3 out of 5 stars
Ebook. 44 pages. Published December 1st 2018 by Dreamspinner Press
Blurb:
Levi’s family knows he needs to find a way out of his funk and be a part of the world again. His brother, Jesse, invites Levi to join him in sunny Spain for the holidays, but a delay at the airport finds Levi at Jesse’s home while his brother is stranded in Scotland. Luckily Alejandro—Alex—is on hand with a key, a friendly smile, and a willingness to keep Levi company. He might even manage to draw Levi out of his shell for some mutual flirting.
Levi surprises himself when he accepts an invitation to spend New Year’s Eve
with Alex at Alex’s café, but is he ready for more when it means jumping back
into life feet first? Besides, with an ocean between them and Alex hiding a
part of his life that Levi isn’t sure he can handle, they’ll need their own
Three Kings’ Day miracle to stay together.
A Story from the Warmest Wishes: Dreamspinner Press 2018 Advent Calendar
Likes:
- Alex was nice.
- Spanish holiday traditions.
- Cute kid.
- Slow romance.
Dislikes:
- Didn’t care for Levi.
- Levi’s issues weren’t explained until later in the story.
- Levi’s pessimism about almost everything.
- Levi not getting professional help for his guilt and trauma.
- Nothing about the story grabbed my attention.
This story was fine. Not great, not terrible. The best parts happened in the last third of the book, where Levi actually had some personality.
The blurb says that Levi is in a funk. To me, it felt like he was a spoiled millennial with a case of ennui. He’s in Spain for New Years and basically does nothing but complain. It didn’t make me like him much.
We get the first hint that he’s experienced a trauma at the 23% mark. Unfortunately, by then I’d already formed a less-than-stellar impression of him. Still, I tried to keep an open mind. It wasn’t easy. This is one of the cases where it would have been better to find out what was really going on in Levi’s head instead of teasing it.
Levi’s overall pessimism doesn’t help matters. He’s tired of the twentysomething hookup culture but can’t find anyone his age who wants to settle down and have kids. His novel writing isn’t going anywhere. His freelancing work doesn’t make him much money. On and on.
My biggest pet peeve was that Levi never sought help for his guilt and trauma. A year later and he’s still cringing at the sound of breaking glass and getting flashbacks. He needs to talk to a professional. The fact that he never talked to anyone about what happened, or even cried about it, doesn’t make sense. And it’s definitely not the kind of thing a hunky foreign boyfriend can fix.
Things finally begin to look up when Levi accepts that Alex really does like him. The presence of the cute little Luci helped liven the story up without taking the attention away from the romance. As Alex shows Levi the unique traditions of Spain’s Three Kings’ Day, and their romance finally gets off the ground, the story gets better. Levi’s guilt and trauma don’t disappear, but they stop holding him back.
The story ends on a sweet note, which was nice. It was a good thing Alex was sweet and patient. It paid off in the end.
Bonus Content
3 out of 5 stars
I discovered there was a free bonus epilogue readers get for signing up for Laycock’s newsletter, and decided to give it a go. It’s short – 14 PDF pages, and that includes the front and back matter.
The process of getting the story felt more convoluted than necessary. Sign up for the newsletter. Get an email to confirm the subscription. Get redirected to a webpage telling you to click here for the book. Get redirected to Prolific Works. Sign up for Prolific Works. Get an email confirming the subscription. Download the epilogue. I think it took me longer to get the story than to read it.
The story is sweet, if a little typical. One year later. New York. Another Three Kings’ Day parade. Levi proposes. That’s not a spoiler. You find out about the planned proposal on the second page.
Because the story is so short and sweet, the sex scene felt really out of place. It stopped the momentum. I wanted to get to the proposal scene. It was the whole point of the story. And, unfortunately, it didn’t get much page time. After Levi pops the question, there are literally two short paragraphs and a lone sentence before the end of the story. I felt let down. The joy of the engagement was cut so short there was no time to enjoy it.
I like that there was a bonus epilogue, even if I did have to jump through hoops to get it. Despite my rather bland opinion of the story and bonus epilogue, I’d read more from Laycock in the future.
Find the Warmest Wishes anthology review here and the full list of stories here.
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