Reviewed by Larissa
TITLE: Kind Hearts at Christmas: MM Romance Charity Anthology
AUTHOR: Liam Livings and various authors
PUBLISHER: Self-published
LENGTH: 757 pages
RELEASE DATE: December 1, 2022
BLURB:
Kind Hearts At Christmas is an mm romance anthology in support of HIV / AIDS charities.
It’s Christmas…it’s snowing, there are gifts to give and receive, trees to decorate and all the great food to enjoy. It’s a time to spread kindness where men are falling in love, lust and everything in between.
From a school reunion, a morning after a one-night stand, university friends, a secret agent, an ex-husband in a coma, an unemployed truck driver, a naked man in a snowstorm, a village policeman, a motherless boy, Kind Hearts At Christmas has something for everyone. Each story features romance between men during the Christmas holidays, as they express their desires, from sweet kisses, up to spicy so-much-more.
Kind Hearts At Christmas has all the tropes including: snowed in, cowboys, holiday, forced proximity, fairy-tale folklore, established couple, adult film star, only one bed, return to hometown, hurt/comfort, school crushes, opposites attract, good boy/bad boy, found family & enemies to lovers.
Grab some hot chocolate sprinkled with marshmallows, indulge in a mince pie or a slice of Christmas cake, curl up and escape into the Christmassy romance. With thirteen stories by some of your favourite mm romance authors, you’re sure to find something to help you rediscover the joy and kindness of Christmas!
Make sure you don’t miss buying your copy.
Stories are between 7,000 words (22 pages) to 27,000 words (86 pages) the anthology features stories by:
Sue Brown
Joanna Chambers
Barbara Elsborg
Suki Fleet
Amber Kell
Liam Livings
Clare London
Susan Mac Nicol
Louisa Mae
Jackie North
Jack L. Pyke
Ali Ryecart
K C Wells
AIDS United’s mission is to end the HIV epidemic in the United States. Half the profits from the sale of this anthology will support AIDS United’s work to ensure access to HIV testing, treatment and care in the United States.
This charity anthology is in support of Terrence Higgins Trust (THT), with 50% of profits from its sale going to THT. THT is the UK’s leading HIV and sexual health charity. We support people living with HIV and amplify their voices, and help the people using our services to achieve good sexual health. Our mission is to end new HIV transmissions in the UK by 2030, and to bring an end to stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV. By purchasing this anthology, you are supporting us, alongside AIDS United, as we work towards our vision of a world where people living with HIV lead healthy lives free from prejudice, and good sexual health is a right and reality for all.
REVIEW:
Kind Hearts at Christmas is a charity anthology worth owning, if for no other reason than the cause it’s for. However, the collection provides hours of reading enjoyment through holiday stories that embrace the generosity of heart and spirit, especially but not exclusively at holiday time. The short stories in this anthology contain a myriad of tropes and romance subgenres. If you enjoy paranormal, fantasy, sci-fi or magic, you’ll find many offerings here to quench that thirst. It’s also an opportunity to be introduced to authors you may never have read before.
While all enjoyable, some of the stories are better than others, and not all of them are romances, notwithstanding how the anthology is billed. I’ve provided more specific details on a few of the stories in this anthology, including what I consider to be the best two: Barbara Elsborg’s A Spaceman Came Traveling, and Suki Fleet’s Ethan Gold Feels Like Home. My overall rating for the anthology reflects the average rating of all of the stories.
Overall, I recommend Kind Hearts at Christmas and hope that you carry that spirit forward into your own holiday season.
A Spaceman Came Traveling – Barbara Elsborg 
Barbara Elsborg’s writing consistently draws you into her stories, with colorful, interesting characters that we immediately connect with. A Spaceman Came Traveling is quite an unusual and also poignant story, especially reading about Seven and his generosity, despite that he is all alone with no friends or family of his own, barely getting by. His attitude is so positive, perhaps because he is used to receiving so little. It’s all about perspective, and his overarching goal makes him grateful for anything and everything that serves that purpose. There’s a bit of a Cinderella and her wicked stepsisters element to the story, but Elsborg moves away from that fairly quickly, even though it is a component of Seven’s situation. I wish this story had more time to develop. The relationship between Seven and Cooper deserved more time, especially given Seven’s secret, which really tilts not only Cooper’s world on its axis, but the story as well. Overall, I enjoyed this sweet, quirky, impactful romance a great deal.
Ethan Gold Feels Like Home – Suki Fleet 
This story has a strong fable/fairytale feel to it, and we are immediately pulled into the swirling mystery and perilous situation of Win and Ethan. The story contains tension and desperation from start to finish. The love story that unfurls within the storyline is really secondary to the plot, but it’s what packs the emotional punch. Not a lot happens here, and yet so much happens … you’ll understand what I mean when you read this absorbing story. And you definitely should, especially if you like fantasy romance.
My Christmas Nemesis – Sue Brown – 
This story didn’t work for me because Aaron is Laurence’s nemesis only in Laurence’s mind. The animosity between the two men felt manufactured. This story centers around a forced proximity, Christmas Eve scenario, where these two men find themselves working the same late night shift at the store where they work. Laurence has been assiduously avoiding Aaron for eighteen months, ever since Laurence overheard Aaron agreeing with a coworker who called Laurence a “loser”. Obviously, Laurence’s extreme reaction is rooted not just in the hurt and humiliation of overhearing such a comment, but because he’s frustratingly attracted to Aaron, so he feels jealous and betrayed. This is a short story without a lot of pages to work with, yet Brown uses the bulk of them on Laurence’s, frankly juvenile, machinations to avoid Aaron. The enemies-to-lovers romance develops rapidly and resolves abruptly. The story has good bones, but wasn’t developed effectively in my opinion.
The Christmas Pony – Jackie North – 
Only Jackie North can take something simple like a lonely, unemployed, grieving truck driver delivering a pony through a blizzard and turn it into pages of gorgeous, vivid, detailed prose full of heart and meaning. Here, we get the story of Ty, whose father recently suddenly passed away, and who is now on his last delivery before his employment is terminated with the trucking company he and his father worked for. Ty is now all alone, feeling hopeless and lost, not sure what comes next for him, but he assumes it will be nothing but bad things. Leave it to the residents of Farthingdale Ranch to bring back the beauty of love, family, and belonging and the Christmas spirit he’d lost. North’s preternatural ability to make you feel through simple yet impactful prose shines through here, and she does a yeoman’s job in just a scant few pages in immersing us in all the sights, sounds, and emotions of the scene. My only complaint about this story is that it is not a romance, and the plot really called for one. I finished the story with a feeling of incompleteness because I wanted to see the next stage of Ty’s journey with his newfound family at Farthingdale Ranch. Maybe North is just teasing us, setting the stage for a Farthingdale Ranch romance to come, featuring Ty. We can only hope …
RATING:
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