Book Description:
I haven’t been home for Christmas in eight years.
But that’s about to change. This year, I’m traveling to my small hometown to convince my producer to make me the permanent host of Good Day Denver.
The plan: Charm viewers by sharing my favorite family Christmas traditions, and in turn, get the likes, clicks and shares to land the job.
Not the plan: Running into my ex-boyfriend.
In my house.
For Christmas.
But here he is, a guest of my mother, who apparently had more trouble letting go of Max Weber than I did.
Unfortunately, he is as handsome and charming and talented and annoying and frustrating and flirty as ever.
Even more unfortunately, he seems to have a plan of his own—to convince me to give him a second chance.
Which is not happening.
There’s just one problem—my viewers love him. More than that, they love us. Me and Max. My ex.
The boy who broke my heart.
The boy I now have to fake flirt with to win over the hearts of my viewers.
But it’s not their hearts I’m worried about. . . it’s mine.
Merry Ex-Mas is a sweet, small town, second chance romance with a dash of not-so-fake flirting, a tiny bit of enemies to lovers and just enough forced proximity to make things sizzle.
Narelle’s Thoughts:
I enjoyed reading Merry Ex-Mas, a sweet and clean romcom set in a small town in Illinois. I do want to clarify that the main characters are not Christian, and this means they’re not necessarily following the Christian morality code that many readers would expect to see in contemporary Christian romances (CCR). The target audience for this book is general market romance readers who like sweet, clean, and flirty romantic comedies.
Marin is a tv journalist based in Denver who wants to land the news anchor job. Her producer, Steph, after hearing about Marin’s mother being the queen of Christmas, decides that Marin should go home to Pleasant Valley, Illinois, with her and Danny (their cameraman) to film Marin’s homecoming for Christmas.
Two weeks before Christmas, Marin surprises her parents by arriving on their doorstep unannounced. Marin is shocked when Max, her childhood sweetheart who dumped her eight years ago, opens the door to her parent’s home. Max and Marin’s mother’s were best friends who lived next door to each other until Max’s parents were killed in a car accident eight years ago. Everyone thought Marin and Max would get married, and Marin was heartbroken when Max broke up with her not long after his parents passed. Marin still carries a grudge, and struggles to get over what happened between her and Max.
A hilarious enemies-to-love romance, with a fake relationship in the mix for their social media fans to assist Marin in getting her promotion, unfolds in the story. Steph schedules Marin to be filmed at town events in the lead up to Christmas.
Both Max and Marin have to deal with emotional baggage from their shared past, and old feelings that resurface while they’re living in close proximity in her parent’s home in the lead up to Christmas. I recommend Merry Ex-Mas to contemporary romance readers who like second chances and enemies-to-love sweet and clean Christmas romcoms set in a small town.
