Reviewed by Donna
TITLE: The Holiday Hoax
AUTHOR: Skylar M. Cates
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 83 Pages
BLURB:
I’m Evan Goodman, budding actor, future star, college freshman. Oh, and let’s not forget—recently dumped. If only my family wasn’t expecting to meet my new boyfriend over the holiday break. Enter JD Laurens—a sweet and quiet science major who mostly keeps to himself. When he gathers the courage to come out, poor JD gets abandoned by his only family right in front of me, and now he has nowhere to go for Christmas. But I have a proposition for him: pretend to be my boyfriend for the holidays so I can take him home. It’s a win-win. What could go wrong?
REVIEW:
For Evan Goodman college was meant to be his time to shine. He was going to score the lead role in all the plays, he’d have more friends than he could count and his sexy prince charming was going to sweep him off his feet. Yeah, not quite how it worked out. He did manage to hook up with one guy, but where Evan was seeing hearts and flowers and proudly informing his parents all about his “boyfriend Tyler”, Tyler was just using him to pass time until the guy he really wanted showed interest. Now it’s time to head home for the holidays and face his family without the boyfriend he raved about.
A last minute coffee and muffin run leads him to witness the coming out and rejection of JD, a fellow student he recognizes as living in his dorm, by JD’s brother. Unable to watch JD walk away with nowhere to go and no other family to turn to Evan convinces JD that he needs him to play the part of Tyler so his family won’t discover the sad state of his love life.
The story is told in first person from Evan’s point of view and he has no trouble shining as the star of the tale. As he once joyfully informed his family, his inner light is a disco ball and he certainly succeeds in dazzling the much quieter JD. Despite the brief length of the story, by the end I felt well acquainted with Evan. JD was harder to get a read on. He comes across as a farm boy who is out of his element at college and needs protecting but at the same time is ready to stand up and protect Evan. The boys were super cute together and Evan’s parents and sisters provided a fun family holiday backdrop for their romance.
I actually expected the story to be a little less lighthearted considering the deception Evan and JD were trying to pull off. There was also the concern that Tyler may suddenly turn up and make a scene that would send JD running. Thankfully the author kept it pretty carefree which is exactly what I look for in these Christmas shorts. The epilogue was just the icing on the cake. (A tasty cake – not Christmas cake cause nobody actually likes that stuff.)
RATING: 
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