2 stars

In the latest edition of Erratic Ruins Christmas we have this book wherein two dramatique withholding dingdongs fall in love I guess?

The first half of the book is taken up by a country music singing competition where we learn all about how everything is fake and rigged and For The TV Ratings. Our two main characters, Sadie and Max, are forced to come together to sing a duet and because of their "chemistry" or "musical talent" or because "the author learned about viral Twitter posts from 4 to 10 years ago" and they "break the internet" and become a "ship" named "Saxie". Excuse me while I roll my eyes and barf. And now the romance starts because they're forced to spend way more time together and pretend they are a couple for TV ratings! Except Sadie, for dramatique dingdong reasons probably, decided she really hates Max because he didn't give her 100% of his attention 6 years prior and didn't remember who she was now and it's all very annoying and exhausting. Max is absolutely no better because he becomes a lovestruck (or horny, whichever) dingdong in Sadie's presence and falls victim to the assumptions about another person without having all the information trope. A tale as old as time.

So anyway, Christmas is ruined because Sadie learns her Grandmother dies and instead of saying this out loud to literally anyone including Max she runs away crying and makes Max think it's his fault for some reason I don't even remember. Why am I telling you all this? Because one entire year later Sadie STILL hasn't told Max her fucking Grandma died and Max still assumes a bunch of crap about Sadie and they keep dramatique running away from each other and we are supposed to be rooting for "Saxie" (ew) to get together? No thank you. You can write songs about how in love you are all damn day it doesn't make you able to functionally participate in a relationship.

So! Points to the author for making the big secret keeping a couple apart a dead grandma that sure was unexpected. But now Christmas is ruined forever and not even the Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers Christmas album can save me.

Thank you Putnam Books for my copy! All thoughts are my own.

Another day, another holiday Rom Com. This one is perfect for fans of The Voice and country music, but even if you don’t like those things, I think this is the perfect holiday book for anyone who loves a fake dating Romance. It takes place in Nashville and you get to visit Banff, Alberta Canada as well. So dreamy!

It’s on the light side when it comes to spice and has a lot of heart. I really enjoyed it!

Synopsis:

“A pitch-perfect holiday rom com about two oil-and-water reality-star country singers who must fake a relationship in order to win the opportunity of a lifetime, perfect for fans of Sally Thorne’s The Hating Game and Christina Lauren’s In a Holidaze.Will they hit the right notes this holiday season? When Sadie and Max are selected as contestants on the famed reality singing show Starmaker, each thinks they’ve finally gotten their big Nashville break. But then they’re paired up for duet week and stun the world with their romantic onstage chemistry. With fans going wild for #Saxie the network demands that they remain a duo on and offstage, or exit the competition. Faking a relationship until their final performance in the Starmaker holiday special shouldn’t be too hard, except for one small problem—Sadie and Max can’t stand each other. But with their dreams just within reach, they agree to the ruse. Will their fake relationship be exposed before they can win? Or might their phony connection turn real by the Christmas finale?” —StoryGraph

What I Liked:

The Tropes—I’m a sucker for fake dating, especially celebrity fake dating. It works so well! And I liked how we were swept away with Max and Sadie as they got wrapped up in the power of music and the magic of the season.

The Setting—Nashville is such a fun setting but I LOVED that the author took us to Banff in this book. It’s one of my bucket list destinations and while I haven’t gotten there yet, my imagination such has now.

The Characters—I thought Max Brody was just a delight. I’m not really a fan of country music but his cowboy charm totally won me over.

What Didn’t Work for Me:

The Time Jump—The first 45% of the book takes place in one December and the other half is a year later. I wish this had been better handled but I understand why it had to happen this way.

