It started with a crazy concept but it all made sense and I loved the originality of the storyline!

We follow Birdie Mae as she rights all the wrongs to her santas of Christmas past. After being cursed with bad christmases she has had a spate of temporary flings with men that dress up as Father Christmas. It seems to be her “thing” and let’s not yak someone’s yum 🤣

Turns out the Santas she dated were pretty young and hot under the costumes !

She meets Nick, the store elf who cursed her all those years ago and they both head on a journey for Birdie Mae to clear the negative Santas out of her system.

The storyline was crazy but I was on board!

Filled with festive fun and romance, why the hell not !


The tea ☕️

🎄- festive romance
🏘️ - small town
❤️ - opposite’s attract
🦊 - silver fox MMC
#️⃣ - age gap
🌶️- 1.5/5

I can not even begin to tell you how adorable this book was! Just incredibly darling. Loved every page! Highly recommend.

Julia Olivia is my queen of cozy, feel good reads- so having her have a Christmas book is basically a cozy explosion! And this was so cute, and such fun premise. I mean a spicy Santa-niche romance writer who only dates Santas and a man with some Santa vibes who actually HATES Santa? You know it's gonna be full of banter and fun.

Heroine Birdie is aficionado- not only does she write spicy Santa books, but she exclusively dates men of the Santa variety...mall Santas, stripping Santas, actor Santas, you name it. So when she meets Nicholas, the sexy older bartender with Santa white hair and beard, a man who now loves Christmas, he could be a great catch. Except....the man hates Santa.

This novella is so fun and sweet- and like most Julia books has a charming and impactful emotional layer to it as well. This is not overly spicy (and it's a super slow burn), but the romance and banter and humor and heart are all so delightful. It's full of small town antics, some Christmas magic, and that trademark Julia Olive quirky charm.

The audio is a great listen. The book is all mostly one POV (with Nicholas getting one chapter at the end), so the single narration works well for this one (though I'd love to have heard Nicholas' voice lol). Isabelle Turner brings lots of humor but also a lot of heart to the performance, and really beautifully brought this fun romcom novella to life.

This is a wonderful holiday book! Full of Christmas fun, cheer and love. I'm so glad I got to read it!

Many thanks to Net Galley and Dreamscape Select for an audio ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Honestly this was a fun little novella! I wasn’t sure what exactly to think when I read the synopsis but it was fun! I think the novella length was also perfect for this story.

I could see this being a hallmark or Netflix holiday movie as our FMC goes around apologizing to fake Santa’s about her ex boyfriends who were all fake Santa’s. And our MMC helps her do it. I also thought this was a good reminder of how the same experience/interaction can vastly affect different people like it did here when our MCs met 20 years ago.

This one is out now and available on hoopla and maybe Libby? Thank you to the author, netgalley, Penpal PR and dreamscape for my gifted copy of the audiobook. All opinions are my own.

This was cute. A fun twist on the usual Santa smut. I enjoyed the setting and how they both kept their cards close to the best so to speak. The ending was absolutely adorable. I’m glad it wasn’t any longer than it was and the narration was done well.

I loved this Christmas novella by Julia Olivia. It’d been on my list of Christmas books to read since last year so I was so excited to receive the audiobook of it. Julia Olivia is one of my auto-buy authors and this one was another beautifully written rom-com. The perfect way to start the holiday season.

"Yes, here he is, old Saint Nicholas with blue eyes and dimples ready to slay harder than a knight after a dragon."

If you like lighthearted, funny, and emotional holiday romances with a touch of forced proximity and miscommunication, this is the book for you!

"The Fake Santa Apology Tour" gave me an enemies to lovers trope, which is a trope I love to read, again and again. With its quirky, laugh-out-loud, and slow-burn spicy romance, this novella might be the perfect addition to your holiday reading list.

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for the chance to listen to the book. This was a cute holiday romance centered around our protagonist who has a thing for only dating Santa's and only around the holidays. Fresh off a long term Santa-ship, our protagonist is quickly snowed in in a small town where she runs into someone she met twenty years ago and has blamed for the awful Christmas's she has had since. Somehow he gets her to go and sit on all of the Santa's laps in town, and she uses these opportunities to "apologize" to her exes. And a holiday romance wouldn't be complete without a third act near breakup and a redemption story.

This was a cute and quick read.

This is a delightful holiday rom-com that perfectly blends Hallmark vibes with a spicy twist. The story follows a quirky heroine who only dates fake Santas and her swoon-worthy match, Nicholas—a charming silver fox with plenty of holiday grump.

