Week 37 Review: The Nightmare Before Kissmas

From Goodreads:

Red, White & Royal Blue meets The Nightmare Before Christmas in a sexy, quirky romcom where the golden-hearted Prince of Christmas falls for the totally off-limits Prince of Halloween.

Nicholas "Coal" Claus used to love Christmas. Until his father, the reigning Santa, turned the holiday into a PR façade. Coal will do anything to escape the spectacle, including getting tangled in a drunken, supremely hot make-out session with a beautiful man behind a seedy bar one night.

But the heir to Christmas is soon commanded to do his duty: he will marry his best friend, Iris, the Easter Princess and his brother's not-so-secret crush. A situation that has disaster written all over it.

Things go from bad to worse when a rival arrives to challenge Coal for the princess's hand…and Coal comes face-to-face with his mysterious behind-the-bar hottie: Hex, the Prince of Halloween.

It's a fake competition between two holiday princes who can't keep their hands off each other over a marriage of convenience that no one wants. And it all leads to one of the sweetest, sexiest, messiest, most delightfully unforgettable love stories of the year.

My Review:
I had a fantastic time reading this book! I've loved Sara Raasch's YA books, and I was excited to read her step into adult books, and oh, this was a blast to read! I adored Coal and Hex, they were just a delight to read about, and this world of Holidays and joy magic! 

The idea of all these various holidays having royal courts, and have their magic powered by the joy that their holiday brings, is such an interesting idea! We mainly had Christmas and Halloween magic in this book, with a tiny bit of Easter, so it'll be interesting to see what other holidays magic looks like in future books!

Coal has good intentions, but executing them, he's not the best at, including when he tried to give happiness to a small country, and ended it sending it into chaos. Add to the fact that his dad, the reigning Santa, seems determined to make Christmas into a cheap commercial kind of holiday, and he has a lot of mixed emotions going on.

His relationship with Hex, absolutely fantastic! That they're both supposed to be courting Iris, because of Holiday politics, added to the drama! I loved that story, and the underlying plot, and watching Coal finding his balance while everything is going on! I loved how it came together! 

Loved reading this book and I can't wait to see where the series goes from here! 

Author: Sara Raasch
Series: Royals and Romance #1
Read: September 13th, 2024
Source: NetGalley 
Reason Why: Love her writing and it sounded really cute, and it's a Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2024 Book and a WoW Book!
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Expected Publication: October 8th 2024

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars