4.5 stars

This was sold to me as Disney's Nightmare Before Christmas meets Red White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston, and that is exactly what I got. I really enjoyed the magical holiday world that exists within this story. The conflict is very political, which was actually very interesting among each holiday and how it all functions. The sibling relationship between Kris and Coal was equal parts endearing and hilarious (I mean, does "ball tag" get anymore brotherly?) Coal, Kris, and Iris have a great friendship and make a great team, and I loved seeing how the worked together and supported each other. Lastly, the relationship development between Coal and Hex was surprisingly adorable and sweet. They are both well developed characters, and they both go on a journey of growth throughout the story. This book has it all: romance, comedy, political intrigue, a tiny pinch of spice, and plenty of emotion. All in all, I had a great time. This really got me in the mood for spooky season and may require a reread around December.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan for this ALC of the audiobook.

Unfortunately, I DNF’d this about 10% of the way. It’s not the story, it’s the narrator. I just didn’t really care of their reading of this book.

I’ve requested the ARC of the ebook but even if I don’t get it, I’ll be getting it when it comes out because the story sounds so cute and I really do want to read it and see where it goes. The narration was just too distracting for me.

This was definitely Nightmare before Christmas meets RWRB. It was amazing! The audiobook narrator was so good that I will definitely relisten to this during Christmas season. While this has nightmare before Christmas vibes, it’s definitely a Christmas season book. This was hilarious, fun, sweet and very addictive. I liked how it had some bad language sprinkled into the writing. Sometimes you need the F word. And how the narrator says the F word still makes me chuckle to myself.

I’ll be shocked if this book isn’t huge when it’s released. 🤌🤌🤌

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this advanced copy! You can pick up The Nightmare Before Kissmas on October 8, 2024.

I LOVED this book. The vibes, the banter, the heart? I was hooked immediately and continued to be blown away by the way Sara Raasch depicted relationships between the characters and individual character arcs. This book gave the exact same feel-good emotions as a Christmas movie, and it had an engaging plot to keep things moving in addition to a DELICIOUS queer romance.

Hex and Coal will always have my heart. I loved their tension, their interactions, and their motivations. Each character felt palpably real and relatable, and I would love NOTHING more than to have an epilogue or bonus chapter of them visiting Halloween together. My only complaint is that I wanted MORE Halloween content from our gloomy spooky boy. Otherwise, this book was perfection.

All the stars and 10000000/10 recommend. Everyone better be picking this one up come October!

I’m all in my Holly jolly Halloween feels after finishing Sara Raasch’s The Nightmare before Kissmas! Nicholas “Coal” Claus loved Christmas, but his father, the reigning Santa, has taken the joy out of Christmas, especially when he is commanded to marry his best friend Iris, the Easter princess (and his brother’s crush)—to make it worse, to appease Halloween, he has to compete for Iris’ hand against the Prince of Halloween, Hex, a beautiful man he has been dreaming about since they made out on a drunken night years prior. Oh I loved this book. I loved the magic and the world building. It has a big Red, White and Royal Blue feel, but with all the holidays. I loved the politics, and I loved loved loved these characters. This read is steamy, but in a way that just feels intimate and personal and Hex and Coal are just beautiful together. Coal is wonderfully relatable—he’s anxious and wants to do well for the people he loves. And Hex is all broody and sexy. I love how these two challenge each other and help each other grow. The writing is fun and witty and emotional and there is something so fresh about this story. It’s gooey and steamy and heartwarming, and I could rave about this book all day!

Oh my gosh what a sweet and spicy Halloween/Christmas romance. Call & Hex have instant chemistry and such a loving and tender relationship throughout the novel. I will say the spicy is 4/5🔥 so just be prepared. I was listening to this in the yard without headphones and it got SPICY 😂

Thank you Macmillan Audio and Netgalley for the ALC.

4.5/5 rounded up!
Read if you likeeee:
*Royals*
*Queer Christmas Romance*
*Family DRAMAAAAA, squeal*
*Cute witty banter*
*Mommy & daddy issues*

SPOILERS

Btw thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the ARC! I can't wait to get my own copy.

Smut 3/5

This Rom-Com was a cute story, following Nicholas (Coal), after a "serious" screw up, who falls for Prince Hex of Halloween, despite being forced into an arranged marriage with his best friend, a princess of Easter, Iris. It's like the cup of fresh hot chocolate with marshmallows you didn't know you needed, regardless of the month!

The courts were so intriguing. I wished we heard more from the end.

(Santa, why does each Christmas holiday require a tithe for Joy when Christmas joy should already be off the charts?!)

