I’d seen this novella recommended frequently online, so when I had the chance to get an ARC, I jumped on it. And it’s the exact tropey goodness I needed: a sweet snowed-in and enemies-to-lovers paranormal M/M romance, set around New Year’s Eve.
Morgan’s looking forward to a week of quiet in his friend’s remote and secluded cabin. Which is good, since with a big snowstorm coming in, he’s likely not going to have much choice. But he arrives to find the door kicked in and what appears to be a dead body on the couch… except it’s soon very clear the man is actually a vampire. Stuck together during a snowstorm, can both men fight a lifetime of prejudice – and some very real attraction – until the weather clears?
“I’m hungry.”
“You already ate. Me. You ate me,” Morgan pointed out.
The vampire propped himself up enough to be seen over the arm of the couch. “I said I was sorry.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Oh. Well then I said it right now.”
“No. You still didn’t. That wasn’t an apology.”
I liked both men, though Ezra verges close to spoiled brat territory at points, understandably though. After being sheltered by his family for his entire life, he’s so eager to go out and just… enjoy life. Even if that life is being stuck in a cabin in a snowstorm with a monster hunter. Morgan’s from a family of vampire hunters, though he’s relatively sure that they’ve thrown him out after his bombshell declaration that he wasn’t going to follow the family tradition. When it becomes clear they’re both stuck in the cabin – and that neither seems inclined to kill the other one – they slowly fall into a domestic pattern, sharing cereal and hot cocoa along with their vulnerabilities. As they both bond over their lack of worth in their respective families, they also start to hesitantly explore the feelings between them. It’s quite sweet and the attraction is sizzling, though most of it is firmly closed door.
“They were supposed to be enemies, weren’t they? Mortal enemies, Ezra had said. Morgan’s family would agree with that assessment. If they had a gospel, that was it. Find the monster, kill the monster. Nowhere in there did it say to suck the monster’s dick.”
The world-building isn’t much of a focus – beyond setting up that what each knows about the others are wrong – but what’s there was interesting. My main quibble was with Morgan’s ending. Despite Ezra’s being ok with it, it felt vaguely boundary crossing to me. Other than that, this was a fun and quick novella, probably 3.5 stars.
