His Christmas Pride by Renée Dahlia

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Title: His Christmas Pride
Author: Renée Dahlia
Series: Rainbow Cove Christmas #6
Published by: Escape Publishing
Release Date: December 4, 2020
Format: eARC
Pages: 137
Genres: Romance, LGBT, Contemporary
Source: NetGalley
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2020 Diversity Reading Challenge, 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
My rating:

Blurb:

One gourmet party. Six potential couples. The taste of love?

Sam Viravaidya knows he's thrown his brother Kiet under the bus by asking him to deliver oysters from their farm to a Rainbow Cove Christmas lunch. But his ex-girlfriend will be there and Sam would rather not see her. She broke it off because he needed to 'grow up'. He suspects she's right, but he also knows he'd much rather hang out online in SkyDiscHooks creating cities and chatting to the mysterious Velebit. Being an adult is over-rated, and so is Christmas. When his friendship with Velebit grows into something more, Sam doesn't need to worry about serious. Velebit lives on the other side of the world ... doesn't he?

When Sam discovers Velebit is actually Mick, the local paramedic, he could not be more surprised.

After a devastating factory fire, Mick has fled the city and just wants to settle down to a quiet country life. When Mick discovers his online crush lives nearby, and is just as gorgeous in real life, he's hooked. But Mick isn't convinced Sam will stick around for him, and he's not ready to risk his heart. Will Sam be able to grow up in time to prove he is worthy of Mick's love, or will their love go up in flames?

My Review:

I received a free copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review/opinion.

2.5 stars — Well, that was disappointing on a few levels…bummer.

First, this is not really a Christmas book, so if you’re looking for a *Christmas* book, this might not fit the bill for you.  Essentially the first chapter happens on Christmas day, and that’s the end of anything Christmas.

Second, this is the second book I’ve read in this little series, by different authors, and AGAIN I’ve encountered a couple who has *genuinely* cringey awkward exchanges.  Not adorable awkward (although to be fair, there was some adorable awkward too), but the kind of awkward where I don’t understand why they ever talked to each other afterwards.  I’m not sure if I was missing something, but other than physical attraction, I didn’t *feel* a whole lot of chemistry between them.  They talked about their past chatting on the game, but *I* as a reader didn’t get to see much of that, so it didn’t really help me get excited about them.

I enjoyed the hints of Thai tradition for Sam (though it didn’t take up much space).  And there were a few interesting conversations about being bisexual, but everything felt a bit forced.

And on one last side note, I’m not sure if I’m missing a cultural humour or something, but there were occasions where they were talking about domestic violence and emotional abuse where some comments felt borderline insensitive.  It might have just been me.  It’s not my trigger, but I’m trying to be more sensitive to things, and so I just can’t tell.

I could talk more, but it was just…underwhelming for me.  Lots of potential, but the execution just didn’t work for me.  Womp womp.