2.75 out of 5 stars
Kindle Edition. 1st edition. 52 pages. Published December 1st 2018 by Dreamspinner Press
Blurb:
One morning close to the holidays,
Nolan wakes up to two surprises: a distress call from his younger brother and a
beautiful man in his bed. Nolan, an art gallery owner, has always been discreet
about his sexuality, but when his baby brother plans to come out at the annual
family gala, Nolan wants to have his back—and that means showing up with a man
of his own on his arm. Nolan knows just the man for the job.
Skylar, who owns a karate studio in St. Augustine, can’t get his one-night
stand out of his mind. When he runs into Nolan at his gallery he is more than
happy to volunteer his services as arm candy. Out-and-proud himself with his
striking blue/green hair, Skylar is all in. Their adventure means a fancy
salon, family drama, lots of sex, a ninja hippo, and palm trees lit up in a
very suggestive way. By the end of it, what started as a hookup might become
much more.
A Story from the Warmest Wishes: Dreamspinner Press 2018 Advent Calendar
Likes:
- Nolan and Skylar are great characters.
- Multiple sex scenes.
- The support given to Den.
- The romantic plot.
- Funny moments.
Dislikes:
- There’s too much going on.
- There are too many characters.
- The romance takes a back seat.
- The characters aren’t described well.
- Lack of contractions during dialogue.
- Long blocks of dialogue without knowing who’s talking.
- Dialogue without much action.
- Unsatisfying ending with Nolan’s parents.
- No payoff with the pictures and website.
- Spa scene added nothing to the story.
Despite the bad rating, I did enjoy this story. It’s got a good premise, but the premise isn’t suited to a short story. You could get an entire romance series out of this one story.
If I hadn’t read the blurb right before I started reading this story, I would have been lost. There’s way too much going on. So many little side stories and extra characters, at one point I actually said out loud, “Who the hell is Cordelia?”
It wasn’t just that there were a lot of characters. Most were introduced in one big lump and weren’t described at all. Jazz and Julia were practically interchangeable, and their constant taking pictures for some sort of website had no payoff and added nothing to the romance. Dem, for all that I loved how the main cast was super supportive of his coming out, is a mystery to me. I have no idea how old he is, other than that he’s a teen.
This story needed to be cut down and the focus put back on the romance. That would give page space to describe the important characters, flesh them out more, and add more action between the dialogue. Because Nolan and Skylar are great characters with a great connection. They deserve to be the main focus.
The multiple sec scenes are hot. I loved that Nolan straight up asked Skylar to make their relationship more serious. But the ending was too much too fast. It felt almost like a proposal and there just wasn’t enough romance in this romance story to make that feel real.
I will definitely give Kim Katil another shot. This story had potential, and the funny bit about the palm trees was great. Hopefully the next story of hers will be more appropriate to its length.
Find the Warmest Wishes anthology review here and the full list of stories here.
Love is Love Reviews 