It was supposed to be just one little lie, one small deceit that should’ve helped me get the job of my dreams. I didn’t know it would cost me my pride, my principles, and my Christmas.
Jack Harden is a demanding, stubborn, and arrogant devil who stole my favorite holiday from me, and now I have to spend Christmas with him in New York.
Did I mention that he is also hot as hell? Well, it doesn’t really matter, because no way am I gonna let myself be attracted to a cold, merciless man, who loves nothing but money and power.
And no matter how many challenges he has prepared for me, I’ll handle it. What can go wrong if we spend a couple of nights working in his Penthouse, right?
| Title: | The Christmas Thief |
| Author: | Kate J. Blake |
| Series: | n/a |
| Pages: | 99 |
| Category / Genre(s): | Contemporary |
| Trope(s): | Billionaire Romance Christmas Romance Enemies to Lovers Office Romance |
| Point of View: | |
| Location: | USA |
| HEA: | ✔️ |
| Release Date: | 29th November, 2020 |
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Enjoyable billionaire romance
There’s something of an insta-love vibe about this short, Christmassy book, the first story I’ve read by Kate J. Blake.
All in all, I liked Ms Blake’s writing style and it was never a chore to pick up and continue this short story. It’s fairly short at 99 pages so will take you little over an hour from beginning to end.
Crystal tells a tiny little lie in order to get a chance at her dream job. A job with billionaire Jack Harden. With one look, Jack is smitten – but he’s also been burned before, so he lives up to his terrible reputation and hires Crystal for the job only to resolve to get her to quit. Sounds like some superb male logic right there!
There is a lot of talk about Crystal being too young to be taken seriously in her new role as a marketing assistant. Or maybe it’s head of marketing. But by my calculations, she’s about 34 years old, which is quite old to be just starting out in the field.
“…the relationship builds nicely and is hot and sexy enough to keep me happy.”
I liked both Crystal and Jack both individually and together. I just felt that the balance of power in the relationship was always in Jack’s favour. There’s a lot of talk about the reason Jack doesn’t employ women, and about others people in the field being misogynist, racist, ageist etc. For some reason that whole story arc gave me 80s power suit, corporate America vibes. I’m still not sure if that’s a good or bad thing.
The first sex scene – and incidentally our couple’s first kiss – made me a little uncomfortable. Crystal attempts to push Jack away. She even says “no” out loud. We, as readers, hear her internal monologue where she realises she does want this and want to be with Jack…but all Jack really know is that she tried to push him away and she said no. And yet he doesn’t stop. Iffy.
But as a whole, the relationship builds nicely and is hot and sexy enough to keep me happy.
There are a smattering of bad word choices and swapping between past and present tenses. Nothing a good editor wouldn’t spot but bothersome none the less.
I genuinely battled between giving this book 3 or 4 stars. I settled on a high 3 stars as I liked the story but there were a few issues that niggled at me. I look forward to reading more from Kate J. Blake and I would recommend this story to you if you enjoy a fun and quick billionaire romance.
Kate J. Blake is a contemporary & erotic romance author who had the courage to quit her day job as a fashion consultant to write stories about strong women and brave alpha men.
Kate travels the world a lot and describes those adventures in her books; she’s a big fan of multicultural romance novels.
Kate lives with her real-life hero and their chubby sweet cat. She’s addicted to coffee and reads between three to five books a week.
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