When I picked this up, I assumed it would be a bit cheesy, but it was such a sweet/tender story with the perfect amount of festive holiday elements.

The perfect read for Halloween or Christmas! I loved this book so much and the audio was *chef's kiss* The Nightmare Before Kissmas takes place in a world where the holidays are ruled by their respective royal families. I found the setting and world building magical. I have so many questions about how the different holidays work and can't wait to read future books and learn more! The book starts when the Prince of Christmas, Nicholas “Coal” Claus, tries to do something to help people by using his holiday's Joy, this backfires, and he finds himself kissing a handsome stranger outside of a seedy bar. Fast forward and you have the Coal and the Halloween Prince, Hex, competing to marry the Easter Princess. Something none of them wants. I loved Hex from the first moment you meet him. I can see why Coal couldn't resist! These two had off the charts chemistry and their banter had me giggling and kicking my feet. I recommend this to anyone wanting to get into the holiday spirit or that wants a fun rom com. This would be adorable any time of year!

Loooooved this book and I cannot wait for the next one!! I need fifteen more of this serious because it was just so good! I devoured it so quickly because I didn’t want to stop reading.

✨ Review ✨ The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch; Narrated by Ellis Evans

Thanks to Macmillan Audio, Tor/Bramble, and #netgalley for the gifted advanced copies of this book!

This promised Red, White & Royal Blue meets The Nightmare Before Christmas and it totally delivered on that (though maybe with more Christmas vibes than Halloween ones).

This book throws together Nicholas “Coal” Claus, son of Santa and Prince of Christmas, with Hex, the Prince of Halloween, in a staged battle for the princess of Easter (who is also Coal's bff). The tension between Coal and Hex sizzles as they compete in a reindeer race, drink hot cocoa, and show up to a variety of holiday activities.

In addition to the holiday vibes and super silly details (e.g. when Hex swears, Halloween-themed items appear near him lol), this book is filled with fun hijinks and serious reflection about the meaning and importance of holidays. When Coal realizes his dad is selling out the good things about Christmas to gain power, he digs deep in critiquing the capitalism and lack of authenticity in the holiday.

The book exists in a world split between a real world we'd recognize and a fantasy world populated by the holidays of the world, which admittedly was a little jarring sometimes. Coal's inner monologue also felt a bit repetitive, but in a way that's probably consistent with a lot of new adult books. Overall though this was tons of fun and perfect for the fall or winter seasons!

🎧 I loved the audio narration - he did distinctly different voices with very different feels for each of the main characters (so much so I didn't realize it wasn't two narrators!). It was the perfect sort of audiobook to lose yourself in!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (4.25)
Genre: m/m contemporary and fantasy romance; new adult
Setting: New Haven and the North Pole
Length: 12 hours 23 minutes
Reminds me of: Red White and Royal Blue
Pub Date: October 8, 2024

Read this if you like:
⭕️ Christmas and Halloween
⭕️ angsty 20-somethings
⭕️ prince + prince romance
⭕️ pumpkins and reindeer

4.5 🌟

Sara..... SARA!!!! this was brillant. I almost died laughing a few times "once while i was cooking" had to message my friend about it. I am so happy to have read/listened to this. Here i was listening thinking "awe this is so CUTE" and then BAM!! a spicy bit (WHICH I ABSOLUTELY DEVOURED) i can not wait to read/listen to the next one.

I give praise to Ellis Evans for voicing this beauty, you did amazing work and i am so happy this turned out really good.

Why was this not a 5 star, i felt like the part near the end (the part, the big O) kinda went a little to fast and felt a little rushed to me. Other than that it was a great read.

Thank you Netgalley & Macmillan Audio for the advanced listener copy of this audiobook in exchange for my honest feedback.

This was such a fun read. I enjoyed it a lot and I’m excited to read the next book.
I really enjoyed the storyline and the main characters.
I also loved the business like holidays and the politics of it all. It was fun and added drama to the story. the group chat and friends were chaotic and so fun.
I listened to the audiobook and really like it. The narration was well done and fit the character so well.
*thank you Macmillan audio for an ALC in exchange for an honest review.

I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump lately and fortunately this was just what I needed to pull me out of it!

I thought the concept of turning Christmas and all holidays into corporations with joy as the currency was a new spin on a holiday romance. The way author Sara Raasch’s wrote Cole’s dad as a greedy “Santa” was brilliant.

The romance between Cole and Hex was the perfect blend of sweet and spicy, but it was the dynamic between Cole, Chris and Iris that really had my heart. I’m a sucker for hilarious text banter and The Nightmare Before Kissmas delivered.

The audio was an easy listen and Ellis Evans did a great job as narrator. The dialogue and story line were easy to follow and Ellis’ interpretation of each character was on point.

Thank you to NetGalley, Sara Raasch, and Macmillan Audio for an early listening copy. These are my honest thoughts.

Maybe there are people out there who don't want to read about a magical world of holiday royalty where the princes of Halloween and Christmas have a star-crossed romance; I am clearly not one of them. This is all to say that I went into this book sold on the premise and looking forward to a diverting and festive story.

Mostly, this delivers. It's fun to spend time with the chaos heir of Christmas, Coal Claus, and meditate on the true meaning of the holidays. I really liked Coal's relationship with his brother and the romance is sweet but a little slight. Unfortunately, this story is constantly bogged down in world-building and spends way too much time hand-wringing about the complicated politics of holidays, joy, and blackmail (?); it honestly was kind of hard to follow.

Thankfully, I listened to the audiobook, which is skillfully narrated Ellis Evans. He does such a fantastic job bringing Coal and all his anxious thoughts to life that I could still enjoy some of the slower sections of the book.

Overall, I would give the story 3 stars and the audiobook 4 due to the excellent narration. There is a 100% chance I read the sequel.

3.75 🌟 🌶️🌶️🌶️

I don’t normally do cute, but this book was CUTE AF. I will also say, I don’t normally do rom-coms but I am trying to be more open-minded. Sara Raasch did a great job of making me smile and giggle like a schoolgirl over Coal and Hex. This book definitely had its cheeky moments but I feel like it just WORKED.

My two major gripes and reasons for knocking this down from a 4 star read to 3.75 are that it was a bit immature for me and felt a little bored with the whole political conflict. It had potential to be include a lot more tension and building into the relationship. The attraction happened a bit fast in my opinion. This could wholly be a personal preference but if you’re someone who enjoys switching up your genres and trying something new then this is the perfect book for you. It was my first rom-com m/m read and I feel wholly satisfied with it. There are a couple of spicy scenes that will make you melt. Ellis Evans did an incredible job narrating the story and kept my attention and interest at all times. It was very pleasant listening to his voice.

Thank you Net Galley and Macmillan Audio for an advanced copy of The Nightmare Before Kissmas in exchange for an honest review. This has not swayed my review in any way.

The concept is fun, and the political elements are intriguing but somewhat repetitive. I enjoyed the friendship and banter among Coal, Kris, and Iris, and the writing was mostly solid. However, the heavy insta-lovey surprised me, and it leans more toward sweet than steamy. While Coal’s journey toward self-worth was engaging, it occasionally felt melodramatic, which wasn’t what I anticipated.

This audiobook was exactly what I want in a cute holiday romcom, A great story and great narration. The story follows two Holiday, princes of Halloween and Christmas, who are both fake dating the princess of Easter. Although on the outside they appear as rivals, they begin fall for each other and the romance between these two is just so sweet! All of the characters are dealing with real grief, but the joy of their holidays, Love, and friendship helps them to overcome their sadness And find their role in this world of holidays. I literally could not stop smiling while listening to this!

Thank you so much to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the advanced listener copy of this audiobook in exchange for my honest feedback.

