Reviewed by: Sue Eaton
TITLE: Cyborgs Save Christmas
SERIES: Must Be Aliens
AUTHOR: Toshi Drake
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 182 pages
RELEASE DATE: November 15, 2023
BLURB:
With time running out, can Tobias and Malik find a way to be together forever or are they destined for a lonely Christmas?
Finding an alien cyborg in the town park wasn’t something Tobias Prince figured on. He was only taking a breather from family drama when he discovered the spaceship hiding. He hadn’t counted on the giant robot following him home either.
But when Malik Io took off his powersuit and revealed the person inside, Tobias was smitten.
Malik Io crash landed on a planet distant from his own. His only hope at survival is reliant on the kindness of strangers. When he meets a young man tired and exhausted, he is struck by Tobias’s reluctant kindness. He knows that anything more than friendship is dangerous, considering that remaining on Earth is dangerous to his health, but Malik can’t help falling for Tobias.
With Christmas on its way, Malik and Tobias succumb to the nature of Christmas, bonding over Christmas baking, celebrating the town’s Light Up night and decorating a tree with friends and fall in love, despite knowing their time is limited.
REVIEW:
A Christmas book with a sci fi twist. I really enjoyed this book, it has all the elements of Christmas you want, decorating the tree, angst with family, love, and acceptance with found family, baking cookies and of course no holiday would be complete without an alien you found in the wood.
Malik was following a comet and ended up crashing on Earth with a damaged spaceship. He is a cyborg, a mixture of machine and organic flesh, with a comparable appearance to human but with enhanced machine features. He is only looking for some help, so he can find the parts he needs to fix his spaceship and go home. He finds much more than he was looking for when he meets Tobias.
Tobias is sweet and strong, despite his insecurities and anxieties, which he manages with the help of his friends, though sometimes they are compounded by the way his family treat him, especially his mother. He lives in a shared house with his friends who he considers his found family. They are a group of people who are considered misfits by others but who are intensely loyal and have deep bonds of friendship, it’s not all sweetness and light and they fight and squabble like any family does.
It was lovely to see the relationship develop between Malik and Tobias, despite knowing that Malik’s time on Earth is short and that he must return to the stars and his home. Earth is incompatible to Malik and the energy he needs to sustain his machine side, so despite his blossoming relationship with Tobias it was never a question of him staying.
Malik gives Tobias the strength to stand up to his domineering mother and unconditional support. Tobias gives Malik all the Christmas traditions, baking and decorating and everything he needs to know about how to celebrate Christmas in style. They both spend all the time they can together and slowly but surely fall in love. It is a bittersweet love, as they both know their time is limited and neither can see a way around this. Malik can’t stay and he can’t ask Tobias to give up everything and everyone he loves, or can he? If he can find the courage to ask what will Tobias do?
This book is joyous and filled with Christmas cheer, I also really liked all the secondary characters that made up Tobias’s found family, they are all unique and I’m hoping they each get a book within this series as I’m sure they each have their own story to tell.
RATING: 
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