Amazon has put out a holiday collection of five stories that is free to Prime members, and it grabbed my attention when Olivia Dade publicized that she had a story in the collection (Ali Hazelwood, Tessa Bailey, Alexandria Bellefleur, and Alexis Daria are the other authors). I requested an ARC and was granted it, so here we are with me reading a holiday collection earlier than I normally would because we all deserve nice things when the world feels like it is crashing down.
Cruel Winter with You by Ali Hazelwood (4 stars)
This is my first foray into Ali Hazelwood, even though I have one of her books on my bookshelf. I am pleased to report that I enjoyed this one, possibly more than I was expecting to when I first started because there was a decent amount of angst packed into this story. We have Jamie and Marc. Marc has been in love with Jamie for a long time, Jamie has always (mostly) viewed him as her best friend’s younger brother. She’s finished med school and is now a pediatrician, he’s a successful tech guru. He made his play for her, and it didn’t work out, now they are stranded in his parents’ home during a snowstorm all because her father sent her to get a roasting pan in the storm (yes, he’s slightly thoughtless). As the reader we get both the story of how they got to this moment, and the working through the fallout. I was pleased with how Hazelwood balanced the emotions, particularly as the final piece of the puzzle was unveiled, putting everyone’s behavior a little more into understandable territory than it had been before. He’s got some pride issues, she has some self-worth issues, but Hazelwood crafted characters who believably know each other very well and set them on a collision course over 80 pages.
Merry Ever After by Tessa Bailey (2.5 stars)
Tessa Bailey almost gets away with an instalove premise in Merry Ever After. If it had only been one side that was the “I knew immediately” as she initially set up, I would be feeling much kinder to this steamy novella. The story opens with Evie, a single mom with a six-month-old who is working in a thrift store ogling the giant farmer Luke who is in search of a pair of jeans that will fit his overlarge frame. He splits a pair he’s trying on, pays for them, and Evie offers to make him a pair that fits him, she’s a fashion upcycler. He initially declines and hotfoots it out of the store when he hears Evie’s son cry. Luke assumes she’s married; Evie assumes Luke is put off by her single motherhood and decides to show him what she can do by making him a pair of jeans and delivering them to his farm. From there they are off to the races in rectifying the assumptions and reckoning with the steamy feelings they are each experiencing. Where Bailey loses me is that Evie turns too fast from having her focus being on her son and rebuilding her life in a new town and a commitment to being single, at least for now, to striking up a hot and heavy relationship with Luke. The individual components of the story are all well written, but it felt like it was missing a little connective tissue to explore the emotions going along with the sexytimes.
All by My Elf by Olivia Dade (3.5 stars)
This novella is the reason I requested an ARC of this collection. I love Dade’s writing and although I still haven’t gotten to her latest (it is currently my in-case-of-emergency read) I knew I was missing some of Dade’s signature humor in my life. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the strongest Dade I’ve read. I’m thinking most of my problem was that we are dropped into action in progress and given the background to the ludicrous situation as we went. Because I follow Dade on social media, I knew going in that the characters were driving around in a refurbished Wienermobile, but it was difficult to gather what was happening initially if you didn’t have that information and confusing even if you did. The official blurb doesn’t even cover it: Nina and William are underpaid adjunct professors at the same university, where winter break is no break at all: ’tis the season to make extra money. When their holiday side hustle has them stranded by a blinding blizzard in the middle of nowhere, there’s nothing to do but cuddle up for warmth and play a game of Never Have I Ever to pass the time. But in the game of love, secrets never stay secret for long…
The other detail that eluded me until the end of this 55-page read was that while Nina is a couple years older than William, she’s the new employee at the University having been there less than a year. It changes the dynamic of her crush and his obvious to the reader but not to Nina attraction. The other big sticking point in the narrative (similarly not in the blurb – I can see people being caught off guard with the story they are getting based on it) is that Nina thinks that William and their colleague Claudia are an item since they have been huddled together for the past couple days, when really Claudia is bucking William up to tell Nina how he feels. Once the characters are actually snowed in (about halfway through) it started being the enjoyable Dade story I was expecting as misunderstandings were cleared up in hilarious fashion and feeling were discussed and activities happen in the back of the unfortunately shaped vehicle.
Merriment and Mayhem by Alexandria Bellefleur (4 stars)
One of the ridiculous tv shows I like to keep up with when my brain needs some fluff is 9-1-1. I bring this up because the male lead in Merriment and Mayhem reminded me A LOT of the character Buck from that show and it positively impacted my appreciation of this story. The story focuses on Everleigh Dangerfield who has come home to settle her grandmother’s estate and is planning on having one last Christmas in the house before selling it and returning to her life in Seattle. But as one disaster after another has the fire department, and the very handsome and kind Griffin Brantley, responding Everliegh’s ideas about what she does or does not need to protect herself from change. Griffin makes his interest known but is also entirely respectful of Everleigh’s boundaries as she doesn’t do casual. I enjoyed the way in which the emergencies that Bellefleur put Everleigh in, and that Griffin responded to, were seasonally appropriate and had just enough actual danger to warrant fire response without enough to put the emotions of the story out of balance. There were a few moments in the story where it felt like Bellefleur had missed a sentence or left a thought dangling and I was confused, but overall, the writing was very strong and the steamy scene quite steamy.
Only Santas in the Building by Alexis Daria (4.5)
This was my favorite of the collection. Alexis Daria hit the balance just right in giving enough backstory early enough to engage the reader while leaving enough to be uncovered as we went and ensuring that this single POV story had enough in the showing to give us an indication of the intent of the other lead before they were able to solidify that in the dialogue. Only Santas in the Building gives us the story of Evie Cruz, freelance illustrator, who is finishing a hard deadline assignment in the weeks before Christmas. She’s a bit exhausted, from the grueling work schedule and coping with the grief of her grandmother’s death earlier in the year and the way it upset her life and caused her to move into her current apartment. Which happens to be just one floor below her new crush, Theo. Her very sexy and kind neighbor who has helped the movers with her sofa, changed a light she couldn’t reach, and helped her with her get her Christmas tree into the apartment even though it sits undecorated as she can’t bear to go her grandmother’s ornaments from storage and see them in a new place. But someone is bringing her ornaments and leaving them on her door handle, and there’s a Christmas party up on the fifth floor that all the building tenants are invited to, and Theo is going to be there.
For a story that clocks in below 70 pages this one felt very lived in. I could picture Evie’s apartment and her art, and the various cast of characters who inhabited Evie’s life. I loved how so much of what Evie was attracted to in Theo was his nature, his kindness, and how clearly Alexis Daria built into him learned lessons about saying what he meant and not judging others for how they live their lives (I smiled enormously when Theo chided Evie for apologizing for dirty dishes in her sink because he was too excited to see her at all to be distracted by dishes in her sink because he knows she eats).
