On the eighth and ninth and tenth and eleventh and twel . . . you get it. A short story round-up to round out the 12 Days of Smutmas. On Epiphany (aka Little Christmas), so I'm in just under the wire!

Ok. Ok. I'm aware that Christmas is now in the rearview mirror and Auld Lang Synes have been sung, probably drunkenly and definitely off-key. And, despite my less than stellar math skills (English teacher here, folks), I am able to count to 12. So, if my plan was to review 12 new(ish) rom-coms before Christmas I would not have met my goal. Which would be shameful and would certainly earn me a poor performance review. Fortunately, I review my own, um, reviews. Also fortunately, my plan was not to review said rom-coms before Christmas but before Smutmas. And since that is a totally made up Festivus-adjacent celebration, I'm welll within deadline. Right?

That said, I've spent my New Year plowing through Amazon's Under the Mistletoe series, which features plowing of a different sort - snow plowing! Get your mind out of the gutter! JK. Of course I mean that kind of plowing. It's Smutmas, after all. Here, goes my rundown of these five short Yuletide tales from five different ladies: Ali Hazelwood, Tessa Bailey, Olivia Dade, Alexandria Bellefleur, and Alexis Daria.

Up first, Cruel Winter with You, by Ali Hazelwood.

I like Hazelwood’s stories, and I’m clearly not alone in this. Much to my shock, I’ll rant about the nature of short stories momentarily, I like Hazelwood’s short story. This is saying something. Of the five in Amazon’s offerings this season, this was my favorite. Here, the characters felt the most fleshed out. (No pun intended. Really.)

Her tale begins with Jamie trudging through an impending blizzard to retrieve a ham pan (because that’s a thing) for her father. Unfortunately for our leading lady, said ham pan is at Marc’s house. Who’s Marc, you ask? Her best friend’s younger brother (scandal!), the baby she literally held in her arms at age 2 ½. (Come on now, Ali, you could have given us a bigger age gap and we’d still be on board.) He's also a CEO or billionaire or whatever type of successful man rom-com readers dream about and has loved Jamie his whole life, literally.

You’d think the whole loving you his whole life thing would make Jamie less trepidatious about seeing him, but nope. It makes it worse! (Just kidding - of course you think that. It’s a rom-com for goodness’ sake! Certainly it’s going to be awkward and cringey and all the things we want at the start of a story.) After getting trapped with Marc due to the now raging storm - bless the forced proximity trope - we are treated to the decades long backstory between the two never-were lovers. In these moments that make up a life, we see Marc move from devoted fan, almost of the younger brother variety - though Hazelwood reminds us often, too often, that Jamie never felt sibling vibes towards him and he certainly didn’t feel for her - to obsessed (admittedly a red flag and never a good look) teen to a man with a plan. That plan? Simple. Win Jamie’s heart. 

However, since Marc has been burned by his affection for his big sister’s bestie in the past, he can’t put his heart out there once more. Or, at least, he can’t do it openly. Cue the classic game of Truth or Drink, which has to be a trope in and of itself at this point in the Romantisphere. It’s a bit of a slow burn until Hazelwood gets us to the big reveal: what Jamie did to cause Marc so much ire and pain (still lust, always lust, apparently) that she’d rather weather a blizzard than stay with the young, hot, billionaire tech mogul.

She never responded to their last encounter, wherein he doubled (quadrupled?) down on his lifetime love and went radio silent on her. Except she did. Respond to him. In a voicemail in which she admits to her own decade-long crush. And here we have our classic 21st century misunderstanding, the missed voicemail. Because, let’s face it. Who listens to voicemail, as Marc rightly points out? I’m 100% Team Marc on this, as the only time I remember that I have voicemail is as I batch delete it when my phone starts yelling at me to do so. (Sorry, Mom.)

After exploring each other’s souls, it’s time to explore each other’s decidedly adult bodies, and Jamie thrills in “the new and yet familiar” with the man she’s known since the day he was born. Are there cringey moments and aforementioned red flags along the way? Hell yes. Do they take away from the reader’s desire to be seen as Marc sees Jamie, not as the idealized girl of his youth but the hot mess she is and still wants anyway. Nope. His admission that she couldn’t be the one who got away because he never wanted to let her go could be read as either stalker-y or soulmate-ish. I choose to go with the latter. Who doesn’t want to be seen and loved and appreciated all the more for their flaws? Not readers of romance, and Hazelwood clearly knows her audience here.

Rating: 4 / 5 Holiday Ham Pans

Next, there's Merry Ever After, by Tessa Bailey.

