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My Review:Title: Their Christmas Baby Contract
Author: Shannon Stacey
Series: Blackberry Bay #2
Published by: Harlequin Special Edition
Release Date: November 1, 2020
Format: eARC
Pages: 288
Genres: Romance, Holiday, Contemporary
Source: NetGalley
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2020 HoHoHo Readathon, Lenoreo's 2020 Netgalley and Edelweiss Challenge, Lenoreo's 2020 New Release Challenge, Lenoreo's COYER Quarantine Edition
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks ✩ IndieBound ✩ Book Depository
My rating:
Blurb:Striking the deal was the easy part.
He’ll help her make a beautiful baby.
Brady Nash is handsome and anti marriage. And with IVF completely out of her financial reach, Reyna Bishop is running out of time to have the child she so very much wants. Theirs is a practical baby-making deal: no emotion, no expectation, no ever-after. They’ll even “date” through Christmas to silence their hometown gossips. It’s foolproof…till the time she spends with Brady and his warm, loving family leaves Reyna wanting more than a baby…
I received a free copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review/opinion.
3.5 stars — This had a lot of cute moments, but there were just a few things that prevented it from standing out.
Brady was pretty adorable. I loved how caring he was with everyone in his life. But man, he needed to grow some balls (and I hate that phrase). I mean seriously, I was so disappointed at what little he was willing to accept in his life.
Reyna was harder to figure out for me. I think there’s just a personality difference between us, and I just can’t figure out what makes parts of her tick. Not all of her, there were parts I really enjoyed. But I just didn’t connect with her as easily as I did with Brady.
I enjoyed the sweet moments and the friendship moments between the two of them, but I will admit that the steamy scenes were a little lacking. The first one came so quickly, I hadn’t had a chance to get down with their connection…and it fell somewhere between detailed and fade to black…which is the best of no worlds. 😛
In the end I think I got frustrated with their lack of communication. Sometimes I don’t mind that as much, and sometimes my tolerance is just not enough…which is what I would characterize this read as.
I was surprised that this one didn’t take place entirely over the Christmas season. I mean, like 60% of it was, but it’s just not what I’m used to from my Christmas books.
I was also surprised that in the end I didn’t really fall in love with the town of Blackberry Bay. Usually the great thing about books in small towns are the characters and antics of the townspeople. We didn’t really get any of that. I barely got to know any secondary characters, and the damage that the gossip had done on both of our MCs just left me with a bad taste in my mouth.
So yeah. Definitely a cute read, but I needed something more to really fall in love.
When lack of communication is used, it rarely works for me. It just makes me more irritated. Sorry this one was just good, not great.