What would you do with a scrooge?
Professional holiday decorator Natalie Fiorre loves tinsel, gingerbread, and the magic of Christmas. She believes there isn’t anything in the world that a dash of Christmas Spirit can’t fix—until she meets Gabe.
Perpetual Scrooge Gabe Cavanaugh loathes candy canes, jingle bells, and all things merry and bright. He believes Christmas is the worst time of year.
So when Miss Christmas and Mr. Scrooge meet, sparks fly.
When Gabe threatens to evict Natalie and her neighbors on Christmas she does what any right-minded Christmas-lover would do…
Natalie has two days to stop the evictions and help Gabe discover the magic of Christmas, but a lot can go wrong in two days, and in Romeo, the soul mate capital, there’s another kind of magic in the air.
| Title: | Scrooging Christmas |
| Author: | Sarah Ready |
| Series: | Soul Mates in Romeo (Book 7) |
| Pages: | 306 |
| Category / Genre(s): | Contemporary |
| Trope(s): | Opposites Attract Kidnapping |
| Point of View: | First Person, Present Tense, Dual Viewpoint (H & h) |
| Location: | Romeo, NY, USA |
| HEA: | ✔️ |
| Release Date: | 18th October, 2022 |
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Cute, festive fun
I love Sarah Ready’s Soul Mates in Romeo series. This is the seventh book in that series and they never fail to tickle my funny bone. Like other later books in the series, this one starts off with two brand new characters – at least I can’t recall them anyway! Either way, this book is definitely a standalone with its very own HEA.
We start off with a guy, kidnapped and bound and being driven far away from the city. Good grief – is Sarah Ready going dark? Thankfully, no, but it did give me pause. But we’re right back and into our story, to explain how this happened and meet our characters – a bright and bubbly Christmas-a-holic, Natalie, and Gabe Cavanaugh – a card-carrying, unapologetic Scrooge. Let the (reindeer) games begin!
Natalie adores Christmas and she’s 100% committed to it. She’s bubbly, fun and a complete hoot. She’s not too over-the-top that she comes across as a cookie-cutter character – although so long as it was a Christmas cookie, she’d probably be okay with that. She’s a sweetie, and I liked her. But…I admit that at times I had to work hard to be completely on board with her. Maybe I’ve gone grumpy in my old age but kidnapping hot men is not okay, kids!
Gabe is the poster child for a grump who is perfect for reformation by a Christmas sunshine type. He hates Christmas, is all-business all the time, and he’s got a broken soul that just needs a big ol’ hug. He’s obviously the ‘Scrooge’ in this story but he honestly never comes across as too bah-humbuggy and he’s easily reformed.
“Let the (reindeer) games begin!”
Gabe and Natalie are opposites, enemies, kidnapper and kidnapee – and obviously this works well in establishing chemistry between our pair. As well as this, you have the wonderfulness that is Gabe’s instant attraction to Natalie. He’s adorably smitten and that, in a grumpy hero, is my new favourite thing ever. My heart melted like a snowflake in the sun. But there’s also a delicious heat between the pair with lots of kissing and some delicious sex scenes.
This is a fairly simple tale that takes place over a short span of time – but it still feels authentic… or as authentic as you can expect. If I had one concern (apart from the kidnapping!) it was that Gabe turned into the perfect hero over the span of the book… and there was never the expected hesitancy about his new-found outlook on life. It was pretty much smooth sailing for our couple once they realised they had the hots for each other – well, other than the jail – but definitely smooth sailing in their feelings and commitment to each other. I could have done with a little push-and-pull or even some angst before the happy ever after.
There’s a small bit about Gabe’s brother which is never actually resolved – which did irk me some – but I’m supposing he’ll appear in a future book so I’ll have to be okay with that.
At the end of the book, I had pretty much decided it was worthy of 4 stars. A cute, fun and at times daft book with a heavy helping of gingerbread infused Christmas-ness. But as it left me with a smile on my face, I realised it’s actually the perfect story to snuggle up to in the cold, winter months before Christmas. It’s a light and funny tale that’s guaranteed to give you a shot of love and Christmas – what more could you ask for? So at that, it got bumped to 5 stars.
* I received this book in exchange for my honest review *
Author Sarah Ready writes contemporary romance and romantic comedy.
Her books have been described as “euphoric”, “heartwarming” and “laugh out loud”. Her debut novel The Fall in Love Checklist was hailed as “the unicorn read of 2020”. She loves to write fast-paced, emotionally compelling romances about quirky, smart women and the men who love them.
Before writing romance full-time Sarah had lots of fun teaching at an Ivy League. Then she realized she could have even more fun writing romance. Her favorite things after writing are adventuring and travel. You’ll frequently find her using her degree at a dino dig site, crawling into a cave, snorkeling, or on horseback riding through the jungle – all fodder for her next book. She’s lived in Scotland, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland and NYC. She currently lives in the Caribbean with her water-obsessed pup and her awesome family.
You can visit her online at www.sarahready.com
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