3.5 stars ( )

Nolan Shaw is the former bad boy of a former boy band, attempting to rehabilitate his image - and make money to support his mom and younger sister - by starring in a Hope channel Christmas movie. Bee Hobbes is a porn star who gets her chance to break into mainstream acting when her producer taps her to fill in for the "wholesome" actress who dropped out at the last minute. Unknown to either of them, Nolan has been a longtime fan of Bee's (Bianca Von Honey) ClosedDoors account, and Bee had a huge teen crush on Nolan. On set in Christmas Notch, Vermont, they both need to maintain their squeaky-clean images, but they fall hard for each other. Can they keep their relationship a secret from cast, crew, and the world? (Spoiler alert: no.) When Bee's Bianca Von Honey side becomes public, will Nolan stick by her? Will the Hope channel scrap the movie?

The chemistry between Nolan and Bee is evident, and the authors are sex-positive; Bee/Bianca loves her job and doesn't necessarily want to leave it behind, and both her moms know what she does and support her. The movie's director Gretchen, a former child star herself, and her wife Pearl wind up supporting Bee, and after a media pile-on, there's a swell of excitement about the movie, which the Hope channel releases after all. Nolan's mom has bipolar disorder, which makes him protective of her, but he also respects her and wants others to see her as more than her diagnosis.

Three mistakes irked me: (1) sunset in Vermont in December is NOT 6pm; (2) "white with a brown belly" is NOT a horse color that I know of; (3) it's illegal to set off fireworks in California, which they do casually in the epilogue, because of the risk of wildfires.

Quotes

After all, how hard could it be to keep his two worlds separate? (Teddy, prologue)

Doubt washed over me the moment my brain began to quiet. This was an awful idea. I knew it deep down. My intuition was too good. I always felt the truth in my gut, even when it was the kind of truth I didn't want to face. And this was one of those truths. (Bee, ch. 1)

It was like everything had gone wrong today and I had no way to fix any of it. All I could do was hold this metal and glass rectangle and hope it eventually lit up in my hand. (Nolan, ch. 17)

Who would I be after the the knowledge that I could work in a mainstream movie, and as the leading lady too? ...But what if that wasn't possible? What if I had to choose? (Bee, ch. 22)

When all I wanted was...for this moment to fractal out like a snowflake and never, ever end? (Bee, ch. 22)

Love...always demanded sacrifice and risk. But whose risk? Whose sacrifice? Was that fair to ask of anyone? (Bee, ch. 22) ( )

First I would like to think Edelweiss and the authors for the opportunity to read this book as an ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

A Merry Little Meet Cute was a fun read that certainly had potential, however, there were parts of it that felt somewhat forced, and in others, you could tell it was the author's first time teaming up.

I sometimes got the feeling that the authors sat down with the idea of let's create a cheesy porno but give it Kate and Leopold meets Saved By The Bell vibes. With that said, I did enjoy reading this book even if I found certain parts rather cheesy and kinda cringe, for example, the part where they Lady and Tramp the chili cheese fries.

The Fans to Lovers was a new trope for me and while I enjoyed that aspect of the story, I do feel like the characters did not get the opportunity to truly learn what made each other tick but instead fell in love with the surface material they had grown used to consuming with a bit of reality sprinkled in.

Some of the other characters such as Teddy aka Uncle Ray-Ray were just a bit over the top at times, especially in his extremely detailed but at the same time vaguely broad epilogue.

Would I recommend this book to friends, yes, but I would do so with a few advisements as to what to expect so that they do not get blind-sided by some of the Hallmark movies meets YA novel meets Romance book cheesiness that made for a very interesting but fun read. ( )

I found this one from Vulture.com as a recommended audiobook and as they promised it’s enjoyable but completely bonkers.

I am addicted to Hallmark movies and this book is a mock of them by imagining a porn producer & actress trying to go mainstream by filming a Hallmark Christmas movie. It’s funny and both body and sex positive but don’t be fooled by the cover: it’s also completely X rated. Like REALLY super X rated. I read a lot of romance with all levels of spice but this one was a little too over the top for me so I knocked it down a few stars.

It did make a day of extremely tedious paperwork fly by as I listened to it though. LOL





( )

I couldn't do it. I wasn't expecting the smut, but I was down for it. I really overall liked the storyline, a heavier girl, body positivity, Hallmark meets porn - all amazing. However, the writing just didn't do it for me. Lots of internal dialogue with the characters which I found distracting and I truly didn't really care what happened. I knew they were going to bang at some point. I didn't feel the build up but rather, I just knew it was going to happen. I got 100 pages in and just didn't care enough to keep going. Not to say I would never pick this up again at some point, but there's just so many books in this world and if I'm not 100% engaged, I'm trying to just move on to another book that I am completely sucked into. ( )