Reviewed by Sadonna
TITLE: Christmas Spirit
AUTHOR: Annabelle Jacobs
PUBLISHER: Self-published
LENGTH: 270 pages
RELEASE DATE: November 24, 2022
BLURB:
Dylan’s Cornish retreat wasn’t supposed to include a hot bloke and a cupid-playing ghost…
After tearing his Achilles tendon, recuperating by the sea sounds like a fantastic idea, and Dylan happily accepts his best mate’s offer to stay with him and his uncle for a few weeks. But he hadn’t counted on the uncle being smoking hot, or the fierce attraction that blossoms between them.
Swapping the busy streets of London for the easy pace of Cornish life is exactly what Gareth needs to move on with his own life. His new home requires a little TLC, but he’d expected that. What he hadn’t expected was the ghostly resident already living there.
A ten-year age gap isn’t the only issue standing between Dylan and Gareth. Their time together has an expiration date. By Christmas, Dylan will be back home in Bristol spending the holidays with his dad, leaving Gareth all alone. Luckily for them, a matchmaking Christmas Spirit has other ideas.
A Christmas MM romance featuring a meet-cute, pining, a meddling ghost, a teeny bit of angst, and a festive HEA.
REVIEW:
Gareth and Dylan share a few minutes at a store when Dylan experiences an injury. Gareth offers to take him to A&E, but Dylan declines since the guy is a stranger. He explains he’s a vet and he can’t leave and animal or human in pain if he can help. Turns out Dylan has ruptured his Achilles tendon and it’s going to be disability for him for a bit. His bestie Josh offers to take him to Cornwall with him while he works on home renovations for his uncle – at least it’ll get him out of the house he shares with his father none too peacefully and it’s a change of scenery.
Dylan set off for Cornwall and lo and behold, Josh’s Uncle? The aforementioned Gareth. So quite a surprise to both guys. It’s clear there is an attraction there but yeah, not going there with the best mate’s uncle/nephew’s best mate. But they have a hard time ignoring their feelings 😉
As they weeks go by, we get to know about Gareth’s breakup and his new start in Cornwall. Dylan also has conflicted feelings about changing his life and leaving his father if he were to move. Frankly both men have some obstacles to face with moving on with their lives. Luckily they have plenty of help – mostly unrequested 😉
This was a sweet slow-burn, fairly low-angst story. I really liked the dual POV so that we really understood where both Dylan and Gareth were coming from as they tried to deal with their attraction and what they perceived as the potential landmines in a relationship between them – whether because of an age-gap (10 years, which isn’t actually huge) or family stuff. The supporting characters were fun and definitely added to the story. Agatha the ghostly helper was great 🙂 I would love a book about Josh actually – maybe a future book? I’m generally a fan of this author’s writing and her holiday stories in particular are consistently engaging and full of that English Christmas charm. If you’re looking for a fun and rather unique ghostly holiday story with a guaranteed HEA, you can’t go wrong with this one. Recommended.
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