Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this arc!

What a good book!!! Such a good story and great writing style. This was my first by this author and will not be my last! Such a cute holiday romcom!

I loved this booook so much!!! The christmas setting was perfect and on point and the characters made me laugh. It was such an entertaining read a la Sierra Simone and Julie Murphy style and I cannot wait for the book to be released. Totally recommended.

My favorite entry in the series. I loved Isaac and Sunny so much. I maybe saw a little too much of myself in them. Not only was it spicy, but it was romantic and the little mystery subplot was so fun. This book also had the most Christmas spirit of any in the series. And the epilogue where we got to see everyone's happy ending?? Wonderful Gave me the worst book hangover, though.

I found this to be a bit slower than the previous books but it was just as spicy! I loved getting to peel back the layers to Isaac and see him grow through his grief. Sunny was such the perfect person for him and I loved their relationship, although I would have loved a little bit more towards the end. I felt like it wrapped up quickly and we didn't get a lot of their 'after' perspective. This book is sex positive, body positive, and LGTBQ+ inclusive. There's also a little bonus Christmas mystery that I found to be a fun addition. The book features all of our favorite characters through out the series and gives us some great closure for a lot of them, so definitely not a standalone and a must if you've read the rest of the series.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was okay, a little boring at times and I struggled to find the motivation to finish it. I can not imagine two characters who don't go together more.

Thank you so much for this advanced copy. This book was the perfect finale in the series and tied up so many loose ends between characters from the previous books. This team of authors really share these characters with the world and create an immersive experience from the moment you start reading this novel. Can’t wait to see how the world enjoys it at well.

Overall: 4.75/5
Spice level: 3.5/5
Tropes: fling to forever, roommates to lovers, grumpy/sunshine

CW: discussion of parental and spousal death and terminal illness

Another fun and raunchy holiday tale from Simone and Murphy! Sunny and Isaac were so fun and naughty together and had amazing chemistry!

But Sunny was just the person to bring Isaac out of his shell. She gave him space to still grieve his late wife but also to fall in love again unexpectedly, if hesitantly.

There was really great character development, and I loved seeing the behind the scenes Teddy and Steph's romance as well!

Sierra Simone and Julie Murphy made me enjoy holiday romances with this series!

This book is everything I wanted and more from Isaac’s book! I feel in love with Isaac with the little mentions and scenes of him in the first two books and this was the perfect book to highlight him. Not only that but Sunny was the perfect compliment to him. This book was the perfect bow to wrap up the gift that was the Christmas Notch series!!

Many thanks to Avon / Harper Voyager and NetGalley for the ARC! This book was well written and tackled a lot of hard topics. This book made me giggle, blush and tear up - a trifecta! Holiday romances are always so fun and this one was no exception. Highly recommend all of the books in this series, and especially this one!

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book. Sunny is hoping to find sone inspiration. She meets Isaac who she likes. I enjoyed the chemistry between Sunny and Isaac. A quick holiday read.

Hot and spicy and surprisingly sweet, the finale of the Christmas Notch series really delivered. The story of Sad Boy Isaac and Sunny sensitively explored moving forward with life while dealing with the death of a loved one and was still filled with the humor and smutty good times of the previous books. And the epilogue…*chef’s kiss*! What a fitting end to a series I really enjoyed. I’m going to miss my Christmas Notch friends next year.

Thanks to NetGalley and Avon/Harper Voyager for an eARC. Opinions are my own.

The Final Book!!! Christmas Notch’s ending is finally here. I am so sad to see the ending of this series. But what a way to go! When Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone get together you know it will be a well written, a well developed and a spicy as heck book! We finally get Sunny’s and Isaac’s book. We know that Isaac is the sad broody former heartthrob widower from the previous books and we have Sunny’s our adult film makeup artist turned screenplay writer! In this book we have sunny still in Christmas Notch to write her first screenplay. She’s has pitched it and sold it by accident when she was positing as the notorious Teddy Ray Fletchers assistant. Now she needs to write it! She has made a deal with Isaac she will help him find his muse so he can write his last album and he will help her find out the true story behind the infamous story that was told by one of the local dancers!
I loved this story. While this one doesn’t really have the background of a movie being filled we still have the mystery of them running around trying to figure out what really happened to get the true story so Sunny can write this screenplay and the muse dates. I found myself laughing and crying throughout the story. The spicy scenes are exactly what you expect from this duo and were fantastic! I am truely sad that this series is over. This will be one I come back and reread around Christmas time over and over. I really hope they decide to write something else together becuase it would be something I would pick up without question!

