m/m fantasy romance

I won an ARC copy of Merry Elf-ing Christmas from the author (Beth Bolden) on Facebook, which was just in time to include it in my Christmas Reading Challenge.

Aidan might be a bad elf, but he’s never been naughty.

Aidan has always landed on Santa’s nice list, thank you very much. But that doesn’t mean he’s cut out to be a North Pole elf; instead of worrying about the dwindling magic of Christmas, he’d much rather be back in Tir na Nog, calculating where the next end of the rainbow is going to land.

Instead he’s freezing his butt off in Santa’s sleigh.

His situation seems grim despite all the decking the halls, until on Christmas Eve, during a milk and cookies run, he meets Dexter, an engineering student.

They couldn’t be more different, and Dexter couldn’t be more forbidden, but Aidan is drawn to the handsome human anyway. Over the next year, their emails start out as a entertaining way to pass the time in all his interminable elf meetings, but soon, hearing from Dex becomes the very best part of his day.

And when they meet up on the next Christmas Eve? Aidan and Dex discover that their infatuation is so much more than just attraction. If they believe in each other and in the love they share, together their magic might be powerful enough to save Christmas.

Often times reading and what someone likes is 100% subjective. That was very apparent to me while reading this book. I’ll say up front that it’s not a bad book. It’s cute and sweet, Christmas focused, and full of likeable characters. But it wasn’t a good book FOR ME for one pretty solid reason.

I am not someone who shies away from cursing or sex. But Christmas books that use Santa and his elves as fodder walk a very fine border with childish. Look at that cute cover. Imagine that elf up and walking around, talking and laughing and eating milk and cookies. Now imagine him cursing, giving head, and getting f*cked. For me those disparate images never fully merged and I felt like F-bombs and sexual tension (and eventual sex) got dropped in a children’s book and it didn’t work FOR ME. But I know it will 100% work for others.

Other Reviews:

Review: Merry Elf-ing Christmas by Beth Bolden

Come back this evening. I’ll be reviewing The Plight Before Christmas, by Kate Stewart and tomorrow, when I’ll be reviewing A Hopeful Christmas, by Walker, Bessey, Kelly, and Jensen.

I saw The Alpha’s Warlock, by Eliot Grayson, recommended on Instagram. So, I borrowed an audio copy through Hoopla. It was narrated by Chris Chambers.

Cursed, mated, and in for the fight of their lives….

Warlock Nate Hawthorne just wants a cup of coffee. Is that too much to ask? Apparently. Because instead of precious caffeine, all he gets is cursed by a pack of werewolves who want to use him for his magic. Now the only way to fix the damage is a mate bond to a grumpy and oh-so-sexy alpha in the rival pack, who happens to hate him. This is so not how he wanted to start his day.

Ian Armitage never intended to take Nate as his mate. The Hawthorne family can’t be trusted. Ian knows that better than anyone. The fact that he’s lusted after the way-too-gorgeous man for years? Totally irrelevant. Ian’s just doing what is necessary to protect his pack. This whole mating arrangement has nothing to do with love and never will. That’s his story and he’s sticking to it.

Nate and Ian will have to work together if they have any hope of staving off the pack’s enemies and averting disaster. That’s assuming they can stop arguing (and keep their hands off each other) long enough to save the day….

This wasn’t very good.The idea underpinning it was fine and the writing seemed readable (though I had an audio copy, so that’s hard to judge), and the narrator did a good job. But the execution was simply lacking. The book felt like a second book, though I don’t think it is. The plot is far too focused and centered in a small room with two people and far too little on what is happening in general, such that whole swaths of the plot fell flat and there wasn’t any resulting tension (even in scenes where there should have been). The bickering between Nate and Ian didn’t feel like appreciable banter, but like two adolescents sniping at one another and I didn’t feel the love at all. I gathered that the author was trying to infer the two had had crushes on one another for a while, but you don’t feel it. All in all, this one was a flop for me.