Reviewed by Sadonna
TITLE: New Year Not You
AUTHOR: Edie Montreux
PUBLISHER: Self-published
LENGTH: 235 pages
RELEASE DATE: November 23, 2021
BLURB:
Last year, law student Brady Madison’s binge drinking left him naked, unconscious, and in trouble with the law. Now 350 days sober and with only two weeks to serve the last twelve hours of community service, Brady’s faced with another difficult choice: take an offer from the jerk who took the incriminating pics or spend the remaining hours in jail.
Tate Quinn’s snap judgment in Brady’s hotel room on New Year’s Eve ruined any chance he had of hooking up with Brady. Worse, his parents refuse to pay for another semester of grad school until he makes his mom’s New Year’s charity event a success.
Tate needs a volunteer to help him herd the cats, er, kids, at the New Year’s Eve afternoon party, and Brady has always been good with kids. Can they put aside their past anger and shame for six hours, or will these potential lovers turned enemies resolve to remain enemies in the new year?
New Year Not You is a 63k-word enemies to lovers M/M romance between a recovering alcoholic and a recovering man-child. This novel has an AA sponsor moonlighting as a DJ, a cold war between two moms, and two dudes who are not looking for true love (but find it anyway).
REVIEW:
Brady and Tate have been dancing around each other since they were adolescents attending the same Catholic church. Both are gay – although only Brady is out. They have their real first conversation at a mutual friend’s “drunken orgy” party a few days before New Years and they also share their first kiss. Brady has issues – he’s a binge drinking alcoholic who is about the flunk out of Law School if he doesn’t get it together. Tate is about to flunk out of his first semester of Med School – he can’t tolerate blood. Tate asks Brady to be his date to his parents big annual New Year’s fundraising party where he makes a speech every year. Tate says yes, he’ll be there after his mother’s Kid’s charity party that he has to run.
Turns out the kid’s party is an unmitigated disaster and so Tate is running super late. He doesn’t get to the party until almost midnight – so he misses Brady’s speech and hears that he’s taken off the other out gay guy/drag queen. Tate is jealous and angry and when he discovers Brady passed out and naked in his hotel suite, he assumes the worst, taking pictures and sending them to a mutual friend and setting off a firestorm and getting Brady arrested for property damage, etc. It’s a real mess. And you can bet Brady does NOT want to see Tate every again.
Fast forward 350 days and Brady is close to getting his 1 year chip. His sponsor is a wonderful grandmother who moonlights as a DJ. She works with Brady on his 200 hours of Community Service too and she has helped him immeasurably to grow up and accept responsibility. He’s definitely working the program. So imagine his surprise when he runs into Tate not just once, but twice in the days before Christmas. He really doesn’t want to deal with him, but when Tate’s mother is there, he doesn’t feel like he has a choice. Then his family also insists that he help Tate and his mother with the Kid’s party – not just to fulfill his community service obligations but to also keep Tate’s mother out of Brady’s mother’s hair.
Brady begins to spend more time with Tate’s family as it gets closer to Christmas and after the fallout with his own family, he really notices the difference. His Christmas plans with his family pretty much amount to nothing, so Tate invites him to spend the time again with his family again and he’s happy to accept. It’s obvious that Tate’s family really care about each other. His little sister Kara is a hoot and she knows Brady from when he worked at her daycare. They also need the time to plan the children’s party and Brady is a natural. But they also try to work on maybe being more than friends. Brady is afraid of the guy who caused him so much trouble and Tate is worried that he’ll never be enough for Brady since he’s a grad school dropout now without a job. It’s going to take more than a couple of parties and a heartfelt speech to put things right for them. They are both going to have to put aside their fears to make things work.
This was a good book that I think could have been even better with a little tighter editing. There were just places where I felt the story dragged a bit. It took me several days to read so that’s an indication that I wasn’t fully engaged. I found the timeline a little confusing at the beginning and a couple of times I wasn’t entirely certain whose POV I was reading until I read a little further. I didn’t really like either of the MCs at first. They both seems kind of selfish and clueless – which it turns out was kind of the point 🙂 It took some hard knocks for both Brady and Tate to start to get their acts together. I was also confused about the rivalry between the two moms. I never did get a handle as to why they were so at odds with each other. I did love Russell/Lola and I hope we get another story starring them. I loved Tate’s mother and his little sister Kara. Brady’s coworkers were also characters that provided another perspective in the story. My overall impression was that that while there was a little too much going on in this story, I did appreciate the trajectory of Brady and Tate’s lives and relationship. They really did have to made some big changes in order to have a shot at making anything work between them. Recommended for fans of overcoming big obstacles to get their HEA, enemies to lovers and new adult stories.
RATING: 
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