I was a HUGE fan of Julie Murphy's "A Merry Little Meet Cute," and could not wait to read this book. "A Holly Jolly Ever After" put some extra spice into my hot cider with a steamy holiday story and was a perfect ready to stay in and snuggle with! Thanks for making Santa question my place on the naughty or nice list with this read, Julie. Love it! Thank you for the ARC - I can't wait to recommend and share this title with my friends this holiday season.

If you want some spice in your holiday romance this is a good book for you. It takes the holiday story that you would expect and ups the spice level.

Kallum Liebermanis has used his time in the boyband INK to open a regional pizza chain Slice, Slice, Baby. He also has a viral sex tape, a dad bod, and the reputation for being the funny one. Winnie Baker was a child star who married a childhood sweetheart and always did the right thing until her divorce. Now her parents have disowned her and she's hiding out in her friends pool house. These are the stars that the Hope Channel have tapped to star in a sexy Santa movie for the new After Dark Channel. The problem is that Winnie has no idea how to fake it for the movie what she's never experienced in life. Maybe Kallum can help... The connection between the two is instant but they come from different worlds. Can they find a way to trust each other? Will they fit together outside of the filming bubble?

A steamy holiday story that at its heart is a love story and a story of discovering your true self and crafting a life that makes you happy.

4⭐️ 2.5🌶️

“Why sit on Santa’s lap when you can sit on his face”

What can I say besides I hope Julie and Sierra never stop writing together because they have the perfect combination of spice, banter and comedy. The amount of water I had to drink because of how hard I cackled was insane and my body was very thankful of it.

There’s a few tropes in here that normally would throw me off a book so hard but they handled it so well and it made so much sense for the plot. Was it a bit insta lovey? Yeah it was but it wasn’t overwhelming. There was substance to both characters and they had good development. The third act break up I didn’t mind either, I thought it was appropriate given the past purity culture trauma the FMC had to deal with. It makes sense that it’ll take her time to start getting over some of those thoughts she grew up around and I think they gave Win such a good arc. Leave it to Sierra to make purity trauma hot god damn.

I loooooved Kallum. Him and his humor and his dad bod and his unwavering care and love for Win were absolutely amazing.

Giving my sad emo oh a threesome with now one but two porn stars was the highlight of the book ngl 😋😋 I am sooooo excited for his book because he has been through so much and this kind of life experience is where Sierra chines and Julie will make it so much better 🥹

I will never stop asking for Teddy’s book!!!! COMMON GUYS HELP ME OUT HERE!!

thank you to netgalley for the advanced reading copy. I really enjoyed this and will be getting copies for my shop.

A Holly Jolly Ever after is an R rated Christmas story. A naughty Santa, and a former child star newly divorced and career basically over. Tons of laugh out loud moments. A fun read all around

This is the most delightful yet still steamy holiday book of your dreams. I love the former boy band star with the Hollywood actress whose life is falling apart. They have so much chemistry. I love that it’s hallmark type movies that have steam that are at the center of this series. Both main characters deal with their past and I love their development. This is such a fun holiday romance from start to finish.

This is a fun opposites attract romance. Winnie is the star of a string of Hallmark type movies. She married her high school sweetheart, but he leaves as her life falls apart and she’s fired from the movies. Until another movie comes in from a more adult channel. Winnie wants to work but she’s retiring and shy. Her costar will be Kallum L., formerly of the boy band INK who opened a pizza chain and has interesting encounters with women. He’s even made a sex tape. If anyone can help Winnie, Kallum can.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed as in this review are completely my own.

A Very naughty, ribald, and slightly raunchy read.
I couldn’t warm up to Kallum who wore his sexual prowess as a man Shield and of course had to be the sec tutor for poor unschooled sexually Winnie.
Winnie’s parents and ex could have been thrown off the nearest Vermont mountain as far as I was concerned. I did like Kallum’s parents and sister.
The whole banging the bridesmaids side of Kallum was a real turn off in my opinion.
I thought Winnie could do better and my bet would be on the relationship not wearing well.

This looks really cute and sweet but it is very steamy! This is not normally in my comfort so it wasn't a huge win for me. But thank you for my copy!

This is the second book in The Christmas Notch trilogy. Kallum and Winnie's book had a spicy rom com first half and an emotional/personal growth focused second half (like women's fiction)- slower pacing=more realistic. I wonder if the authors split the book up this way I actually preferred the personal growth of the second half, but the steamy scenes were fun in the first half. The side characters were fantastic, and I especially loved Winnie's best friend and hope we get to see more of her in the next book.