Character Authenticity: 4/5 Spice Rating: 0.5/1 Overall Rating: 3.75/5

Content Warnings:

death, grief, alcoholism, sexual harrassment

Fans of The Voice and American Idol will enjoy this enemies to lovers, fake dating romantic comedy set during a reality music competition in Nashville, TN. Main characters Sadie and Max are both rival contestants on the music reality show competition, Starmaker. Sadie desperately needs the money and recording contract that comes with the win. Max, on the other hand, is only there because of his agent, having spent his life riding on the coattails of his famous father. Max is a few bad decisions away from turning into a has-been. When the two are paired together for a duet during the show, the romantic tension and chemistry between them is undeniable. Soon, everyone is watching and they are trending as #saxie . Fans want more of their relationship, so they begrudgingly agree to fake it in order to make it. But soon the fake feelings start to feel a bit real, causing them both to reevaluate what they really find important for their future. Featuring an adorable dog name Patsy (after Patsy Cline, of course), a cozy cabin hideaway, and a man who can knit! This is just the book to set the mood for the holidays. Would make an excellent Hallmark film!

Enemies to lovers? My favorite romcom troupe! Throw in a reality singing competition and I couldn't resist this! It did not disappoint. I only wish I could have heard their voices. A great start to the holiday reading.

✨𝔹𝕠𝕠𝕜 ℝ𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕖𝕨✨

𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: All I Want For Christmas
𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫: Maggie Knox
𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

All I Want For Christmas follows two characters, Sadie and Max, as they try to make their marks in Nashville. Finding themselves paired together on a singing competition, #Saxie is born — and they realize that they can lean on each other to try and make it through and take home the grand prize. Although their story starts as faking it, is their chemistry on stage truly just an act?

ᴛʜᴏᴜɢʜᴛs:
I really wanted to love this one… but man the miscommunications. Usually this trope doesn’t bother me.. but WOW I wanted to throw my kindle on the airplane because both of them were just so stubborn! Overall, this one did give me the good holiday Christmas vibes, but I found myself loving little pieces of this book (Max’s knitting and his dog) vs the actual story itself.

Thank you NetGalley for the copy to review!

Super sweet Christmas title--narrowly avoiding saccharine sweet--set solidly in today's time of reality singer TV shows and Nashville "hot" couples (faux hot couples?). All I Want for Christmas is a quick, enjoyable read for Christmas lovers who want a little less Debbie Macomber, a little more contemporary heat, while still giving readers the warm, snowy fuzzies and happy endings for which the season calls.

My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Putnam Group for the opportunity to preview this title in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thanks to Putnam for a copy of All I Want for Christmas. I adored The Holiday Swap so was looking forward to another cute holiday romance, but unfortunately this was a big nope.

I usually love fake dating and enemies to lovers, but the constant miscommunication, immature characters and lack of depth in the characters had me so bored. There were a few cute references but ultimately there was no way I could see these two together.

All I Want for Christmas is a cute Christmas love story with Hallmark vibes. Sadie and Max are on journeys to make it in Nashville as country singers. Max is haunted by his father's reputation and is determined to make a name for himself without his father's help. Sadie is determined to take one last chance to really make it before heading back home to Milwaukie. They join Starmaker, a singing competition, and are thrown together during duet week which alters the course of their futures. How can these two very different people make it through without killing each other?

A fake relationship is started to try and boost their careers and everything starts going wrong. Every time you think love will blossom another curve ball is thrown at them. Will they finally realize they are meant for each other or will all of these obstacles stop them from ever giving it a chance?

I really enjoyed the Holiday Swap by Maggie Knox and I was hoping this was going to be just as good. Parts of it fell a little flat for me and I felt like there was too much conflict at times which was hard to get past. I was torn while reviewing this because while I liked the idea behind it there were some added parts that I don't think really needed to be there.

I do believe the ending is what kind of saved this book for me otherwise I am not sure I would have liked it at all. Like I said before the idea behind the story was great, but it was just too much for me even though I do enjoy enemy to lovers and fake relationship books. However, I will still read more by this author in the future!