I'm so happy Coal and Hex got their happily ever after. Hopefully we get more of their story! 🥺 (Or of Chris & Iris)

This book kept surprising me with laughs! It was a fun concept that has Christmas and Halloween colliding while competing for the hand of an Easter Princess. Except, it is a reluctant situation all around, with the Christmas Prince and Halloween Prince having feelings for each other. It was cute, while also discussing while imagining the flaws that holidays present as the world becomes more worldly. The main character was annoying but in a just this side of making it endearing, so he didn't drive me too nutsy, particularly cause he liked to make himself the focus of a joke as much as those around him.

This was fantastic. I really enjoyed it and couldn’t stop listening. I was hooked from the first minute! The narration was wonderful. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this audiobook.

A book that's been described as Red, White, & Royal Blue meets The Nightmare Before Christmas: YES PLEASE. This story will be the perfect one to curl up with on a cold winter night. It's addictive, funny, and adorable all the way through. For fans of queer romance, rival holiday princes, magic, fantasy, and royalty.

Thank you to MacMillan Audio for the Audio ARC of The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch.

First, I just want to compliment Ellis Evans on the narration. I thought this was very well done, and Ellis accurately captured the emotions and the dialogue of each character.

For the story itself, it's a bit more complicated. Yes, it is an engaging read, and it's fun if you don't think too hard about it. But if you read a lot of fantasy and world building / plot matters, this can definitely feel like a miss.

The Nightmare Before Kissmas is a cute title, but as it relates to Halloween and Christmas -- that's not part of the story. Halloween/Prince Hex is in no way a nightmare, and Kissmas is cute to say, but it doesn't actually make any sense with this plot. It feels a bit like it's trying too hard, and it's portraying the story as something it is not. The description also is a bit misleading, it sounds like it's going to be a fake competition story over a sham political marriage that none of the three involved are interested in.

There is no competition, at all. That does not exist. Instead, this is a story of court intrigue, political blackmail, collective bargaining, coup planning, with breaks for Prince Coal and Prince Hex to flirt and hook-up. When I realized the story was not a cute fake romance type plot, but was instead going fully non-combative-overthrow-the-hierarchy, I was very confused. First, because the full magic system is never explained to us. Holidays have courts in places around the world, all the royal kids go to Yale and Cambridge and study political relations. Magic is still totally secret, but the innumerable holiday royals are followed by the paparazzi all the time, in magical and non magical places. The holidays create their magic by the joy they generate for/from their believers, and each of them have related magic. The magic though seems to be things like, creating transportation portals that also exist in regular doorways, pulling fancy Easter eggs in sleight of hand, making rooms feel colder, or when a character curses, a Halloween item will magically appear from the sky. For Christmas, the magic seems to also allow Santa to do his thing, but past that the entire system is kind of nonexistent and vague. There's a lot of talk about the commodification of holidays and the dangers of consumerism and plastic, but I don't know where to fit that in something that is described as a "sexy, quirky rom-com". It also seemed very limited in what the holidays were past Christmas, Easter, Halloween, New Year's Day, and Dia de los muertos. It was odd to tell if the choices were solely chosen from a western facing culture or a certain religious background -- if you think about it too hard it seems very. very, very whitewashed and Christian. Like, the idea is very cute, but the execution does not hold up in magical system or anti-corporate theme.

The characters themselves - like, yes, I do want to know what is up with Iris and Chris at the end - 100%, At the same time Coal recognizes he is selfish and a bit of a screw-up from day one, but the way he treats his brother, Chris, isn't great. Whenever he is in a situation with Iris and Chris he relies on humor, which he acknowledges, but at the end of the story he is still behaving that way to them both. And to a degree, yeah, he should let other adults make their life choices, but at the same time, there have been so many hints dropped that Chris seems to be very emotionally fragile and the way Coal kind of dismisses that when Chris needs him irked me.

Hex, while levelheaded, also seems to use way more 4+ syllable words to talk to the other characters, which makes him seem a little bit more stilted on the page, and it's a bit harder to warm to him.

I think having the two only really know each other for 2 weeks and in that time a week is just fun, fun, fun and the next week is "yes, let me take the mantle of leadership that I have shown no aptitude or intention toward and change the world in 5 days" -- I feel like it needed more time to percolate with such LARGE plot. Again, still a lot of fun to read if you don't think too hard about it, but if you do, it's just too many moving pieces over too little time and too little development of character or world.

Spice level: 🌶️🌶️.5/4
Nicholas "Coal" Claus, heir to Christmas, is supposed to marrying his best friend, Iris, the Easter princess, which is news to both of them. When Halloween prince, Hex Hallow shows up to also court Iris, Coal recognizes the handsome man he kissed on an alley behind the bar, realizing it's Hex.