I stan for Tessa Bailey. I love her even when I don’t. I first fell in love with the wonderful world of rom-coms with Hook, Line, and Sinker (I told you I was late to the game) and have been a devotee of the genre and Bailey in particular ever since.

That said, this short story is like all short stories, really. It’s short. Too short. I’m a binger. I want. Then I want some more. And some more. And some . . . It’s why I’m disappointed if my HEA ends at book one rather than being stretched across a trilogy. But I digress. 

Merry Ever After features Evie - and here I must digress yet again. I named my firstborn, bless her heart, Evie, mostly because I’m a closet megalomaniac and she’s, in part, named after me. But you can’t swing Santa’s big fat sack (sorry. Not sorry) without hitting an Evie in a Christmas-themed tale. Rant (mostly) over.

Evie is a struggling single mom to a five month old son and has recently uprooted her life to start again in small-town Texas. She moves there for a strange, if not kind of adorable reason: the town features a giant ant statue that she and her own mother visited on a childhood road trip and it just makes her happy. Sometimes it’s the little things in life. Or the giant sized version of little things.

Evie’s working in a thrift store, though her passion lies in fashion design, where she encounters - or re-encounters since he’s been in thrice before - Luke, gentle giant and taciturn farmer. So giant, in fact, that he can’t seem to find jeans that fit his hulking frame. After a misunderstanding - it’s romance, people, of course there’s going to be an initial misunderstanding - in which Evie thinks that Luke’s judging her for being a single mom, she whips up a pair of pants that fit the farmer like a glove, which, incidentally, she does too, soon enough, and he has a chance to clarify himself. He’s not repulsed by the single mother. He wants to fuck her. (Well, duh.)

More than that, he wants to take care of her, worship her, and have more, most likely giant, children with her. All this is, obviously, a little much for Evie. Her libido’s on board, however, and we’re instantly treated to almost-sex against the fridge in Luke’s farmhouse kitchen while her son, aptly named Sonny, sleeps peacefully in the bedroom next door. Since it’s a short story, almost sex soon turns to the real thing. Behind all the “good girls” and “Daddy”s, which I still struggle with since my gut reaction is more “ew” than “aw”, there’s the fundamental reason these two get together: they see each other. Ok, I take it back, that’s some soulmate shit right there, which is pretty aw after all.

After gifting Evie with a pretty extravagant Christmas present - a restored bike - and being thanked with “3 or 4 grilled cheeses” in return, Luke decides he’s going to marry her. In Evie’s history of dealing with untrustworthy men who leave (or, as I like to call them, men), she lets herself be seen and loved and the two get their HEA. Yay! But also, kinda sorta, meh. I wasn’t overly invested in their relationship and one-dimensionality. I wanted more. But, as aforementioned, I’m like Veruca Salt in this manner - I always want more. Bring on the next!

Rating: 3 / 5 Pairs of Couture Gentle Giant Jeans

Then there's All by My Elf, by Olivia Dade.

Like several of the other offerings in this collection, this was my first time reading this particular author. I don’t know that I’ll go out of my way to read other books by Olivia Dade but if one finds its way onto my virtual bookshelf, I’ll give it a go.

This is also the story that my book club bestie read before I did and swore off the rest of the series since it featured “the Oscar Meyer Penis-mobile”. Where that was a turn-off for her, however, I was immediately intrigued. Perhaps this is due to a misspent youth where my girlfriends and I spent a whole summer tracking down the infamous Wienermobile only to be met by disappointment when we saw one but weren’t invited inside. This is probably the origin story of my latent obsession with smut.

What in the wide world of sports(mance) does that have to do with this story? You see, dear readers, this tale hits one of my favorite tropes - forced proximity - and takes it to new, penis-shaped vehicle levels. Nina, adjunct faculty professor fast approaching middle age, her best friend, and her crush are all seasonally employed as “Treaters” (a play on Oscar Meyer’s “Hotdoggers”) and have taken up residency in “the Mincemobile”, essentially a giant silver penis as they shlock “Mrs. Claus Mincemeat Treats” across the Eastern Seaboard. As expected, there are a lot of dick jokes. Too many, you might ask? For shame! There’s no such thing!

After the requisite five or six jokes we get to the crux of the problem: William, fellow adjunct faculty and unicorn that’s only found in rom-coms, introverted but sexy AF nerd, likes Claudia, the best friend. As a solid friend, and solidly built lady (who claims she’s moved beyond her divorce-induced body image issues that still seem to haunt her), Nina won’t stand in their way but this impromptu love triangle makes for quite the awkward night when Claudia is dropped off at her parents’ house and Nina and William are left to their own devices when a quick-moving storm forces them into that classic trope: the only one dick-shaped vehicle.

