Score: 2/5 Bookmarks

Steam Rating: 🍆🍆🍆/5

I’d seen some great reviews of Jingle Wars by R. Holmes and Veronica Eden around so I was excited to read this one in the lead-up to Christmas. Within the first couple of chapters some bells were ringing in my mind. I had just read Mistletoe and Mr Right by Sarah Morgenthaler a month or so ago and the storyline to Jingle Wars just seemed way too similar.

• Rich girl working for property-development parents goes to small mountain town to work on a family project. Check.

• Buts heads with a local business owner who resents her swooping in and trying to change things. Double check.

• Girl just wants to fit in and be a part of something, but the locals don’t want her there. Check, check.

• Some sort of Christmas animal. Check. Although it was a donkey and not a moose in this one.

• Grumpy boy and sunshine girl fall in love anyway and girl goes against her family’s wishes to be with boy. Check again.

Having said that, I really enjoyed the Mistletoe and Mr Right storyline so I continued reading. It wasn’t long before I started noticing a lot of little chauvinistic things that made my skin crawl, and I was having some real problems with the writing.

Having read this on my Kindle I didn’t pay much attention to the cover before starting, and I kept remarking to my husband that it felt like it was written by two separate people…one who writes Hallmark movies in their spare time, and the other being a teenage boy who just wanted to drop the f-bomb as many times as possible and write immature sex scenes. It was only once I finished the book that I realized it WAS written by two separate people, although neither of them turned out to be the teenage boy I was expecting. The writing didn’t feel cohesive, in my opinion, and I’m curious to know which of the authors wrote those awful sex scenes.

Spoiler alert: I’m going to give you an example, so if you’re uncomfortable with graphic sex scenes or you plan on reading this one and don’t want to read any bits ahead of time you might want to stop here.

”I push inside of her and let go. Letting my cum fill her, coat her, claim her as fucking mine. It drips out of her and covers us both in a sticky wet mess.”

I don’t consider myself a prude, and I often read romances with way more sex than was in this book, but in my opinion the sex scenes in this book were just gross. But I suppose we’re all different and while these scenes weren’t my cup of tea maybe they’ll appeal to someone else.

I appreciate the attention and effort a lot of romance writers pay to ensuring they set a good example by making their characters practice safe sex, so it was disappointing to read that although these particular characters didn’t have any condoms they just decided to do it anyway. They’d literally JUST met and certainly hadn’t been tested in the few days they’d known each other, or talked about their sexual history. Just plain irresponsible if you ask me. Even the characters in the last historical romance I read took more care than this!

Plus, I’m Australian so I am no stranger to cursing. In fact, most Aussies can fit the F-word into just about any sentence whether they’re expressing delight or condolences. But the cursing in this book felt really out of place, especially with the cute, illustrated cover and Hallmark vibes the rest of the time. It was almost like the authors were trying to fill some cursing quota, or thought it would make their writing more edgy. It felt completely unnatural and unnecessary. So, 125 f-bombs, 53 shits, 24 dicks, 21 cocks, 16 clits, 15 pussys, 9 nipples, 6 bitches, 2 skanks and a partridge in a pear tree later and I was about to call it a DNF—but I’m stubborn and I wanted to see if was going to get any better. It didn’t. Although if the main character had called herself a ‘thirsty bitch’ one more time I probably would have thrown my Kindle across the room and that would have been the end.

More spoiler alerts coming up (you’ve been warned). I really prefer a little more build up of tension between main characters so I have time to buy into their relationship, but these two were basically jumping each other from the get-go, which took a lot of the fun out of it in my opinion. Plus, they had literally just met a few days earlier, but by the end of the book they were not only professing their love but had moved in together. I love a happy ending, but come on.

So, this book was obviously not for me, but if you’ve read it I’d love to hear what you thought, whether you loved it, hated it, or something in between.

Synopsis:

Two inns, one town, and there’s not enough room for the both of them.

Add in a reindeer-ish donkey, a Christmas competition, and a rivalry to end all rivalries and you’re bound to end up in disaster, right?

Finn Mayberry has enough on his plate trying to keep his Grandparents inn afloat. The last thing he needed was some California state of mind starlet bulldozing into his town and throwing up a five-star resort right next to his family’s inn.

But, now she’s here and he can’t get her out of his town or his head.

Freya Anderson took one look at the snowcapped mountains of Hollyridge and fell in love. She’s finally here and ready to take on the task of proving to her father that she can handle running Alpine.

She never expected to make enemies with the sinfully delicious lumberjack of a man who runs the inn next door. He’s moody, impossible and completely off limits.

There can only be one winner, but you know what they say. All is fair in love and… Jingle Wars?