I really debated between 3 and 4 stars on this one. Helen and Matty are fine, not my personal faves in this universe, but I enjoyed seeing them fleshed out all the same. And I was eager for the continuing plot threads here, but overall it just dragged. Much too long a story and I think sticking with the POV of just the two characters here was a detriment to the overall storyline. That’s actually true of this subseries in general. I almost think it could have worked better spreading the romance/POVs out across the books in order to better tell the story, sort of like CM Nascosta’s Girls Weekend books. Don’t get me wrong, I still love this series, but I’m excited to get back to the Risdaverse stuff.

Maybe I shouldn’t have read a Christmas one in July, but hard meh on this one. I think maybe I just wasn’t invested in Devin and her unsolicited Christmas quest? Honestly, the scenes with just Sinath and Liesje were more interesting to me. And did I spend most of the book hoping Liesje was going to turn out to be Jewish just to rub Devin’s assumptions in her face?

Another cute one! And very sexy, I really loved all their interactions. Only dropped a star because we don’t really see any of the romance. And Ainar seemed wildly unconcerned with being a dad? Like completely not discussed at all, not even when deciding whether he should knock her up or not. Basically the whole pregnancy was just used as a plot-device for the sex, which FINE, but at least acknowledge it’s a big decision?

I liked this one a lot. I’m going to suspect that some people won’t like Hannah, but it seemed to me like she handled things in a certain way that made sense to her— or even when she KNEW it didn’t make sense, she had to have her own process. I had a few issues with her not understanding the timeline (we know she was taken in 2015, but so was Harlow who has been on Not-Hoth for 8 years, why would Hannah think she is going back to her book launch?) but I think it was pretty well-established BY HER that her desire to go home wasn’t founded in any reality.

I would have loved to see the other women find out that she wrote this book though. She could start sharing it around the fire, or it would be interesting if someone was around on Earth long enough for it to get published.

I’m really excited for the next book, though. I’m hoping Devi is going to be the one to ask all the questions I have.