Joy101 reviewed The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch (Royals and Romance, #1)
None
(not provided)
English language
Published 2024 by Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom.
3 stars
(3 reviews)
Red, White & Royal Blue meets The Nightmare Before Christmas in a sexy, quirky romcom where the golden-hearted Prince of Christmas falls for the totally off-limits Prince of Halloween.
Nicholas “Coal” Claus used to love Christmas. Until his father, the reigning Santa, turned the holiday into a PR façade. Coal will do anything to escape the spectacle, including getting tangled in a drunken, supremely hot make- out session with a beautiful man behind a seedy bar one night. But the heir to Christmas is soon commanded to do his duty: he will marry his best friend, Iris, the Easter Princess and his brother’s not-so-secret crush. A situation that has disaster written all over it.
Things go from bad to worse when a rival arrives to challenge Coal for the princess’s hand…and Coal comes face-to-face with his mysterious behind-the-bar hottie: Hex, the Prince of Halloween.
It’s a fake competition between two …
Red, White & Royal Blue meets The Nightmare Before Christmas in a sexy, quirky romcom where the golden-hearted Prince of Christmas falls for the totally off-limits Prince of Halloween.
Nicholas “Coal” Claus used to love Christmas. Until his father, the reigning Santa, turned the holiday into a PR façade. Coal will do anything to escape the spectacle, including getting tangled in a drunken, supremely hot make- out session with a beautiful man behind a seedy bar one night. But the heir to Christmas is soon commanded to do his duty: he will marry his best friend, Iris, the Easter Princess and his brother’s not-so-secret crush. A situation that has disaster written all over it.
Things go from bad to worse when a rival arrives to challenge Coal for the princess’s hand…and Coal comes face-to-face with his mysterious behind-the-bar hottie: Hex, the Prince of Halloween.
It’s a fake competition between two holiday princes who can’t keep their hands off each other over a marriage of convenience that no one wants. And it all leads to one of the sweetest, sexiest, messiest, most delightfully unforgettable love stories of the year.
KnitAFett reviewed The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch (Royals and Romance, #1)
Cute, heavier story than expected.
4 stars
I listened to the audio book for this one, and I highly recommend it. Ellis Evans did a really great job bouncing between goofy fun conversations and serious moments. I gave it an extra star because of it. I laughed out loud in my car many times.
This has been toted as being a enemies-to-lovers romance, and that's absolutely not it at all. They are "entered" into a competition to prove that they should be the one that will marry Iris (all 3 involved characters have no interest in this marriage), but they're going along while trying to figure out what the driving factor is between this push for an arraigned marriage. There's a lot more political drama through this book, so just be prepared for that. This is another moment where I'm glad that I don't read the blurbs before I read.
This is my first holiday-themed book, so …
I listened to the audio book for this one, and I highly recommend it. Ellis Evans did a really great job bouncing between goofy fun conversations and serious moments. I gave it an extra star because of it. I laughed out loud in my car many times.
This has been toted as being a enemies-to-lovers romance, and that's absolutely not it at all. They are "entered" into a competition to prove that they should be the one that will marry Iris (all 3 involved characters have no interest in this marriage), but they're going along while trying to figure out what the driving factor is between this push for an arraigned marriage. There's a lot more political drama through this book, so just be prepared for that. This is another moment where I'm glad that I don't read the blurbs before I read.
This is my first holiday-themed book, so I'm not sure if it's quite my jam yet. But the characters were adorable, and there was a lot of communication between all, not just the MCs. It also didn't feel like there was a lot of random fluff thrown in, and the steamy scenes weren't just thrown into random spaces for entertainment purposes. The steam was a little diluted with a lot of talking (consent, consent, consent) and Coal's insecurities were a constant point of discussion between the two.
I feel like I would have enjoyed it more if we got to see a little from Hex's POV. This was straight from Coal's perspective only. Even just an epilogue with a peek through Hex's eyes would have been fine. It just emphasized the feeling that he's more of a background character. I wanted to see more of him.
I'll be picking up the next in this series to follow with Kris' story.
SPOILERY Interesting take by having Santa be the holiday mafia boss with capitalistic greed.
Jaelyn reviewed The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch (Royals and Romance, #1)
Review of 'The Nightmare Before Kissmas' on 'Storygraph'
4 stars
Holidays apparently have royal families so obviously when the Prince of Christmas gets thrust into an arranged marriage with the Princess of Easter by his asshole dad, Santa, he’ll instead fall for the Prince of Halloween and stage an anti-capitalist coup against the commodification of Christmas.
So, I’m back reading queer Christmas romcoms again and this one is a mixed bag I feel. It’s funny and cute but the characters didn’t quite work for me, that might be a lack of tension between the love interests. The world of holiday royals, politicking and paparazzi was different but maybe distractingly crazy if you’re not invested in the chaotic cheese.
Lastly, the broad message about the dominance of Christmas and how it becomes about cheap plastic gifts was good for the large part. But it got a bit focused on telling us how it should be rather than actually living up to …
Holidays apparently have royal families so obviously when the Prince of Christmas gets thrust into an arranged marriage with the Princess of Easter by his asshole dad, Santa, he’ll instead fall for the Prince of Halloween and stage an anti-capitalist coup against the commodification of Christmas.
So, I’m back reading queer Christmas romcoms again and this one is a mixed bag I feel. It’s funny and cute but the characters didn’t quite work for me, that might be a lack of tension between the love interests. The world of holiday royals, politicking and paparazzi was different but maybe distractingly crazy if you’re not invested in the chaotic cheese.
Lastly, the broad message about the dominance of Christmas and how it becomes about cheap plastic gifts was good for the large part. But it got a bit focused on telling us how it should be rather than actually living up to it.
So on the whole, a cute romp with some fun themes but I felt like it needed a lot more polish behind its structure and messaging.
Random quote: “I do not BLAST ICE when I orgasm!”
So, I’m back reading queer Christmas romcoms again and this one is a mixed bag I feel. It’s funny and cute but the characters didn’t quite work for me, that might be a lack of tension between the love interests. The world of holiday royals, politicking and paparazzi was different but maybe distractingly crazy if you’re not invested in the chaotic cheese.
Lastly, the broad message about the dominance of Christmas and how it becomes about cheap plastic gifts was good for the large part. But it got a bit focused on telling us how it should be rather than actually living up to it.
So on the whole, a cute romp with some fun themes but I felt like it needed a lot more polish behind its structure and messaging.
Random quote: “I do not BLAST ICE when I orgasm!”