Antonia Bernardin

This collection made up books 87, 88, 90, 91, 92 of my reads last year, this is a collection of short stories by various romance authors that are all Christmas themed.

I don’t usually like Christmas themed stuff but I was desperate to hit my year reads goal and figured a collection of short stories would be an easy way to cheat and do it!

Cruel Winter with you – Ali Hazelwood

In classic Ali Hazelwood style, this book follows childhood crush gone wrong, through one big misunderstanding. She’s home visiting her shitty dad when he sends her over to their family friends house to borrow a pan, only to find they aren’t home but their son is and she hasn’t seen him since the big misunderstanding. There’s a big storm , they get snowed in together and he’s trying to make her talk about the elephant in the room, but she’s avoiding it… I think you know how this ends.

My thoughts

You know what, Ali Hazelwood can serve me the same story over and over and I fucking love it every time. This is a cute, short, snappy romance, that’s not overly sickly Christmassy.

Merry Ever After – Tessa Bailey

This story follows new to town single mum, who runs the town’s thrift store and local farmer, who just so happens to have come in every other day trying to find jeans in his size (because of course he’s a big, tall man). There’s a misunderstanding when she offers to make him jeans that’ll fit but then he immediately bolts when he sees the kid. She thinks he was flirting with her until he saw the kid, so she makes the jeans to drop them off at his as I kind of fuck you, but when she turns up at his farm, she finds out he thought the kid meant she was in a relationship and he felt bad for hitting on her. They have an instant connection but she was burned really bad by her ex, so he sets about persuading her that he’s trustworthy.

My thoughts

This story was cute, quite funny in places, steamy in others, it’s definitely made me want to pick up other Tessa Bailey romances as she is an author I haven’t read any books from yet.

All by my Elf – Olivia Dade

This story follows skint adjunct professors who took a winter break job together, travelling from town to town for winter fair’s in a little bakery van, which is really an adapted hot dog van that caused no end of jokes to be thrown at them on the road. Our main character thought that the guy travelling with them had a crush on her, until she notices him and her friend spending a lot of time whispering together. She’s disapointed but determined to respect his choice/ not betray her friend, until they get stuck in a snow storm/ traffic jam without the friend and a game of never had I ever brings the truth to light.

My thoughts

I liked that the main character is (I think from the description of her in the book anyway) plus size and not your stereotypical ‘teeny tiny woman with giant man’ that you get in romance books. However, I didn’t find this story as gripping as the others and this was one of those occasions where the miscommunication trope was kind of irritating rather than suspense building.

Merriment and Mayhem – Alexandria Belfluer

In this story, the main character is temporarily living in a small town while she sorts out the house she inherited so that it can be sold. A series of calamities follow: she sets the kitchen on fire and then gets stuck on the roof hanging Christmas decorations, both times the same gorgeous, flirty fireman attends to help her. She knows she’s only going to be in town as long as needed to sell the house and since she’s not a hook up kind of girl, it’s best not to get involved with him at all… except the charming fireman and small town community seems determined to convince her otherwise.

My thoughts

This was cute, funny and spicy, no notes really. Nice little bite sized romance that’s made me think I should try some other books by this author.

Only Santas in the Building – Alexis Daria

This book is about a comic book illustrator, knee deep in an exciting project that could really help her career but that has left her tiny apartment a little Christmas cheer-less. While she’s locked away trying to hit the deadline someone keeps gifting her origami tree ornaments but she doesn’t know who as she’s so new to the building. Project finally submitted, she decides to get a little dressed up for the building’s Santa themed Christmas party, because so far, her hot neighbour has only seen her in full deadline-troll-mode. As she hoped, when he sees her at the party he can’t seem to take his eyes off her, a fact spotted by their nosey neighbour who conspire to get them under the mistletoe together.

My thoughts

I really liked this one, the characters felt they had some real depth despite how short it was, it had some funny beats, some poignant ones and some spicy ones. This is another book in this collection that has made me think I should look into more by this author.

Review of the collection overall

I haven’t actually read that many collections like this and I was surprised how much I enjoyed having bite sized stories. These are all cute romances, that follow the classic patterns of the genre but I don’t feel like any are too ‘samey’ that you’ll get burnt out with it. I think it was a good way to dip my toe into the writing style of author’s I haven’t read yet either, plus it wasn’t too Chrismassy so you could definitely read it at other times of the year.