I devoured this! Queer romance rooted in a works with the magic of holidays. Each holiday has royals and it feels a little like Succession the way a certain Father Christmas wants to run the family business. There's power struggles, there's politics, but the stakes are personal too. The comparison to Red, White, and Royal Blue meets The Nightmare Before Christmas feels entirely apt. Ellis Evans does an excellent job with narration, I appreciated his voices and can usually tell them apart.

Thank you to Macmillian Audio for an ALC on NetGalley. All opinions are my own. This book is due to be published 10/8/24. I will be posting on my Instagram closer to the publish date.

I loved this book! I enjoyed the premise of the two princes coming together and that the princess Coal had to marry was one of his best friends. I rooted for him from the beginning because it was so easy to see that beneath that exterior of the jokester, he had a heart of gold. I also love that Hex is the prince of Halloween and Dia de los Muertos, so there's a tiny bit more representation in the book with him. I hope we see more of Hex's side of things in future books because I'm intrigued to see how the other holidays work and do things (hell, I'd love to see more of that for Christmas, too). I think the narrator did a fantastic job; he expressed so much emotion that I felt what the characters felt, and each character felt different. I enjoyed listening to his narration. Overall, I enjoyed this and highly recommend it!

Thank you so much to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the ALC!

This book desperately needed to go back to the drawing board.

It’s frustrating, because the basic premise of this was great, and there are elements that really work. Although this has been comped to Red, White and Royal Blue, for me, it gave off more Boyfriend Material vibes. Coal is a bit of a mess, and his status as the Prince of Christmas means there’s the ever-present threat of paparazzi blowing up his failures. His memorable voice was brought to life by an outstanding audio performance from Ellis Evans. I also really enjoyed his relationships with his brother, Kris, and his best friend, Iris. Although, I do think the snarky banter walked a razor-thin line between “funny and endearing” and “cringey,” and sometimes it tipped too much into “cringey.”

But the entire trajectory of the plot was a complete mess. The summary promises a fun rivals-to-lovers romance, but this book is NOT that. Coal and Hex never wanted to be rivals, don’t even bother to fake a rivalry, and are pretty much in love with each other from the get-go. There is basically no conflict in their relationship until the third-act breakup. In fact, there is a severe lack of agency for all of the main characters until a little after the halfway point. They’re all being forced to do things they don’t want to because of Coal’s father, instead of actively controlling the plot, and that makes the story feel like it’s moving through molasses in the first half. The romance would have been much more exciting if Coal and Hex acted as legitimate rivals (like Hex legitimately wants to win Iris’s hand, and maybe Coal doesn’t think Hex is good enough for his best friend), only to find they have more chemistry with each other than with Iris. Also, both the third-act breakup and the resolution of the Christmas conflict at the climax were some of the silliest things I have read in a while, and I really do not say that lightly.

The other part that really fell short for me was the holiday politics. Normally, I enjoy angst and drama, but for this book, I wish it had stuck to being just a lighthearted, magical, fluffy romcom. The attempt to add high stakes via the holiday politics felt silly and melodramatic. Oh, Coal’s screw-ups are bad for Christmas’s reputation because Santa wants to expand the global reach of the holiday? I mean…that sounds kind of colonialist/imperialist, no? Considering that non-Western countries have their own major, important holidays? (It would have been actually interesting if Christmas was duking it out with Lunar New Year, Eid, and Diwali, but I guess the author didn’t want to tackle that angle.) Oh, Coal is upset that Santa wants to mass-produce cheap toys instead of giving real gifts because he wants to save his magic to turn more of a profit? Oh, Iris needs to go through with the arranged marriage because her family is unpopular with the Easter Court (and yet it's not like they can be removed from power)? Oh, Santa wants to check the power of Halloween by holding its prince hostage??? I’m sorry, but I found these “stakes” laughably ridiculous and nonsensical. I wish this book had been written more like a contemporary romance in the sense that the stakes are usually more personal and emotional, instead of attempting and failing to have grand, world-changing stakes.

Also, the whole message that “one day of joy doesn’t accomplish much compared to improving people’s lives” just felt like a misunderstanding of what holidays are. For as much as the book tries to critique the capitalist approach to holidays, it ultimately does the same thing by treating holidays as only “one day of joy.” Holidays are not just about buying and receiving presents; they’re about tradition, community, and culture (and, yes, religion, in some cases, even though the book attempts to brush that part off). And again, none of this would have been a problem if the book had just stuck to a fluffy, lighthearted, whimsical fantasy world, like Rise of the Guardians. It’s by clumsily trying to make “deeper” points that the book utterly falls flat on its face.