Because it’s cold - the upside of sudden storms - William suggests they “cuddle” together in the back of the Mincemobile to stave off impending hypothermia. Nina is in the awkward position, literally, of lining up all her lady parts with her long-time crush’s opposing parts. Though her head says no, her heart and the rest of her body screams fuck yes. Again, it's William who uncharacteristically suggests a game of “Never Have I Ever” to pass the time. (Ah, games that allow you to express your feelings because words are too hard. The bastion of every dorky book boyfriend ever.) The game, and her libido, quickly heats up. Soon, Nina sees what every reader does: William’s into her, not Claudia. And while he certainly does get in to Nina in a NSFW way, he also shows that he’s been listening to and pining for her since the semester began. So much so, in fact, that she’s breathed life back into him and his stagnant adjunct-faculty-at-a-fourth-rate college life. 

Thus, Nina’s the classic smart lady missing the forest for the trees. Suffering the fallout from a divorce that caused her to stop seeing herself as someone anyone could desire, let alone someone as practically perfect as William (he committed himself to a month in the Penismobile just to be with her, for goodness’ sake!). So, the stuff that made my bestie toss this story and others in the collection aside - namely the ridiculous vehicle upon which the plot hinges - kind of endeared it to me. The polite discourse during sex had me in stitches. The English teacher in me guffawed when nerdy William used the correct “may”, instead of can, “I touch you” and called Nina “lovely” prior to plowing her into oblivion. Not to be outdone, Nina drops a casual reference to the Haymarket Square Riots (yup. I had to Google that too) right before her big O.

Ah, nerd love. Is there anything else like it?

Rating: 3.5 / 5 Oscar Meyer Wienermobiles

Which is followed by Merriment and Mayhem, by Alexandria Bellefleur.

Last and, for my liking, least, we have Bellefleur (another new-to-me author), who gives us holiday hijinx and heat as Everleigh Dangerfield (aka “Trouble”) finds herself in one disaster after another as she prepares to sell her beloved and recently deceased grandmother’s island home. This is the second story in the collection to feature a matriarch who’s just gone tits up. Christmas: not a good time to a grandmother, apparently. I blame the perennial and infamous “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” for inspiring such literary parricide. 

Determined to make this Christmas live up to her dearly departed’s festivities of years past, the story opens with Everleigh, sans pants, desperately trying to hush the fire alarm of her smoke-filled kitchen. The same fire alarm that caused her well-meaning neighbors to call the local fire department, who show up in force. Just as Everleigh, did I mention she isn’t wearing pants (or a bra, for that matter), tumbles off the counter and to certain bruising if not death, she’s caught by a large pair of hands. A large pair of hands that are attached to an even larger and swoony firefighter, Griffin Brantley. 

Sparks fly faster than those that destroyed her grandmother’s oven (RIP) between the hunky hero and the spunky freelancer (apparently the preferred profession of holiday heroines everywhere). However, despite Griffin’s panty-melting (I’m on fire with these puns!) essence and overt flirtation, Everleigh makes it clear that nothing can happen between the two. She’s only in town for a few weeks. And, SHE. DOESN’T. DO. CASUAL.

Griffin’s not deterred, however, and when we next find Everleigh hanging like a spider monkey to the gutter of Grandma’s roof in a classic Christmas-light conundrum, she’s caught, yet again, by the hunky hero. When she returns from being carted to the ER by her charmingly intruding elderly neighbors - yup, you’ve seen them before - she’s brought to tears by what we all saw coming. Grandma’s house, lit up in all it’s Yuletide glory, brought to you by . . . I’m not even going to say it. You know who.

After a quick foray into the motif of the loneliness that has colored Everleigh’s life for most of her adult years (she’s another orphan who’s just lost the last of her family) and her realization that living a content life isn't the same as living, we’re brought to her reluctant acceptance of Griffin’s offer to spend Christmas together. However, since we’ve only had two incidents of the titular mayhem and the fact that bad things come in threes, we’re treated to one more catastrophe. This one has nothing to do with the charmingly accident-prone Everleigh (could you hear my eye-roll?), however, as Griffin and his captain jump into action to save the residents of a houseboat that’s going down in flames. They miss one inhabitant, though, and Everleigh valiantly throws herself into the water to save this complete stranger.