The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch is about a broody goth prince of Halloween named Hex and a jokester prince of Christmas named Coal. When Coal is to marry his best friend Iris, the Easter princess, in "the betterment of Christmas", he instead falls in love with his "rival" who comes for the Easter Princesses hand. This book is one of the cutest romances I've read in a while!

I would definitely say this book has more of a Christmas feel than Halloween, so if you are a mood reader like I am, save this book for a cozy day in the middle of winter. I promise you won't regret it.

The plot was political but was the perfect amount and didn't overdo it. (I'm not a fan of political intrigue novels). I like the topic about holiday consumerism which is prominent to what's happening today.

There are modern references which I know some people dislike. I found it enjoyable. Some parts were purposely cringe but in such a funny way I couldn't help but smile and giggle while listening.

The spice was there and it was good and slow, but it didn't get too spicy. Like 🌶🌶/5.

It also has one of the best narrators I've heard in while.

Thank you Macmillian Audio and Net galley for this arc in exchange for an honest review. I would highly recommend this book.

As someone who is very particular about my holiday books and my romances I loved it! I was giggling and kicking my little feet! This one is for the chaos bisexuals.

This book is so unbelievably delightful!! I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about it (because I haven't traditionally loved a lot of Christmas romances), but I wanted to give it a shot because I had heard a lot of fantastic early buzz for it. It was so funny, and heartfelt, while also being just so goofy.

I loved Hex and Coal. Their relationship was so healthy, sweet, and HOT! This was something I mentioned to a friend who also read an early copy, there wasn't a lot of spice, but when there was it was so hot and sensual?? I don't know what Sara Raasch put in those scenes that I haven't seen before, but. they really made those scenes, in particular, pop.

The audiobook was also fantastic. I think the narrator really embodied Coal's voice.

I genuinely enjoyed this book so much and I cannot wait for the sequel.

I had a fantastic time reading this book! I've loved Sara Raasch's YA books, and I was excited to read her step into adult books, and oh, this was a blast to read! I adored Coal and Hex, they were just a delight to read about, and this world of Holidays and joy magic!

The idea of all these various holidays having royal courts, and have their magic powered by the joy that their holiday brings, is such an interesting idea! We mainly had Christmas and Halloween magic in this book, with a tiny bit of Easter, so it'll be interesting to see what other holidays magic looks like in future books!

Coal has good intentions, but executing them, he's not the best at, including when he tried to give happiness to a small country, and ended it sending it into chaos. Add to the fact that his dad, the reigning Santa, seems determined to make Christmas into a cheap commercial kind of holiday, and he has a lot of mixed emotions going on.

His relationship with Hex, absolutely fantastic! That they're both supposed to be courting Iris, because of Holiday politics, added to the drama! I loved that story, and the underlying plot, and watching Coal finding his balance while everything is going on! I loved how it came together!

Loved reading this book and I can't wait to see where the series goes from here!

The Nightmare Before Kissmas brings us Coal, the heir of Christmas, who has never really figured out how to be a part of the process. He tries to spread Christmas joy, and things go terribly wrong. His dad, the current Santa, is not impressed. As Coal tries to deal with the fallout of his choice, he meets a stranger at a bar whom he can't stop thinking about. Several years pass, and Santa says he's bringing Coal into the fold, but in a way Coal never expected and does not agree with. What will he do when the stranger reappears in the midst of his new family drama? I loved the sibling and friend dynamics in this story so much! Coal and Hex are also pretty adorable. We love a down bad man.

I loved the audiobook narration of this book! The narrator had a great voice for the main POV character and was able to change things up enough to suit the others. I was able to speed it up without difficulty, which is an essential audiobook feature for me.

I'll definitely continue on in this interconnected series! Thanks to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for an ALC of this book for an honest review.

My thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the review copy of this audiobook.

