I have wanted to try the work of fellow Mexican ex-pat Silvia Moreno-García for a long time, but most of her output is horror or horror-adjacent, and I don’t do either. However, when I saw this ARC, I hoped it would be more in my lane.
Beware: horror-adjacent fantasy; non-explicit sex on page; cheating.
Over the years, I have realized that most genre romance Christmas stories are not a good match for me.
No, that’s not true.
Most genre romance Christmas stories at best irk me, at worst enrage me.
And yet, I have so many of them spread all over the TBR cordilleras of doom, both print and digital. (I blame poor impulse control when an author I’ve liked is involved, or if the blurb is clever.)
Anyhow, this anthology (one of several so named), was my choice for SuperWendy’s TBR Challenge for December 2022 (“festive”). I hoped that, being short stories, I could read it quickly (I did), and review it quickly (oh, sweet innocent past me).
For what it’s worth, here is the belated review. Beware: relentlessly hetero, relentlessly white; death of parents, death of spouse, death of child (all off-page, as character backstory); some sex, not terribly explicit, on page. Oh, and spoilers for a couple of the stories abound in the review.
This novella is a prequel to The Duchess War; it establishes one of the most important relationships for the hero of that novel, and thus is the first installment of the Brothers Sinister series, despite having been written a couple of years after the release of that book.
Reader, beware: backstory of physical abuse by a parent, backstory of rape, difficult sibling relationships, general trauma, and a most lovely scene of consent, seduction, and sex.
“A review is at its heart the expression of the reviewer’s opinion–in this case, my opinion. Regardless of how the book in question ended up in my hands, I will not insult your intelligence by assuming that you will blindly buy any book I like, or that you’ll avoid reading any book I don’t like. Instead, I’ll give you credit for making up your own mind, and buying and/or reading whatever you think you’ll enjoy.”
Please be aware that some of the books I review, talk about, or plain mention in passing, in this blog, have been given to me by the author, or someone else on behalf of the author, with the express purpose that I review them. (Those reviews are tagged ARC or review copy.)