Reviewed by Ro
TITLE: Our Bright Christmas Town
AUTHOR: Zarah Detand
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 110 pages
RELEASE DATE: November 7, 2025
BLURB:
One knows it’s love. The other is just figuring it out.
Ashby is not in love with his best friend.
Except that he is. And has been. Since forever.
Kieran left their tiny hometown to become a doctor in London, and Ashby—well, Ashby stayed behind, running his dad’s old business and doing odd jobs for everyone and their nan. The kind of guy you call when the sink leaks or the fairy lights need hanging. Reliable. Predictable. Entirely fine.
But now Kieran is back for Christmas, newly curious about kissing boys, and very interested in Ashby’s opinion on the matter. Ashby knows one he can’t be Kieran’s “safe” experiment. Not when he’s spent half his life trying to forget he wants more.
So he offers to wingman instead. Take Kieran to a gay bar. Help him find someone else. But when Ashby’s ex shows up and Kieran kisses him just to make a point—everything changes. Because that kiss?
It doesn’t feel hypothetical.
It feels like home.
A sweet and cosy 20k MM holiday romance novella with mutual pining, banter, childhood friends to lovers, snow, shelter dogs, and one impulsive kiss that changes everything.
REVIEW:
How painful does it have to be to be in love with your oldest, best friend and have it be unrequited? For Ash, it’s incredibly difficult, and he has been hiding it and compartmentalizing his life for years. He never has any real long term relationships because they always figure out his heart isn’t involved. They’ve been friends forever, but Kieran has gone to London for his medical residency, while Ash stayed in their small hometown. He runs his dad’s old business and does pretty much anything the people need. “I’d put down roots in the place where we’d grown up.” When Kieran becomes friends with Dom, Ash is rude to him and Kieran still doesn’t see it. Kieran does sit Ash down to tell him – you hate Dom? We will get rid of him. Thankfully, Ash is a good person and realizes what he’s doing. Even more thankfully because Dom and Kieran are fellow MDs and roommates in London. It is here that, during a dare about mistletoe, Kieran kisses Dom and realizes, “I kind of liked it? So it-you know. It made me think”. Way to blow Ash’s mind! “My stomach lurched, like I’d missed a step on the staircase and was about to go tumbling down, head over feet.”
The problem is, Kieran isn’t real clear about what he wants and Ash knows, “I’d been in love with him for…for years. Years. I couldn’t be just some experiment for him, a way to test the waters without getting wet.” I 100% understood that. It would destroy him. But a run-in with an ex brings a surprise, and things are changing. There is a point where Ash just destroyed my heart. Kieran is asking about romantic love and friendship. Ash defines it. “It’s crying yourself to sleep because your best friend just told you about his first time snogging a girl and you tried your fucking hardest to smile and ask the right questions”. And you can’t blame Kieran, he just didn’t know, about Ash or himself.
I appreciated their whole friend group, but especially Dom, who is there for Kieran, and for Ash. This story was sweet and very low angst. Just what I needed.
RATING: 
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