I was again pleasantly surprised by the responsible messages of this series. This book dealt with honesty as a foundation for a relationship, and the importance of wellness (mental, emotional, or physical) taking precedence over romance. Sometimes, people could make a good match together, but only if they're being honest with themselves and taking care of the themselves first. Otherwise, couples could simply be in the right place at the wrong time.

But this installment in the series was sloppy XD. There were whole chunks that proved that the author hadn't properly edited. Passages that basically read as, "Meh, I'll add something here later," and then she never did. The intimate scenes were generic, copy and paste from any romance novel. The plot was confusing, and a little dumb: Delphine lies to her family about being a shifter, and somehow that protects her mom? I couldn't follow why Delphine did what she did. The minute her brothers out her, her whole nuclear family reassures her that they love her, and that the conflict was all in her head. So... I don't really care that Delphine caused her own problems, then everyone told her how special she was and the problems evaporated, let's go eat croissants.

Not that the whole book was lazy or senseless. Delphine - a pacifist, or at least an avoider of confrontation - dealt with legitimate issues, like learning to set boundaries, to respect herself, and to surround herself with allies instead of toxic relations... STILL XD the book boils down to: Hey, a hot guy I just met told me not to talk to my family anymore, so I quit my day job and moved in with him! LIIIIKE.... Her internal struggle that was setup was great, but her finding resolution in Hardwick's arms didn't QUITE stick the conflict resolution well enough XD.

Plus, the turn-around for Delphine and Hardwick's love story happens SO fast. The only reason they start trusting each other is because they bone. And two people who DON'T trust each other shouldn't be boning. You see the Catch-22? Yes, they promise to learn and grow together, but there's not enough foundation for why they even like each other, as people, beyond, "Well, they were nice to me, and no one's been nice to me in a long time."

Not the best, not the worst. A bit of Christmas fluff.