I received this ARC courtesy of NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

All I Want for Christmas is a charming novel set in Nashville about a couple who start a fake relationship in order to compete together on a singing show. I really liked both Sadie and Max and the people who worked with them. They seemed like genuinely nice people and their relationship worked really well, even if I wanted to yell "JUST TALK TO EACH OTHER" at them every second. The sexual harassments and assault that happened felt true to nature unfortunately and was handled in a respectable and, hopefully, realistic way. Although I think reading it in October was not my best choice, it did get me excited for the holiday season. This is the second novel I've read by writing duo Maggie Knox and I can't wait to read more in future holiday seasons!

Firstly, thank you Netgalley, PENGUIN GROUP Putnam, & G.P. Putnam's Sons for the ARC of this book.

Ahh enemies to lovers and fake relationships. Honestly my least favorite trope. With that said this book was cute. I found myself skipping through a good chunk of the descriptive paragraphs to get to the dialogue. I also wish that Max and Sadie had given Cruz more crap for his sexual harassment.

For me, Sadie and max were both unlikable and slightly whiny. But whatever, I get it. It’s the trope. Regardless, this was a cute, predictable quick read for Christmas. 2.5 stars is what I would actually give it.

🎄 It’s that time of year!!! 🎄

No, I don’t care that I’m starting my Christmas romcoms early. Yes, hallmark Christmas books are my absolute favorite!

I loved reading The Holiday Swap last year and was so exciting when an arc for All I Want For Christmas dropped into my kindle!

This was a nearly perfect Christmas read, full of all the goodies: Nashville, country music, forced-proximity, fake dating, banter, grumpy x sunshine… need I say more? The only thing that was a struggle was the constant miscommunication trope, however, this was tolerable with the rest of the goodness in between! I wish there was a little more romance in this one but the connection was still undeniable!

This is a bingeable, delightful read that is perfect for the holiday season that I highly recommend adding to your tbr. Make a cup of hot cocoa, curl up next to a fire in your best fuzzy blanket and get lost in the musical world of Sadie and Max!

Thank you Netgalley and publisher for the gifted ARC!

4 stars

#SaxieForever #PatsyCanine

All I Want for Christmas gave me all the Christmas feels, making me long to set up a tree and wrap presents! Sadie and Max are contestants in a reality show to choose the next big Country singer. After a duet is well-received, the show starts promoting them as a couple.

Yes - Fake dating. It's my jam. Enemies to lovers - also my jam. They're my two favorite romance tropes.

Sadie and Max, a.k.a. #Saxie, butt heads as they start competing as a team on a reality singing show. He plays the guitar and knits sweaters for his dog, Patsy Canine. She has a gorgeous voice and writes her own songs. As they discover their sound, they discover their feelings for each other aren't so fake.

This story would make a great Hallmark movie! It was enjoyable and easy to finish in one day because I didn't want to hit pause. I had to know how it ended.

Side notes:

* I love how she put the kibosh on wearing heels. Score one for Sadie!!
* I wasn't a fan of the female character being the only one forced into the fake dating / duet role to save her place on the show. Max wasn't risking anything, but she was left with no choice if she wanted to stay in.
* Max - I yelled at him while listening to this. He was so quick to accept the worst about Sadie and had to be talked into thinking otherwise. Nobody trusted anyone though a fair amount was well-founded. I yelled at her, too, to tell him about why she ran out, but hey - angst in a romance novel can be fun!
* The producer was a total slimeball. Though he was portrayed as likable at first, I kept waiting for the shoe to drop. And it dropped in spectacular fashion.
* I wish there were more banter between Max and Sadie. They kind of fell flat in that regard.
* Narration for the audiobook was terrific. Sophie Amoss and Sean Patrick Hopkins did a wonderful job with all the various voices and kept me interested throughout. I loved that they didn't lower their voices on the narration vs. dialogue as some narrators in books I've listened to have done. I've definitely added them to my list of narrators to watch for when deciding on e or print books vs. audiobooks.

This was a fun read! Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin for the opportunity to read and review this ARC!

This was such a good Christmas book and I really enjoyed my time reading it! Thank you so much for the arc!

I adored this book. It’s a great Christmas story with an enemies to lovers trope. The chemistry between Sadie and Max draws you in. However, the lack of communication between them made me angry at some parts of the book. Overall a feisty emotional read with characters that test your patience on every page.