Thanks to the publisher for a copy. All opinions are my own

This was a fun read! I didn’t love it as much as the first book but I still enjoyed it! I really enjoyed seeing Winnie rehabilitated and come into her own instead of being shamed. I love the sex positivity of this series. I enjoyed seeing the more mature version of Kalimantan. The sex lessons were hot! I’m not a fan of accidental pregnancy but overall this was still a great read!

3.5 stars.
I read A Merry Little Meet Cute and enjoyed Nolan’s story and was hyped for this book to get Kallum’s story but it kind of fell flat for me. Don’t get me wrong—If there’s a third book about Isaac I will grab that and devour it.

"So yeah, I slept hard. And dreamed of Winnie. I dreamed of all the things I wanted to do to her and even of the things I wanted to do to her with me. I dreamed I was the kind of guy who would take Winnie Baker on a date. I dreamed that she had a toothbrush at my house or her own drawer in my bedroom full of sweatpants and sports bras and the kind of underwear I could tear in two.”

"Sit on my face, baby girl. Winnie, I said, sit on my fucking face.”

This was a fun sequel to Sierra and Julie’s previous book together! I enjoyed reading how Winnie and Kallum have to do a spicy holiday movie in order to save their reputations. I loved how Kallum was in love with Winnie for so many years! I really liked how Winnie came to Kallum asking to show her how to pleasure herself and how to orgasm. Their chemistry was amazing and I liked how the pacing went! The only thing I didn’t like, was the plot twist at the end. I wish it didn’t happen like that, but it did add to the story.

Read if you like:
Dual POVs
Workplace romance
Hero falls first
Spicy holiday movie making
Open door romance
Teach me in the bedroom

thanks NetGalley and the publisher for an e-arc in exchange for a review! full disclosure, i did end up DNF'ing this title a little over halfway through the book. it had several tropes, specifically the miscommunication trope, that weren't for me but other readers might enjoy. I also thought the dialogue between the characters felt immature. i enjoyed this pairing's previous book, A Merry Little Meet Cute, but this one unfortunately wasn't my favorite.

I thought the reversal of the setup (Christian movie star to porn channel) was a really good conceit for this novel, and I loved both Winnie and Kallum as characters. I felt the third-act tension was a little underdeveloped (Kallum has this idea of himself as irresponsible, but is he really? Also, Winnie's stakes of finding him responsible were too high for how quickly it was resolved) but overall the book was very fun.

I absolutely loved the first half of A Holly Jolly Ever After, but had to force myself to read the second half of this book. I'm not sure what happened in the middle, but it felt awkward and rushed and lacking the substance I wanted. I honestly couldnt stand WInnie or Kallum by the end and I was happy when it was over.

I received a copy of this book from netgalley in exchange for an honest and fair review.

Received a digital ARC of this book via NetGalley.

I love anything by Julie Murphy. This is the second one in this Christmas Notch series I’ve read. I forgot how spicy the first one was and this one was also full of spice.

A Holly Jolly Ever After by Julie Murphy took me by surprise. It has all the makings of a hallmark style Christmas story that stumbled into sex positive erotica right before the holidays. The story is full of humor, sensuality and sexually satisfying self-fulfillment for characters who’ve long awaited feeling alive and connected all the right ways.

This one… was kinda all the things. I’m actually surprised that this book was not a five stars for me based on how I felt in the first half of it. I absolutely loved their previous collaboration, A Merry Little Meet Cute, and the first half of this book was completely delivering on everything I loved about the previous one. Hilarious, sexy, quirky, indexing on important social commentary.

But then a trope that is usually a hit or miss for me came out of nowhere, and the next half of the book felt a tad disengaged from the first, like two different books. And there were some loose ends not tied up. For instance, Winnie’s ex-husband shows up on set and tells her something threatening like “this isn’t over”, and we never see him again…??

Overall, there was a lot to like, and there was a lot that I didn’t. I think the commentary on purity culture, and religion and sexuality was so important, so the majority of the stars are for that!

I really enjoyed the first half of this book once I got into it. It was cute, fun, cheesy, spicy, all the things. But then there is a twist and I just didn’t love the second half of the book. It’s like the characters backslide and I start to not like them as much anymore. They’re both immature and say and do things that make me cringe. Overall, the plot was fun. I am not saying don’t read this…but I am also saying, you might be disappointed. Also, the book takes place in Christmas Notch and they are filming a Christmas movie, but I still didn’t get the cozy Christmas vibes from this book. Many are letting me down this year in that aspect.

There were some things I really liked about this book that worked well, like Kallum’s dad bod, some great side characters, and the pace at which the book moves.

Bottom Line: I am rating it 3 stars, as the first half would be 5 and the second half is more like 2.

**I received a copy of Holly Jolly Ever After from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are of my own.**