Book Review: Mistletoe Kisses by Marnie Blue

Mistletoe Kisses

Author: Marnie Blue
Publisher: Entangled: Lovestruck (October 22, 2018)
Kindle edition, 150 pages
Goodreads     |     Amazon

Summary
For Officer Justin Weaver, Christmas is the most hideous time of the year. To improve his “holiday cheer,” he’s been put on Officer Kringle duty, collecting toys for the Ho-Ho-Patrol.

It’s a week in holiday hell.

Worse, it comes with an elf—his little sister’s gorgeous best friend—but Lilly Maddox isn’t so little anymore. And as an annoyingly festive reporter looking to make her mark, she’s there to document his every move.

Justin’s always had a thing for Lilly, but he refuses to go there with her. Ever. Not after watching what his mom went through as a cop’s wife. But now that they’re trapped in his squad car, avoiding her just got a lot more complicated…


Rating: 3.5 stars
Review
Mistletoe Kisses is a cute Christmas romance about a cop coerced into playing a reluctant Santa for the holidays as a PR move and the report/elf covering the story who turns out to be his sister's childhood best friend. This is a pretty short book and I'd actually class it more as a novella than a full length novel, and at times it seems like there's a bit of whiplash in the timeline of events, especially in terms of the Rollercoaster of Justin's Emotions. I feel like had the book been a bit longer that could have maybe been smoothed out a bit, making for a better reading experience. He's super prickly and kind of a jerk, but also secretly a marshmallow? I couldn't quite pin him down and am still not entirely sure I liked Justin now that I'm done with the book, which made me hover between rating this one 3 and 4 stars. 

Luckily, Lilly saved it for me. I really enjoyed Lilly, especially the way she just throws herself into situations with total enthusiasm and enjoyment, making the best of things even though they're not always as she'd like them to be. She's whimsical but still clearly pretty ballsy judging by casual comments about her past career, and I'd have loved to hear more about her previous investigative reporting - I feel like that could really have been built into the story more and played a bigger role in Justin's PTSD story arc in a meaningful way. 

This is such a fun and sassy holiday read, and I adored the side characters - especially the crafters at the church bazaar! OMG, I'd like the website address of the macrame crafter, please? Thanks, haha. The sneak peak into the next book in the series definitely made me excited to read the next book about O'Roarke (and to see if Justin ever managed to get him into that Easter Bunny costume...)

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