So This Is Christmas

A Novel

De: Jenny Holiday

Narrado por: Cynthia Farrell

USA Today bestselling author Jenny Holiday concludes her beloved royal Christmas series with an unforgettable romance about a confident American woman and the strait-laced royal advisor who falls hopelessly in love with her.

Matteo Benz has spent his life serving at the pleasure of the Eldovian crown. His work is his life and his life, well...he doesn’t have much of one. When he is tasked to aid a management consultant who has been flown in to help straighten out the king’s affairs, he is instantly disturbed by her brash American manner—as well by an inconvenient attraction to the brainy beauty.

Cara Delaney is in Eldovia to help clean up the king’s financial affairs, but soon finds herself at odds with the very proper Mr. Benz. As intrigued by his good looks as she is annoyed by his dedication to tradition for its own sake, she slowly begins to see the real man behind the royal throne.

As they work together to return Eldovia to its former glory during the country’s magical Christmas season, Matteo discovers he is falling hopelessly in love with the unconventional American. But a man who has devoted his life to tradition doesn’t change easily. Can he become the man Cara needs, or will their love be another sacrifice to the crown?

©2022 Jenny Holiday (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers

Stop trashing Hallmark

Throughout all three books in the series the author has thrown shade on what is admittedly a facile and formulaic empire of entertainment. The Princess Diaries have not been mentioned. George Barr McCutcheon and his invented kingdoms of Ruritania and Graustark have escaped notice despite their wild popularity in the early 1900’s. The ‘Prisoner of Zenda’ has gone unscathed. But she called Hallmark movies “stupid” and “drekky”. I call that unfair. Her books are good and light entertainment. She’s not Jane Austen.

Cute

Hallmark-ish cute. I'd read it again around the holidays. Cheesy and adorable kinda cute.

Thoroughly enjoyed

I listened to all 3 of these books during the Christmas season and thoroughly enjoyed them. SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS also features a rich Aldovian with ties to the crown and the New Yorker they fall in love with. Each book has engaged in greater depth with discussions of economics, family obligation, and tradition, with this one focusing on monarchy, poverty, service, and labor. And, of course, it was adorable and steamy with well-developed characters and secondary characters you hope to see in their own books. The setting is magical and largely takes place, this time, outside the palace. Highly recommended as part of the series or a stand-alone.

What in the world?

Who speaks like this? The characters are smart and the male is formal because of his job, but there is no personality in the way they speak. I wasn’t rooting for them to get together because I wasn’t given enough of them to care, so when they started talking about being interested in each other I was genuinely surprised. Even though I knew I had chosen a Christmas romance to listen to, the “romance” came out of nowhere because neither of the main characters have a romantic bone in their bodies. I had to DNF during the sex scene because of the strange and formal way it was described. It was like listening to robots get it on. And the audiobook narrator made it 10,000 times worse with her choppy and mono tone reading. The story had potential, but on the whole it gave me the ick.