Title: A Winter in New York A WINTER IN NEW YORK was a heart-warming story about love, grief, heartbreak, forgiveness, healing, and found family. The setting was perfect and I loved the characters so much. I couldn’t get enough of them. I especially loved the chemistry and sexual tension between Iris and Gio.
Title: The Christmas Murder Game I thought the concept of THE CHRISTMAS MURDER GAME sounded fun and suspenseful. While I was never bored, I just didn’t think the execution was done very well and the writing was awkward. I feel like Benedict tried way too hard. The “sonnets” were very clunky and the anagrams were weird. Fortunately, listening to the audiobook helped hide the weird spellings. I also thought the use of “obvs” and “pud” (pudding) in the narrative, not dialogue, was really strange.
As far as the story goes, I knew who the main antagonist was pretty early on. It was fairly obvious, or obvs *rolls eyes*. I didn’t mind Lily but I thought some of her choices were a little suspect. Every other character was either annoying, selfish, or not developed very well. The circumstances that had to happen so the story could take place weren’t very realistic either.
This is a nit-picky thing that took me out of the story. It could be because I’m from the US and speak American English. Anyway, one of the characters is pregnant and this character and their cousins said that the cousins would be the baby’s aunt or uncle. Aunts and uncles are parents’ siblings not cousins. They’d be a cousin too–first cousin once removed, actually.
Title: In a Holidaze I was a little bit hesitant read IN A HOLIDAZE because I’m not much of a Christmas or holiday book reader. I really glad I read it because I adored practically everything about it. I zipped right through it and it helped remind me why I love to read romance. Friends-to-lovers is hands down my favorite romantic trope and the execution was excellently written, producing a bit of a steamy fast-paced romance.
I thought the Groundhog Day-esque “magic” was a lot of fun. I loved Maelyn Jones and her family, blood and found. I loved reading about their Christmas traditions in their cabin near Park City. It was especially fun to picture the mountains, snow, Christmas decorations, and the touristy beauty of my home state.