Love this book! I loved a merry little meet cute and this follow up absolutely met my expectations. It is a cute and smutty story about finding love through grief, creativity and Christmas miracles

This book made me sob and laugh all at the same time. The conversations had about grief and moving on from deaths of loved ones truly touched me as recently 3 close relatives of mine passed away. This book was also very funny and sexy but also a thought-provoking tearjerker.

So sad to see Christmas Notch and its pornstar guests go.

Thank you NetGalley and Avon for the ARC!

I enjoyed the prior two books in this series by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone, and this made for a great third book. I love a holiday romance, and this brought on just enough of cozy vibes while Sunny and Issac try to overcome their creative blocks and produce a new Christmas album and Christmas movie script, respectively.

I LOVE these books for their body representation and positivity, and this one also introduced them both being bi, very casually and I LOVED that. I crave this progressiveness out of books. Additionally, and I think that this was the best yet in the character and relationship development. And the spice. So. Good.

I'll definitely reread this one before Christmas!

I will always be seated and SAT for a Murphy-Simone holiday collab! The previous installments in this world have been the cutest holiday reads each year so this one being another top read was no surprise! It's full of hilarious banter, great characters, and beautiful writing and it has that perfect Hallmark holiday feel with an extra dose of spice and heat to keep you warm this winter! Check it out when it releases this fall!

The Vibes: roommates with benefits, widower angst, porn star/boy bander, tons of banging; tons of emotional constipation

Heat Index: 8/10

The Basics:

Five years, former boy bander (and People's Sexiest Man Alive) Isaac Kelly suddenly lost his wife Brooklyn—and he'll never love again. Two years ago, Isaac had the first sexual experience since his wife died (I mean, his only sexual experience with anyone OTHER than his wife) in the form of a threesome with porn stars Jack and Sunny. NOW, he's back in Christmas Notch, moping in a mansion as he tries to write a Christmas album. Sunny's in town too, NOT moping as she tries to write a Christmas movie script. It's all too convenient for them to become temporary roommates... and maybe roommates with benefits. But all Isaac can offer Sunny is sex—and while that seems like a good idea to a woman who can't say "I love you", once she starts feeling feelings... It might not be enough.

The Review:

I knew this would be good. But it was better than good. It was the perfect culmination of the Christmas Notch series—the rare series that really just kept getting better. The three main books are all great, but each one was superior to the last for me (the novellas are fab too, but I need to rethink and rank them separately).

They're Christmas-y (but not so Christmas-y that I at all regretted reading this in July... I'll just reread it closer to the date). They're SUPER hot (more on that below). They're body-positive, sex worker positive (Sunny is no longer active in the industry once this story really begins, but she has no bad feelings about it) and deal with actual issues while maintaining a fun, heartwarming tone. Oh, and they're fucking hilarious. It's surprisingly hard to find romcom books that are actually funny, but—here you go!

What makes this book so special is that, while you have the framing of Sunny trying to find Isaac his muse while Isaac tries to help her write her script (almost like... a muse...), this is really a character piece. So much time is spent building up Isaac and Sunny's relationship. While I kind of refuse to call this "friends to lovers" because the reality is that these two are super into each other from the jump—albeit moreso physically than emotionally in the beginning—you do truly believe in their bond. Their emotional connection is just as intense as their sexual connection, which is, um, pretty intense.

And dude. If you read the previous books first—not strictly necessary but HIGHLY recommended—you'll see that Isaac is just... so depressed. Like, not leaving his house depressed. Ironically, his threesome with Jack and Sunny kind of jolted him back to life? And that's all it's supposed to be. So he's not in complete "wallowing in grief" mode here, but he is still very sad, and really only half-enjoying life. But Sunny is by no means a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. She has her own responsibilities. She has her own goals. And she has her own problems—if this book has any weakness (and it's minor) it's that Sunny's problems aren't quite as dramatic or compelling as Isaac's. But they're still valid, and they're integral to her growth. Point is: Sunny has her own deal, and Isaac helps her with her deal just as much as she helps him with his, and they also both have a lot of growing to do.