In so doing, she nearly drowns. Because . . . well just because, and is rescued for the third time by the foxy firefighter. As her life flashes before her eyes, again, she realizes that life is short, so fuck it. Or, rather, fuck Griffin. And fuck they do. Their own fire has turned into an inferno by the time both give into this spark (I couldn’t stop the puns even if I tried). So much so, that Griffin’s decided he can’t make it up the five remaining stairs to the bedroom and throws Everleigh down right on the steps and proceeds to go to town. Of all the injuries Everleigh suffered or almost suffered, I’ve got to think that she’s going to need a chiropractor after that display.

Of all the tales, which I know are short stories, this one seems to finish the quickest (no reference to Griffin’s abilities here) and leaves me wanting more. I don’t need an epilogue, per se, but give me more than a glib wink and shoulder shrug and I’m pretty satisfied. Unlike these young and high-strung heroines, I'm just that easy.

Rating: 3 / 5 Blazing Bonking Sessions

And finally, there's Only Santas in the Building, by Alexis Daria.

I’d never read any of Daria’s work before this but, given that this was a relatively fun and decidedly cute, but balanced out by some spice, which I gots to have, I’ll certainly revisit her in the future. So the name aside - I’m an avid fan of the Martins and am eagerly awaiting the next installment of Only Murders in the Building - there’s a whole bunch of stuff I find simultaneously cute and eye-roll worthy in this short story.

Evie (told you!) is a dedicated freelance artist who’s recently lost her grandmother and, accordingly, her home of the last few years and has moved into an apartment where she’s met a few kindly neighbors and a few, well one, at least, kindly and smoking hot neighbors. The story begins with Evie finding a handmade Christmas ornament adorning her doorknob. But who could it be from, reader? Her kindly upstairs neighbor who’s filling the surrogate-abuelita sized hole in her heart, obvi!

I first decided I would read more of Daria’s work when Evie, ever the “cute” girl, explains that a former lover called her a “sexy chipmunk” and my beverage of choice, probably Diet Coke (I know I shouldn’t. Old dogs and new tricks, however) literally fizzed out of my nose. Been there, Evie. Been there. Of course she’s musing about her looks and former flames because she’s had an encounter with the hot hunk who resides right above her - not as immediately above as she’d like (yet) - fellow freelancer, Theo Winters. In addition to being hot, as though we need more, he’s also kind and capable, evidenced by him going out of the way to help her on several occasions.

At the yearly Christmas party, the theme of which lends itself to the title of our tale, hosted by an elderly ex-Broadway wannabe - as all the best parties are - Evie shows up as a woman on a mission. To capture Theo’s attention. Or, better yet, his penis. Though she’s been warned by her well-meaning older sister that he doesn’t deserve her best if he doesn’t like her at her worst and given the age-old don’t eat where you shit speech, Evie throws caution, and her panties, to the wind as she arrives in a home-made Mariah Carey, circa 1994, costume. In short, she’s DTF, and I don’t just mean dressed to flirt.

Taking an uncharacteristic lead under the mistletoe, (see what I did there? Never too late for Christmas puns!) Evie shares the kiss of a lifetime with Theo. Which soon becomes the make-out of a lifetime. Which soon becomes . . .  you get the picture. She soon goes from sitting on Santa’s lap to sitting on his face faster than you can name all eight reindeer (sorry, Rudolph). Things get so hot and heavy that Theo destroys her homemade costume in the act of denuding (nuding?) her, much to his chagrin.

The fear, of course, is that this thing between the two will be as short-lived as Evie costume. That this is a one-night stand when she really really wants it to be something more. Luckily, Theo is leading man material, and not just for what he’s packing just under his toolbelt. He makes clear that he wants Evie for far more than a night (in between calling her the dreaded “good girl”) and wants to share his life with a fellow freelance workaholic. What I appreciate most here is that both characters have misunderstood each other and their attraction for each other, each living in their own heads and thus hearing only one-sided conversations about their own insecurities. Between the fact that I relate, so hard, to the sexy chipmunk comment and this very real problem in the dating world, I was a pretty satisfied reader.

Oh, and those ornaments, to no one’s surprise, are from Theo, who patiently and painstakingly handcrafted 12 of them in the leadup to Christmas. Why? Because Evie hadn’t taken her grandmother’s ornaments out of storage - still too raw - and had an empty tree. The bigger and better why? He listened to her. Too cute? Maybe. But I’ll take it. It’s Christmas after all. (Well, it’s really after Christmas, after all, but you get my drift.)

Rating: 3.5 / 5 Sits on Santa’s Lap