Reviewed by Sarina

TITLE: So This is Christmas

SERIES: The Adrien English Mysteries #7

AUTHOR: Josh Lanyon

PUBLISHER: JustJoshin Publishing

LENGTH: 127 pages

RELEASE DATE: January 5, 2017

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God Help You Merry Gentlemen…

Arriving home early after spending Christmas in jolly old England, sometimes amateur sleuth Adrien English discovers alarming developments at Cloak and Dagger Books–and an old acquaintance seeking help in finding his missing boyfriend.

Fortunately, Adrien just happens to know a really good private eye…

REVIEW:

Anyone familiar with The Adrien English Mysteries series should also be familiar with the contentious relationship between Adrien and Jake. All of the stories up to this point were basically guaranteed to have two things; a pretty darn good mystery and more of the on again/off again shenanigans between the main characters…at least until the last major novel came out. When Jake finally got his shtick together and Adrien was finally slated to get his happily ever after, I heard Angels sing and the tune they were belting out had a chorus of its about damn time! I honestly thought that would be the end of the series and I was content with that…and then So This is Christmas was released; I’m fairly certain those same hymn singing Angels are now gearing up for an encore.

As far as mysteries go, this was the most laid back out of the ones I’ve read in the series so far but that was okay because the rest of the book kind of made up for that. Back from England, Jake is hired to find a missing person who just happens to be the boyfriend of the man that has asked Adrien for help.  While he moves forward with his investigation, Jake and Adrien are also settling farther into their now out in the open relationship; both men still suffer from bouts of insecurity, they are also putting out the effort to make what they have between them work. Most of this is on the part of Jake who’s still muddling through the aftermath of his divorce and coming out to his family, some of which is dealt with during the story. Watching Jake try, really try, has just made all the difference for me with how he’s been over the course of the series.

Like I said previously, the mystery was on the tame side but honestly, it wasn’t the focus of the story anyway; Adrien and Jake were, and that was just the way I wanted it. After everything they’ve been through up to this point, they needed some time to just be together without a lot of drama and setting the story around the holidays was the perfect backdrop for giving them that. I’m honestly not sure if this will actually be the final book in the series but, if it is, it gave me a damn near perfect ending to the rollercoaster ride that has been Jake and Adrien’s relationship. I don’t think I could’ve asked for more. Fans of this series absolutely have to pick this up and if you like reading mysteries but haven’t read these yet, you need to; the journey won’t be easy at times but the ending was well worth the wait.  4.3* rounded up to 4.5* for our rating system

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