This was just... fine!

This follows the story of Ben and Sadie, two country singers who compete on a reality show and are forced together into a fake relationship to boost the ratings. Predictable, so we all know what happens. I was super stoked for this as I loved the authors previous Christmas story. This one fell a little more flat to me. I didn't LOVE either of the characters. Ad due to the enormous amount of miscommunications and arguing, half the time I felt like they weren't even meant to be. And that kinda pulled me out.

But, it was cute. And it was Christmas. It was fun, just not a top favorite.

The holiday season is fast approaching, which means books about the winter holidays – including the latest from Maggie Knox – will soon be filling your feed. All I Want for Christmas has all the trappings of a great holiday read, but for me, it ended up being just OK.

WHAT I LOVED
🎄 This romance pulls in a lot of popular tropes – enemies to lovers, fake dating, and second-chance romance to name a few – which means there’s definitely something for everyone.
🎄The Banff/Nashville setting and song competition plotline made this really stand out from other holiday books I’ve read.
🎄Sadie’s relationship with her grandmother and mother was really touching and I really liked how her conflicts and struggles with them propelled her character arc. They were an integral part of her story, something that remained consistent from beginning to end.
🎄There was a very minor subplot about Sadie trying to reclaim her masters from a producer that felt like a thinly veiled reference to Taylor Swift. Not sure if the story needed it, but it was a fun Easter Egg.

WHAT DIDN’T WORK
🎄I felt like there were some missing pieces to the story, especially at the beginning. Knox really drops the reader in the middle of the action, and while that does get the story going, I personally felt like I had missed some important information about the characters and setting. I kept going back to reread to make sure I hadn’t missed anything, which was a bit jarring.
🎄I had a hard time buying into Sadie and Max as a couple. There was a lot of “telling, not showing” when it came to their chemistry. Yes, they were cute, but at points it felt like they went from enemies to lovers in 0 to 60.
🎄TW: There are references to and scenes of sexual harassment and assault which felt very strange for an otherwise fluffy Christmas book. The story had enough conflict and this felt like it was stuffed in for reasons I couldn’t figure out.

Overall, I prefer The Holiday Swap to All I Want for Christmas, but you can’t go wrong with either if you’re looking for a seasonal read in between baking cookies and watching a movie.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

thank you to netgalley and viking publishing for this arc of all i want for christmas by maggie knox!

so overall i thought that this was going to be pretty cute, but honestly just kind of okay. i did enjoy sadie throughout the story (and occasionally max), but my biggest complaint actually comes from the pacing overall. it was so weird! the entire blurb focuses on the singing show that actually only takes up the first 25-30% of the book and then we get a year long time jump.

i also found almost every moment of their misconnects and misunderstandings to just be for the sake of the plot, like him ignoring her for an entire year was just not super understandable in my opinion.

unfortunately this was not a favorite for me. 2.5 stars rounded up.

This was a delightful read that really got me in the mood for the Christmas season! I'm a sucker for an enemies-to-lovers plotline. There are some darker and heavy themes, which wasn't entirely expected based on the cover and description, but I thought they were well handled, felt realistic, and humanized Max and Sadie and gave their characters more dimension.

This is the second book I've read by Knox and really enjoy her writing style. Overall a cozy, enjoyable read that I'd recommend to anyone.

I really enjoyed The Holiday Swap so was super excited to be approved for All I Want for Christmas. MC Max wants to get out from under his father's famous name and be big on his own as a singer. Sadie is sick of mic nights and wants to break out big into the Nashville scene. Enter the Starmaker Competition for country singers and a fake dating trope after Max and Sadie meet and have epic chemistry. They are pushed into this fake relationship to be marketed as a duo. But they want something different - solo careers. But they soon realized their connection can't be ignored

While this wasn't a five star read for me it was cute and an easy read for the holidays.

Thank you Netgalley and Penguin Group Putnam for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review

The fake romance turned true love trope is always a good read! This book was no exception. Trigger warning: sexual assault.