Reviewed by Cindy
TITLE: Scanty Santa
AUTHOR: Troy Storm
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 30 pages
BLURB: The holidays are looking anything but happy for Evan, whose partner skipped out and left him struggling to hold on to his suburban home. Up the street, an equally hard-working Sam is also hustling to hang onto his piece of real estate. Neither has met the other until neighborly Evan offers a desperate Sam—a scantily clad Santa—a ride to his late-night stripping gig on Christmas Eve. Can this one-off adventure turn into a mortgage love affair, or will they both be left with a sock full of coal come Christmas Day?
REVIEW:
I really wanted to like this story. I love the advent calendar every year because even though I pretend to be Grinchy, I love Christmas. And happy endings at Christmas?My favorite.
Sadly, this story didn’t live up to the blurb. The biggest problem you have with a short story collection is that some stories aren’t meant to be short.
And I also realize that in romances things tend to move a long faster than real life, but this one is just too……speedy.
Evan is having a crappy holiday and all he wants is to go home and hide until it’s over. His plans are interrupted by a handsome neighbor-in-distress who has a job to get to and a broken down car.
Sam is hot enough to melt the snow in his costume and it’s not the first time Evan has noticed his eye-catching neighbor. He stops and offers him a right to his gig and ends up caught up in all the action.
And this is where it goes off course. After the legitimate gig, Evan is swept along to a second, unexpected Christmas party and becomes part of the entertainment.
And boom, that’s it. They strip together, have sex and it’s happily ever after…
It all happens so fast that your left wondering what in the hell happened and how did you get there?
I can buy the instant connection thing and even first date sex, but hey, let’s try dating for a while before deciding that this is forever and ever amen.
Also, on a personal note, I find references to “massive meat” and “power poles” cheesy and distracting.
The best rating I can do is 2.5 stars.
Cindy’s Rating: 
BUY LINK: Dreamspinner Press
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ADVENT CALENDER EVENT
Dreamspinner Press and The Blog of Sid Love bring to you an opportunity where you get to win a free set of DSP’s “Heartwarming” Advent Calender 2013. Yes! The full set with 31 stories including contributions from authors like Andrew Grey, Cardeno C., Grace R. Duncan, and many more…
If you wish to enter yourself into this contest, all you have to do is comment on every advent event post we make each day till the end of this month. Look out for titles with “Advent Calender Event” mentioned in them (such as this one) and the posts will be reviews on each and every story from this anthology.
The contest will end on 1st January, 2014 and the winners will be announced on the 2nd of January.
So, good luck to you all and Happy Holidays!
I agree that the more outlandish descriptors used do tend to pull you out of a story fast!
with all anthologies, collections such as this, you do tend to get a wide spectrum of reads – be it writing style or genre
Massive meat? Power pole? Yeah, I’d have to stop for a minute and roll my eyes. 🙂
Yeah, even quirky tidbits need to make sense. Thanks for the heads-up. Hope your next one is better Cindy!
Hmmm not sure about this one.
The blurb sounded promising but the review puts it in another light. I’m a bit on the fence about this one. Thanks for the review.
Let’s say I’d try this one out, but I pretty much cringed at the massive meat and power poles observation.
Guess they wanted all types of stories for the anthology.
I always find in an anthology there are one or two that I just can’t finish…. this sounds like one of those