The audiobook, narrated by Isabelle Turner, takes the story to another level. Turner’s performance perfectly captures the heroine’s quirky charm, Nicholas’s irresistible gruffness, and the humor of the small-town characters, making it a truly engaging listen.

If you love quirky romances with great humor and just the right amount of heat, this holiday read (or listen) is a must!

Rounded up to 3.5, I definitely enjoy Julie Olivia's way of world building and branding character arcs. This was humorous in the way that a person serial dating men who act as Santa is a wild concept and I'm here for that, but I do think the FMC was just slightly on the side of being a bit much when it came to her laurels. The trajectory of her growth was good to see but it felt like she was set on being stinted regardless of whatever happened. But the chemistry and the love scenes were definitely fire (i.e. the string light bondage hello? amazing).

This was a kind-of-cute story about a girl who hates Christmas but loves Santa.
It's a strange kind of trauma the MC had, but it made the dynamic between her and the love interest a little more fun.

I absolutely loved the novella when I read the ebook so when I got the opportunity to listen to the ALC, I knew I had to check it out. I enjoyed the ALC just as much as the ebook. Nick and Birdie Mae have such a cute and sweet story that is goes through all sorts of feelings and stages in such a short amount of time. The way Nick helps Birdie Mae process her internalized grief and some of her issues is truly wonderful. They help each other in ways they don't ever see coming. The narrator was also a great choice for this novella and I can't to listen to more Julie Olivia books come alive. Her writing is made for audiobooks! It's quippy and romantic and all around incredible.

This was a really cute listen with some laugh-out-loud scenes. Unlike other holiday novellas, this one has more of a slow burn plot.

Birdie Mae goes to a small town for her annual winter writing retreat. Little does she know that she has picked the place where her childhood grinch is. They end up having instant chemistry and Nick is just Birdie’s type: older, twinkling eyes, and a white beard. He ends up taking Birdie around town to visit different Santas where she takes the chance to use them as conduits to apologize to her exes.

The narrator, Isabelle Turner, does a fantastic job nailing all of the lines. I had a lot of fun listening to this audiobook. It felt zippy and the jokes landed.

Absolutely recommend this rom-com.

Thank you to Pen Pal PR and NetGalley for an ALC in exchange for an honest review.

This was such a perfect quick Christmas read. Julie did a fantastic job at giving us so much with such a short story (154 pages). The story line was so cute and I loved the story and how she brings the main characters together. She definitely made me want more. If you want a fun quick Christmas read, with a spicy chapter, I would recommend reading this book !

This was so so cute! The way these characters were all together and it’s a Christmas cover really sold me! This was a cute rom com and I devoured it

Small town, second chance, slightly odd holiday story with the happy ending I read this genre for. Birdie Mae has a thing for Santa’s, short term relationships, the love family, and a while lot of weirdness going on in her head. She used to love Christmas and then her world changed after a visit with a Santa. She meets Nic and they each had very different experiences of the meeting. Years later they meet and we go along their funny journey to their happily ever after. It was well narrated.

The Fake Santa Apology Tour presents an interesting premise for a Christmas book - our heroine has a Santa kink but all she can think about is a Grinch she has history with. This had the potential to be cute and fun, but for me it didn't land and just came off as tacky and juvenile. But if you're looking for a Santa-filled, somewhat spicy, enemies-to-lovers insta holiday romance, this may be the quick listen for you.

Thank you to Dreamscape Select for gifting me with an ALC to review! All opinions are my own.

Absolutely adorable and hilarious, the narrators crushed it! I love Julie’s writing style so I was laughing lots and when the slow burn caught fire it was so worth it;)

3.5 🎄

Une petite romance de Noël qui reprend les codes du genre, tout en proposant un petit twist, avec cette fameuse tournée des pardons (qui interviennent d'ailleurs assez tardivement dans le récit).
L'héroïne déteste Noël depuis l'âge de 11 ans, et sa façon à elle d'exorciser ses démons, c'est de sortir avec des faux père Noël puis de les larguer. Elle se retrouve coincée dans un bled qui a tout du cliché des petites villes Hallmark et tombe sur le mec à l'origine de sa détestation de Noël, un mec qui déteste lui aussi Noël.
C'est une histoire assez courte mais bien équilibrée, avec pas mal d'humour et de jeux de mots, ainsi qu'une belle évolution du personnage principal féminin.
La version audio est sympa, la comédienne donne vie à l'histoire et aux personnages, c'était bien sympa !