Erin Krakow on Her When Calls the Heart Character’s Possible Favorite Book: ‘A Real Sucker for Romance’ (Exclusive) (2024)

Erin Krakow wants to help you to have a cozy holiday season.

The When Calls the Heart actress, 39, recently partnered with wine house Maison Louis Jadot to create a gift of her own – a guide of curated book and wine pairings.

“It’s just perfect for cuddling up or sharing with your book clubs during the holiday season,” Krakow tells PEOPLE. “I myself am an avid reader, and I also love wine, so this felt like the perfect pairing and partnership for me.”

The full guide, which is listed on Krakow’s Instagram, includes some of the actress’s favorite books paired with a variety of wines. Nicholas Sparks’s novel The Notebook is complemented by Pouilly-Fuissé, and Me Before You by Jojo Moyes is the read to go with a glass of Chardonnay Bourgogne. Krakow says that she intentionally matched the themes of the books with the bottles themselves.

“The Beaujolais-Villages is this very classic wine. It is tried and true. It's a fantastic red, and so it seems like it would pair really with a classic book, something that we've all probably known and loved for some time now,” she says of the selection paired with Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. “Or, something like the Chablis. It is really light and pristine, and it pairs very well with shellfish, and so that made me think of another favorite of mine, Where the Crawdads Sing.”

Little Women

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“My instinct was to say Little Women, just off the list, because that feels most classic and probably closest to the 1920s, when our story takes place,” Krakow says. “But I also think my character Elizabeth is a real sucker for romance, as am I. So, probably a book with a very strong love story.”

With the holidays coming up, the actress also has some more literary plans of her own.

“I think we're going to spend some time baking in the kitchen,” she says. “We're probably going to be doing puzzles and maybe putting together a Lego set or two, playing with the kids. But we're all big readers. I'm looking forward to some cozy nights around [the] fireplace. Everybody snuggled up with their own book and sharing stories and sharing wine. Maybe I can encourage everyone to pick up the same book this year so we can all kind of follow along and talk about the book, and maybe enjoy the same wine together. That would be nice.”

The new year will also bring some exciting developments on her Hallmark show. While season 10 of When Calls the Heart ended on a tense cliffhanger for Krakow's Elizabeth and Lucas (Chris McNally), the actress is “feeling so good” about the new season.

“I'm really excited about it. We don't have our premiere date yet, but that will be sometime in 2024, season 11,” she says. “It was a great, great season. But I have to say, it was a lot of hard work.”

She is also looking forward to another trip to New York City. Krakow recently shared a throwback photo of her and her When Calls the Heart castmates Kevin McGrary, Kayla Wallace and Ben Rosenbaum in Times Square, and says they are going back soon.

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“I love New York,” she says. “I spent a long time there, and it's really where I grew into being an actor myself…it's a favorite place of mine, so I'm really excited to get back.”

As for her partnership with Maison Louis Jadot, Krakow says that she hopes the pairing guide “really encourages people to reconnect with reading for pleasure.”

“I hope that they experience the same kind of sensory elevation that I experience when I find the perfect wine pairing with the perfect book. It's a really nice way to elevate the experience of reading, and it's a really great way of bringing people together as well.”