But anyway, what Isaac's deal gets us is a lot of sweet, SWEET angst. Not the level of angst you'll find in some of Sierra Simone's darker works. Just enough angst to have me feeling the fucking emotions, though. There's a moment late in this book that is the conflict I was SO hoping would come up. A conflict that is honestly quite real, but still a gut punch. And soooo satisfying to see resolved. We may have a "snowmobile for your love" moment. Can neither confirm or deny.

Finally, it's a great time to see everyone in Christmas Notch together again. Bee and Nolan! Winnie and Kallum! The North Pole dancers! Luca and Angel! Krysta and Addison! And we get some really good Teddy Ray and Steph content. I love Teddy Ray. Such a unique character. Rarely do you get a "wholesome porn peddler" stepfather figure in a contemporary romance series, and seeing him get his HEA with Steph was incredibly sweet.

The Sex:

RIDICULOUSLY hot. All of these books are hot, but there was something about Sunny and Isaac falling in love, each encounter becoming more intimate, while remaining in such deep denial about their feelings...

I mean, photo booth sex... creative usage of gingerbread lotion (a big thing in this series)... butt stuff with the HERO as the recipient, something we don't see enough of in m/f romance... And Isaac is a bit bossy! Which we love to see!

You really feel like these two can be honest with their feelings in the bedroom, without words. Which I am SUCH trash for.

Also, loved how casual the book was about Isaac and Sunny both being bi, their threesome with Jack, Isaac being pushed onto dates (by Sunny) with men and women. It's just the norm, which is in fact standard for pretty much all Sierra Simone books. Love.

Anyway, this is great, a perfect finale for a series I've loved and can't recommend enough. Read it during the holiday season. Read it now. Read it next summer. I mean, read it ASAP because you'll love it. But I might do an entire series reread around Christmas, to be real. These are CLASSICS.

Thanks to NetGalley and Avon for providing me with a copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Jingle Bell Mingle was the perfect addition to the Christmas Notch series. I loved A Merry Little Meet Cute and the novellas but Holly Jolly Ever After disappointed me, so I was really hoping for this one to give more of the same vibes as the others and it absolutely did! :)

The story follows Isaac (Sad Boy Band member and widower) and Sunny (Bee's best friend) in a roommates to lovers, forced proximity that was absolutely adorable and funny. I loved their storyline w/ both of them trying to feel inspired to create a new album and a screenplay by a deadline.

I will always be a sucker for when a character is always trying to set up another character because neither of them realize they have feelings for each other, so I was here for that whole thing :) And I loved that all of the Christmas Notch characters made appearances.

This was definitely a favorite and I hope there's more coming for this series! :)

I really enjoyed the previous two books in this series and I adore visiting Christmas Notch. The cast of characters is so endearing and diverse that I can’t help but to be sucked right in. Unfortunately, A Jingle Bell Mingle was my least favorite installment to date. While I love Sunny and Isaac, their relationship felt so forced and I didn’t feel that they meshed well together. I’d have loved to see more of Teddy and Steph, not because I prefer their characters, but because I felt that Sunny and Isaac’s interactions lacked the chemistry that was present in earlier books.

We're back in Christmas Notch, Vermont.

Former adult film actress Sunny Palmer accidentally sold a screenplay to the Hope Channel about Christmas Notch lore. That was months ago, and now she's feeling uninspired and returning to the source to get to the bottom of the local Christmas miracle.

Former boy band heartthrob and sad boy, Isaac Kelly, is attempting his first holiday album, and what's better inspiration than a snow-covered mansion where he can become a hermit in peace?

After their best friends’ wedding ends with them together in a truly horrific motel room, Isaac convinces Sunny to stay with him at his mansion, it's huge so it's not like he's ever really going to see her or her demonic cat, right? When the two discover they’re both creatively blocked, they make a deal to help each other out –Isaac will help Sunny solve the mystery behind the local lore, and Sunny will find Isaac a new muse.

This duo is my favorite of the series I think. I love their humor throughout, and the support they bring each other to their respective passions. I also thought the discussions around grief were well done and so relatable without getting too deep or glossing over it like some stories do.

It's such a fun read! Witty, sexy, and heartwarming. It's a great wrap-up to a fun and unique series. While they can be read alone, the whole series is great, and I highly recommend reading them all. Combining something so wholesome with the adult film industry is hilarious and so smart. I ate it up.

Thank you NetGalley, Avon and Harper Voyager for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book!