A Holly Jolly Ever After: A Christmas Notch Novel (A Christmas Notch)

Kallum is a prior member of INK. It's a band that him and his two best friends started back when they were still in high school. Kallum loved touring and singing with his best friends; however, he always felt like the third wheel in a sense. He was the heavier, less talented one of the three so he made up for it by being the fun loving guy who didn't mind "helping" bridesmaids by being the good luck charm to finding their forever love. (There might be a naughty tape involved.)Winnie grew up with purity drilled into her from not only her parents but the church. She married her husband right after turning eighteen and thought they would be together forever....until he cheated on her. Everyone tried to talk her into fixing things with her husband but there was a new Winnie on the horizon and she was going to start making choices and decisions for herself.Winnie needed to find a way to get her life back on track after her image became tarnished. She wasn't the pretty little pure good girl anymore. Then in walks Steph, the perfect manager to turn the scandal into a new image and the money that Winnie desperately needed. So off to Christmas Notch to film a risqué Christmas movie opposite Kallum...the one man that started the downfall of Winnie's perfect image.One of the first things you learn about Winnie is that she is so pure (thanks to her upbringing) that she had never explored all the possibilities in the bedroom. Even though she was married for over a decade, she never finished. Now she was filming a movie that required she fake it on screen and well that was not good. Not to mention her male costar is a viking come to life. Big hands, thick thighs and a beard. Attraction definitely wasn't their problem but the mental block that Winnie faced was sad in my opinion.As someone who grew up in the church community, I totally get Winnie's struggles. There is a constant drilling into young women's head about purity. This book really dives deep into that. Seeing Winnie struggle to overcome those burdens is extremely relatable to a lot of women. What I truly loved to read about was Kallum's understanding and support when it came to those struggles.The book is in two parts and I think the plot develops a bit more in part two. However, I feel as though the conflict that Winnie and Kallum face is kind of childish and not really realistic. As in, if it was a conflict that an actual couple in their thirties faced it would have been discussed and figured out within minutes probably. However, in the book it is drawn out and made to be more than it was. That's why I gave it a four star rating.The spice is great in the book. Winnie had never "finished" and Kallum was the first to get her there but then they took the "research" to a whole new level for her. She pretty much lives out her teenage craze in her thirties because she finally realizes what she missed out on. Kallum was definitely the right partner for that as well.Overall, it was a great book. You get spice, real life struggles, a caring MMC and of course plenty of Christmas. You should definitely add it to your winter TBR.

I loved this book! The characters, the setting, the humor, and even the (for me) all-too-real/triggering purity culture trauma that gets explored. Of course the steam is guaranteed sky-high when you’re reading these authors, but more than that, the story is compelling and the characters are enchanting. This was such a lovely read with such interesting characters, and I couldn’t help but miss LA while reading it also. Honestly, I couldn’t put it down apart from when my Kindle threatened to die and I had to sleep. A heartwarming, messy, modern love story. Highly recommend!

So I absolutely adored A Merry Little Meet Cute and was looking forward to this book from the moment I knew it was going to be a thing. Kallum and his dad bod cinnamon roll self just seemed the perfect character. I like that we brought Winnie in, and I thought it was interesting that she was still recovering from purity culture. I think the authors did a phenomenal job of making this book very sex positive. Kallum was precious and perfect for helping Winnie discover herself. However, I was vastly disappointed with this book. For one Winnie was 32 and had been married for 14 years, and yet she literally turned into a teenager for 90% of the book in regards to sexual activity. It was sort of hard to take things seriously because of this. I’m never one to be upset that some spice is in a book, but I felt like unlike MLMC, this one had hardly any storyline that wasn’t related to these two having sex. Not to mention they basically fall in love after 3 weeks of knowing each other. Winnie just became very stereotypical, which sucked because I wanted to like her. I won’t tell the most insulting parts of this book so as not to spoil anything. But basically for me this is when the book became unbearable. Like it’s not required to throw this into a fun romance novel… and then adding some unnecessary but typical scares along the way…. Honestly the only thing that salvaged part two of this book was getting Nolan and Bee back in the story. The side characters made this one and I hope we get an Issac story or even a Teddy story coming next. But this one let me down…

✔️ Dual POVs (Kallum x Winnie with two chapters of Teddy)✔️ Contemporary romance set in LA, Vermont, and Kansas City✔️ Open door romance 4/5 🌶️✔️ Tropes: Secret baby, forced proximity, miscommunicationKallum is a former boy band member who is cast as the lead in a racy Christmas movie. His costar is another former teen idol, Winner Baker, who has just found herself cast out of the Christian entertainment industry after her divorce — but she can’t “fake it” on screen because she has no real-world experience. That’s part one of the book, which I would have been perfectly happy with alone.Yet, the story continues in part two, where Winnie finds herself pregnant (out of wedlock!). She doesn’t trust her baby daddy to grow up and be the partner she deserves. This second half felt like a different book, but I enjoyed each one their own.Feel free to read outside the holiday season. Other than the movie setting, there’s not too much Christmas.

Super enjoyed this story of Kallum getting his HEA. I know that Winnie was a part of it as well but really she seemed needy and a little irritating and blaming her past for EVERYTHING but immediately runs right back to it.I am happy with how Kallum sticks in there and didn't let Winnie's emotional rollercoaster to put him off or change how he handled himself. What you read is what you got with him.If you don't like spicy then definitely don't read. So many scenes while Winnie discovers herself.

Sadly these aren’t getting much better. I found myself just rushing through the audiobook just to finish it. I wasn’t that invested at all. And these random teddy moments. Like what?

I loved reading “A Merry Little Meet Cute” last Christmas, so it was a given that I was going to read this one as soon as I could, and guess what? I loved this one too. Kallum & Winnie’s story was the perfect romance to warm me up. It was fun, cute and contained an ending that made me swoon. If you haven’t yet read this series of standalone holiday love, I definitely recommend adding both books to your TBR.

Ever since I read A Merry Little Cute Meet last Christmas I've been looking forward to Kallum & Winnie's book.I adored both Winnie & Kallum as characters, I thought they were both incredibly likable but I felt like the pace was just a little off.  A lot of important scenes have been skipped over in the interest of continually showing how Winnie couldn't rely on Kallum and then including stuff that didn't really add a huge amount to moving the story forward. The story was just kind of all over the place…. characters were doing things and making pretty major plot point decisions off page which made it confusing and seemingly come from nowhere. Unfortunately there was an awful lot of telling rather than showing in the writing.But I really did enjoy the actual story itself and I loved the characters…. It's definitely got me in a festive mood but it just didn't hit in terms of storytelling.

Just as the headline said it’s brilliant and not really at Christmas but fake Christmas which makes it crazier and so so funny

Having spent last Christmas with Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone at Christmas Notch, I was very happy to return this year! Kallum was such a loveable fool (in the nicest was possible) and I desperately want to go to Slice, Slice Baby for some pizza!This writing duo really know how to write the heat into a book, I love the steamy scenes in this series, and I love how they came about in A Holly Jolly Ever After. Winnie and Kallum were so cute and I’m looking forward to seeing more from them (and Bee and Nolan) in future books.Speaking of… Isaac and Sunny, please????

I don't know what's gotten into Sierra Simone recently, but nothing she's been writing has matched the quality of her earlier works. This story felt disjointed, awkwardly paced, and the character development was not executed well.Both MCs were unlikable, and I struggled to find redeeming qualities. I think there was so much potential for a good novel, but it was wasted on poorly written chapters and unnecessary breakups.I'm waiting for Simone to impress me again, but until then, I'm back on my Cis-Het White X Cis-Het White love hiatus.