I really enjoyed the story here, but it was not the feel good holiday romance I thought I was getting. It was sweet and unique – with a fresh take on the holiday kingdoms and their complicated politics. I really hope we get a Kris and Iris book. #JusticeForIris

Spice: 1/5 - open door, vague language
Audiobook narration: 5/5

CW: <spoiler> parental death </spoiler>

Words cannot express how much I loved this book. I loved it x infinity. Every single thing about it. The narrator was one of the best narrators I've ever listened to. I loved it so much I ordered a physical copy. I may have ordered two. Just in case I needed a spare. I will henceforth not stop professing my love and screaming it from the mountain tops.

The Nightmare Before Kissmas was not exactly what I was expecting, but not in a bad way. It's described as Red, White, and Royal Blue(RWRB for the rest of the review) meets The Nightmare Before Christmas so I did go in with this knowledge and some level of expectations about how the story and romance will go because I'm a huge fan of both. I think it's a pretty accurate comparison but I do think it differs from both. I want to say before going in depth regardless if this review is positive or negative these are just my personal opinions, interpretations, and perspectives on this book, if you've been dying to read it you should still do so! I received a free copy on NetGalley, so big thank you for allowing me to listen and review this book!

The Romance:

For me, it plays out a bit differently than in RWRB. I feel like there was more witty banter between Alex and Henry than Coal and Hex, which was a big selling point of RWRB for me as I love banter in a romance so I was slightly disappointed about that. I think it took a bit too long for the romance and interactions between them to start, again because of the comparison I expected it to be more ongoing through the whole book like RWRB which was not the case. Yes, we get a little scene at the start but it's not until a good chunk in that we get more than just Coal pining and wishing for more from a stranger, but not necessarily in a slow burn way either which was also what I was hoping for. Although once it actually got going I enjoyed them together. I liked there being some focus on making sure the other is okay and not crossing boundaries with each other which was nice and realistic for a real relationship. I do love the opposites attract vibe. I do kind of wish they had either more history with each other or had a little more build up to their feelings. I feel like I don't say this often but this book could've benefitted from being a little longer exclusively for building up their relationship more because it felt a tad rushed into(but I am also usually a slow burn person so I could just be used to that!) I do wish it was more rivals-to-lovers because it's literally not at all, because there's basically no conflict between them specifically until the end (which I wasn't the biggest fan of). With all that said, I did enjoy their romance for the most part and the dialogue between them.

The Rest:

I actually really enjoyed the plot of the story. It was RWRB with all the politics and behind the scenes schemes, I know some weren't a fan of that but I like that sort of thing. I found the plotting and political aspects really interesting, although I expected this book to be a lot more lighthearted than it was. I wouldn't mind if we got more stories from this world and really delved into a lot of the other families and holiday dramas as it seems there's a lot of history amongst and within other families, I did see that the next book is already up on Goodreads so I'm excited to see more of the world. I also want to mention the text threads were really funny in my opinion. Some were slightly cringe but I don't mind some cringe in my books. This book did have me smiling and laughing which is what I was hoping for when I started this. There are some spoiler-y things I was pretty meh to so I'll try to be vague. It felt like it was pushed as a rivals to lovers situation but it really wasn't like that at all as I said before. I thought the stakes were weird and felt a little like..I don't know.. an after thought or maybe just not thought out enough? Overall the book was a pretty quick read for me. I read it in two long sittings with a crochet project.

The Narrator:

I listened to the audio and I listen to my audios at 2x+ speeds. Ellis Evans does a great job in my opinion! I liked how he voiced the different characters and has a really nice voice to listen to. As said previously I listened to this book in basically two long sittings and while I was enjoying the book, the narrator also contributed!

Thanks to Netgalley for an Audio ARC.
I had been waiting for this book since it was announced and it was as good as I hoped it would be! A forbidden romance between two holiday Prince's that's spicy and the takedown of an oppressive leader that is Santa, sign me up!
I listened to the Audio book that was narrated by Ellis Evans and they did an excellent bringing the voices of the characters to life.