Nicholas “Coal” Claus used to love Christmas. Until his father, the reigning Santa, turned the holiday into a PR façade. Coal will do anything to escape the spectacle, including getting tangled in a drunken, supremely hot make-out session with a beautiful man behind a seedy bar one night.

But the heir to Christmas is soon commanded to do his duty: he will marry his best friend, Iris, the Easter Princess and his brother’s not-so-secret crush. A situation that has disaster written all over it.

Things go from bad to worse when a rival arrives to challenge Coal for the princess’s hand…and Coal comes face-to-face with his mysterious behind-the-bar hottie: Hex, the Prince of Halloween.

It’s a fake competition between two holiday princes who can’t keep their hands off each other over a marriage of convenience that no one wants. And it all leads to one of the sweetest, sexiest, messiest, most delightfully unforgettable love stories of the year.

The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch is delightfully charming, a callback to all the Christmas rom-coms I loved to watch when I was younger. I love the introduction to Coal and especially his meet-cute with Hex, even though he has no idea who Hex is. And as he realizes how much he likes Hex, things only get more complicated from there.

What I like the best is that the author doesn’t shy away from the complications. Neither character is perfect but instead both are layered and their dynamic is rich. Coal must grapple with what he really wants and find a solution even though he doesn’t want to make things worse. What makes this so delightfully charming is the way that he listens to his friends, his brother and Hex, learning to have a foundation of small joys and small changes that lead to happiness. And the text conversations between all the characters are just adorable. 

If you like Christmas romance, Halloween characters, complex characters and charming moments, this novel is for you. The characters dynamic is beautiful and this is a joyous romance that is sweet and sexy.

Rating: 5 out of 5 cups of hot chocolate