Other things that bothered me: some of Coal’s internal struggles were repetitive and brought up too many times, and the book was way too melodramatic at some points. Also, the make-out and sex scenes were actually torture to read. It's like the author took a thesaurus and went to town during these scenes. The prose was flowery to the point of making me laugh out loud, and not in a good way.

It’s a shame, because a Rise of the Guardians-style holiday story with a Boyfriend Material-esque queer romance could have ended up being a brilliant book. Unfortunately, the execution of this story was a miss on so many levels. Alas.

This was such a cute and fun book with some
Spicy! I really enjoyed it and look forward to the next book in the series. Thanks NetGallery!

This is such a cute story! It imagines that all of the holidays secretly have royal families, who are responsible for bringing joy to the world, which fuels their magic. Santa is the king of Christmas and the main character Coal is his son and heir. On his worst day, Coal meets and fells a strong connection with a stranger behind a bar, but didn't get his name or contact info before he disappeared. After searching in vain for two years, they meet again as "enemies." It turns out the mystery guy is Hex, the heir of the Halloween court, rival of the Christmas Court.

I love the world building and the characters. It's amazing to see them develop and work out their issues, both among themselves and with their parents. There were parts that made me tear up and pats that made me laugh out loud. The story also hints at possible pairings for future books and I can't wait to read those too!

LOVED this audiobook!! I adored everyone, but Hex was my absolute favorite. He and Coal have my heart. I was also excited to see Día de Muertos included in the holidays!

4.5 stars rounded up. This was such an adorable listen, I really enjoyed the narrator along with the festiveness. The concept alone was a blast. The prince of Christmas, Coal, and the prince of Halloween, Hex, have feelings for each other but Coal has to honor his royal duty of an arranged marriage with the princess of Easter, Iris. I loved of all of the characters and am hopeful the next book will be about Coal's brother and Iris. This book was cozy, laugh out loud funny, and spicy. All of the perfect ingredients to make a Christmas/Halloween romance so good! I'd love to learn more about this world and these holiday kingdoms. If you love holiday romcoms, insta-love, and Red, White & Royal Blue, you will definitely want to keep your eye out for this one!

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an ALC in exchange for an honest review.

Santa is a tyrant and his sons Chris and Cole are pawns in his schemes. Every holiday is a kingdom that runs off the amount of joy and recognition it receives. Cole is know for being the jokester and the mess up, Chris is the caretaker and forgotten son, after a massive mess-up Cole goes to a bar and wallows in his self doubt. There he ends up making out with an extremely hot guy before he literally poofs and disappears, his best friend and brother thinks he imagined it all. A year later Santa, in his goal of complete holiday domination, arranged marriage between the Easter princess and Cole (even though its Chris who is in love with her). Halloween sees the ploy for what it is, before they can complain Santa makes a back handed deal that the prince of Halloween can also fawn for the hand of Easter. But Santa cant be trusted and is one sighted. When the Prince of Halloween arrives, it is the guy from the bar. Cole is still yearning for what he experienced that night with him but now they both have to "try to win the hand of Easter" for their holidays sake. Cole also starts to see exactly what his tyrant father has been up to.

This book had me feeling all the feels. It was a blend of Red, white, and royal blue and a backwards Nightmare before Christmas. I was so mad watching the characters get manipulated by Santa, so giddy when they see each other, and so damn sad at the 80% mark. I've also never wanted a book 2 so immediately. when it cut off a gasped and said you cant do this to me. A great holiday read and feel good read.

This was a fun read. I love, love, love Coal and his ‘dick joke locked and loaded at all times’ mentality. This book has a super fresh take on fantasy compared to everything else I’ve been reading lately. I also think this book lives up to the references the blurb gives (I still loath those but at least this one is accurate). Coal and Kris’s sibling relationship is lovely. I love how much they deeply love each other. Hex and Iris are amazing as well. Coal’s attraction to Hex and Coal’s frustration with Hex’s mysteriousness had me drooling over Hex too. So fun! This is clearly planned to be a series. We get a lot of resolve in this book but a major aspect is left for continuation. The narration of this audiobook was astounding as far as I’m concerned. I absolutely loved it - this one audiobook made me an instant Ellis Evans fan. I’ll look for their narrations intentionally for more. I absolutely recommend the audio for this one. I loved this read and am excited for others to get into it so we can chat!

4.5 ⭐️

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Sara Raasch, and Macmillan Audio for this audiobook ARC.