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My Review:Title: Holidays in Blue
Author: Eve Morton
Published by: Carina Press
Release Date: December 7, 2020
Format: eARC
Pages: 207
Genres: Romance, Holiday, LGBT, Contemporary
Source: NetGalley
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2020 12 Books of Christmas Challenge, Lenoreo's 2020 Diversity Reading Challenge, 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:Sometimes it takes a little ice to discover a whole lot of heat.
Cosmin Tessler is going home for Christmas. Eric Campbell is too.
Neither expected a homecoming quite like this.
When Cosmin Tessler’s radio show is canceled and Eric Campbell’s acting jobs dry up, they find themselves unexpectedly back in their old Toronto neighborhood…and back in each other’s lives years after they’d gone their separate ways. With a series of failed relationships and one ill-advised marriage behind them, both believe their chance for love has come and gone.
Luck, in the form of a massive ice storm, throws the former neighbors together again and they find themselves stranded, alone, for Christmas. Despite their difference in age, long-ago crushes and undeniable attraction prove too much to resist. But when the ice melts, only time will tell if their burgeoning romance will become just another missed chance—or a love story whose time has finally come.
I received a free copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review/opinion.
4 stars — This one went a lot better than I was anticipating in some moments. I’m scurr of “litrature” as Eric would say. I am low brow…so very far from high brow. And I think I can be intimidated by books that have a more high brow feel. This wasn’t quite that though…it was more like Cosmin was high brow, and Eric was more my speed, and while there were elements that were too much for me, all in all I came away feeling more open or something. I still don’t feel like “quotidian” needs to be used that often though. 😛
Honestly, this story was so much deeper than I was expecting. It was a very unusual romance in so many ways, because a lot of the story was about both Eric and Cosmin finding their individual ways through life, and it just happened that they were the catalyst for the other in making some insights and beginning that journey, if that makes sense. But unlike another Christmas book I read recently that had strong individual storylines, I felt like while the relationship could be on the back burner at times it was still vital to the story. It was just…well, unusual.
I honestly didn’t think I was going to like Cosmin. Just like so many people in his life, I thought he was pretentious. But through his eyes, and through Eric’s eyes, I came to see that there was a lot more going on with him — that just because he liked the deep thinking didn’t mean that he looked down upon others who enjoyed other things. I really need to keep a more open mind when I’m presented with hoity toity stuff — it’s like I become defensive because it’s not my jam, and I start assuming that I’m being looked down upon. But that really wasn’t who Cosmin was.
And Cosmin had one heck of a crazy life story. I didn’t always follow all of the revelations he made along the way, but he really made me think about a lot of aspects of life in a different life. I loved that.
Eric was wholeheartedly more my speed. Which is funny, since he cheated in his past, and cheating is a button topic for me. But I think he managed to humanize the whole thing. It’s still not something I’m ever going to be that okay with, but I appreciated the opportunity to see all of who a person is, and that sometimes people make mistakes — and that they *can* grow.
And even though so much of the story concerned their individual stories, I really did end up liking them together. They were the epitome of opposites attract, but I think that was exactly what they each needed. They gave something to the other that they hadn’t been able to find anywhere else. I just really enjoyed it, even if for me the steamy chemistry was only so so. It was the rest of the connection that really sold me.
There were a few bits and pieces of the story that I felt conflicted on (but I’m not going to go into them), but honestly? In the end it was interesting to read something so different from what I usually read…and it gave me that feel-goodness that I need out of a Christmas book by the ending.
Yay! Glad this one was better than you expected.