The Eight Heartbreaks of Hanukkah

• Author: Jean Meltzer
• Genre: Romance
• Publication Date: October 21, 2025
• Publisher: MIRA 

Thank you to NetGalley and MIRA for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Can these exes rekindle their love this Hanukkah?

Evelyn Schwartz has the perfect Hanukkah planned: eight jam-packed days producing the live-action televised musical of A Christmas Carol. Who needs family when you’ve got long hours, impossible deadlines, and your dream job? That is, until an accident on set lands her in the medical bay with one of her chronic migraines, and she’s shocked to find her ex-husband, David Adler, filling in for the usual studio doctor.

It’s been two years since David walked away from Evelyn and their life in Manhattan, and his ex-wife is still the same workaholic who puts her career before everything else—especially her health. But when Evelyn begins hallucinating “ghosts” tied to her past heartbreaks, and every single one leads to David, he finds himself spending much more time with her than he anticipated. And denying the still-smoldering chemistry between them becomes impossible.

As Evelyn revisits her ghosts of Hanukkah past, she and David both begin to wonder if they can have a Hanukkah future. But with a high-stakes production ramping up the pressure on Evelyn, and troublesome spirits forcing them both to confront their most difficult shared memories, it might just take a Hanukkah miracle for these two exes to light the flame on their second-chance at love.

Jean Meltzer burst into the romance genre with her unapologetically Jewish and disabled characters and stories, and won the hearts of so many readers, including myself. She’s become the queen of Jewish romance, and after reading her first book, The Matzah Ball, I add her newest books to my TBR without even having to read the summary, because I know I’m going to want to read it. 

There are so many different things that I really loved about this book, and literally nothing about it that I didn’t like, making this one of the easiest 5 star ratings I’ve ever given. Let me jump into all the things I adored about this story.

Set during Hanukkah, the story centers around a production of live-action musical version of A Christmas Carol. Evelyn is a type A workaholic who suffers from migraines, yet she consistently uses her job as an escape. She works at a television station, and this is her most ambitious project yet. I already knew that a bunch of things were going to come up to make the road rocky for her, so it wasn’t a shock when that did happen. Starting with her ex-husband showing up on set, covering for the usual stage doctor. 

Starting with the characters, Meltzer has a wonderful way of making these flawed individuals so realistic and relatable, even if they aren’t always the most likable at first. Take Evelyn for example. She has a difficult personality and is just as demanding of others as she is of herself. Basically the definition of a workaholic, Evelyn has avoided dealing with anything emotional, including emotions, grief, and divorce. On the other hand, David is the most likable ex-husband of all time. These two have great chemistry and banter, and I couldn’t help but think that Evelyn was a real dummy for leaving a guy like David. He’s the literal definition of an NJB (nice Jewish boy), he’s a doctor, he’s in touch with his emotions, and he’s actually mature. Not to mention the fact that he’s highly attractive and loves animals, including his pregnant rescue alpaca. 

The disability representation in this book is outstanding, as I’ve come to expect from Meltzer. Evelyn deals with frequent and severe migraines on a near-daily basis. The part that was so especially relatable to me was Evelyn rationing her migraine medication because she can only get a limited number of pills. Most people with chronic illness, myself included, can identify with this since insurance only covers a certain amount of medication each month. David’s sister also has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), which influenced his decision to specialize in orthopedics.

After a run-in between Evelyn’s head and a piano being moved on set, she’s forced to deal with the horrific indignity of her ex-husband gently and sweetly treating her. He consistently expresses his concerns but doesn’t push hard, especially knowing how resistant to any kind of guidance she is. But it isn’t long before Evelyn starts to hallucinate—starting on the first night of Hanukkah, when her deceased mentor shows up and takes her through a heartbreak that occurred at some point in her life. 

As the holiday progresses, so do the visions of heartbreak, with one appearing each night. Instead of it being the usual ghosts of Christmas past, Christmas present, and Christmas future, there is a distinctly Jewish flair to the story—Evelyn is shown one heartbreak for each night of Hanukkah, with a ghost from her own past appearing each night of the holiday. It was clear to me so much earlier than it took for Evelyn to figure out why she was taken on a tour of her past, including a highlight reel of the most painful moments of her life.

There were so, so many times that I just wanted to shake Evelyn like a rag doll and maybe shake some sense loose—how could she let a freaking unicorn of a man slip through her hands?!?! The story starts out a bit slow and maintains a nice, easy pace, allowing for plenty of courage and banter, but it also showcases all the things that worked in their relationship. We also get to see some of the things that pushed them apart, and while the story has a lot of really funny parts, it also touches on some deeper themes that are central to the story and that explain the rift between Evelyn and David. Infertility, pregnancy loss, and grief are all explored through the story, and they are done in such a sensitive way. In an author’s note at the end of the book, she also discusses her own personal connection to the story she created on these pages.

Overall, this was a fantastic story. It was everything I expected to read in a Jean Meltzer book, and she’s going to continue to be an auto-buy author for me. There was a great balance between the humor and the heavier topics, and the presence of star actor Jared Sparks in any scene was guaranteed to contain some humor and highly inappropriate comments. The representation in the book is outstanding—both Jewish and disability rep make this a hit, and as a Jewish person who is disabled, I thought that both identities were presented accurately and sensitively. While I tend to read faster paced books, I will always make time for a book by the reigning queen of Jewish romance, Jean Meltzer, and if you haven’t read any of her books yet, now is the best time!

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