Jez, Adenashire’s resident grumpy Fennex, would rather curl up for a nap and hibernate through the season rather than go out in the snow and frolic. Unfortunately, a drunken boast lands her in the middle of the holiday festivities, competing in the Yule competition, and fake dating her friend, Taenya. (Well, that’s what you get when you mix pounding back drinks with an antagonistic personality. Or being a FMC in a Cozy Romantasy; either one.)
Plagued by chronic fatigue (for unexplained reasons. Could be the cold climate, could be a medical issue, could just be that Penner wanted every character to have a different hardship to rally through) and past heartbreak (again, not really fleshed out; possibly just in her head) , Jez has long guarded her heart. Yet, Taenya’s enthusiasm for the competition, knitted mittens, and refusal to let Jez be a Grinch begins to melt Jez’s icy exterior and their pretend relationship spurs feelings beyond friendship. (You’re in a “fake dating” Romantasy; of course it does.)
But can they make it work when Jez is the undisputed Queen of self-sabotage?
This book continues my firm belief that I am getting Romantsy-ed (Cozy or otherwise) out, because I just found it tiresome. Jez’s inner angst turns out to be over really nothing other than her being in her own head, and her gruff exterior that was fine in previous books is revealed in this book to be hiding…that she is indeed that miserable, only with the added bonus of crippling self-doubt and self-sabotage. Personally, if I was Taenya, I probably would have just given up on her three furlongs back; I know relationships take work and everything isn’t neatly wrapped up in a perfect HEA (despite what these books push), but how long do you slam your head against the wall of someone being that angry and repressed before you just give up? With how unpleasant Jex is to everyone in her friend circle, if I was them I might just give her what she obviously wants and leave her alone.
Never mind that this is the inner illustration of the copy I own:
These don’t look like two people who would compete in a baking competition and own real estate, they look like they should be worrying about whether they’re going to go into their High School freshman year with pimples. They do not line up with the illustrations of the other main characters included in the two previous books. Because honestly, these two look like they’d be tagged as runaways and returned to their parents with lectures about not letting your children know about the Romeo and Juliet law.
It’s not just Jez’s characterization and that illustration that makes me have problems with this book: there is a whole lot more. People don’t talk about major decisions with people that they really should, the elimination order in the Games is bordering on trite, and I am getting tired of hearing about how one of the Orcs (I am so blase about this book I can’t even bother finding out whether it’s Ervash or Verdreth) runs around shirtless because he’s hot (temperature-wise, not sexiness-wise). And everyone is just so saccharine sweet; there is no one (other than maybe snarky Jez) in this book who is the least bit evil, or nasty, or anything other than just so nice!
On top of that, the bonus chapter at the end of each book set at the same age in each characters’ lives and ending with basically the same sentence stopped being cute last book. Add on to all this that I have now realized that Penner is planning on hitting every trope on the checklist of Cozy Romantasy books, and I am definitely going to be taking large gaps between this one and the next three books in the series, if I even read them.
If you like Cozy Romantasy books that hit all the tropes, feel like you’re watching one of those Barbie animated films, and are as hard-hitting as being hit with a giant marshmallow, I can recommend this series. In my view, at least the recipes at the back of the book are interesting and ones that I wouldn’t mind baking.
