A fine Christmas romance but lacking.

Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone are both great authors and excellent speakers on the topic of romance novels, but this one was only fine for me. It satisfied my need for Christmas Romance by actually having Christmas play a role in the book, which is an issue I’ve been having with most Holiday Romance releases this year, so good on that! The sexual content was fine, though I felt like the steamier dialogue between Bee and Nolan indicated they were going to use more toys and other aspects in their sexual relationship, but the book never followed through, which was a disappointment for me.

The issue with this novel is that this clocks in at over 400 pages. No Christmas romance needs to be over 400 pages. It’s entirely too long; honestly, 100 pages of those 400 felt like useless filler. While I have enjoyed work from both authors in the past and understand they’re besties, I think their collaboration, while excellent on paper, ended up muddling their styles too much. Julie Murphy’s other adult title was fine but read far too YA-esque to me, which is how I felt about this novel. Conversely, Sierra Simone writes fantastic erotic/sexy romances, but the need to tone it down in this one to flow with Murphy’s style felt like a cop-out for what I wanted. The subject matter isn’t YA at all, and there is nothing wrong with YA romance; I adore a lot of them, but the characters just didn’t read as adults to me and were more immature in their interactions than I was expecting from a story with a more sexual bent to it.

This is one of those novels that was stronger in concept than execution. I wanted more tension between the characters as they both seemed to have sexual attraction and fall for each other because of prior involvement (Nolan being in a boyband and Bee being on ClosedDoors), so they didn’t have the emotional build-up to falling for one another. That’s not a huge issue, just a personal preference, but I was shocked by how long this book is compared to how little build-up there is between their initial attraction. I guess I just wanted more.

Also, I didn’t care for Nolan and his constant in his head sexual obsession with Bee. She was pretty cool, and the fact that he kept calling her by her porn name was just weird to me once they were established and not strangers. Also, what kind of douche has his own song as his ringtone? Red flag, baby!

Title: A Merry Little Meet Cute
Author: Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 418
ISBN: 9780063222571

Three Descriptors: Steamy, Quirky, Timely

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Funny You Should Ask by Elissa Sussman
The Roommate by Rosie Danan
The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory
Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie