome manager?

This is a delightful wintry rom-com about making peace with the past and daring to give life (and love) a second chance. For a bit of yuletide cheer, scoop your copy today! It goes great with cocoa and a flannel blanket.