TBR Challenge: ‘MERRY INKMAS’, by Talia Hibbert

The topic of this month is Holiday (any holiday!)

Published: Dec-2017

Genre: Contemporary

My Rating: four stars

Pages: 256

Last year I discovered Talia Hibbert with Wanna bet? I just love her books and I try to read as much as I can from her back list.

I wanted to share with you this tale of acceptance and forgiveness in Christmas time. Acceptance and forgiveness of oneself and hope for a better future.

Bailey Cooper works as a barista in a coffee-shop. Some weeks ago, a ‘Hot Coffee Boy’ came in –and kept on going to the coffee-shop day in day out. He is drop dead gorgeous. There is mild flirting between them, but nothing happens until one day she loses her job.

She ends up working for him, and it is then than both of them decide to do something with that sparky attraction they feel.

Cash Evans does not trust himself. His rule is not having relationships that last more than three months. His childhood was not a happy one. He fears he can be a monster as his father. He has to accept himself and those intrusive thoughts that keep telling him he is not good enough for someone as sweet as Bailey Cooper.

She does not do relationships, either. She has seen her mother going from one man to another. Men just simply did not stick with her mother. But Bailey is not against a short but passionate relationship.

Then Christmas come and everything comes out, they learn to accept how they are and that the future is not written in stone.

The bantering between them is great. The sexy times, of course, very well done. The story tends to be a little bit cheesy at the end, and it includes one of those romantic epilogues that I am not very fond of.

As it is usual in Hibbert’s romances, it’s a WMBW story. Both of them are far from perfect, but he is very sexy, all and all muscles, whereas she tends to be, like some other of her heroines, a little bit overweight.

Anyway, if you like a short and sexy Christmas story, this will do. A forewarning –It is not a sweet tale, because some terrible things are mentioned. However, you can really enjoy it.

This is the last TBR Challenge of this year. I have enjoyed it. After five years, I do not think I’m going to make it last year. I feel like I want to rest a little bit. Too many challenges this year have taken some of my enjoyment, I am afraid. But it has been great while it lasted.