The devil's in the details, and that's where this one fell apart. A decent enemies-to-lovers romance between childhood next door neighbors gets lost in the shoddy background and world-building (something I don't usually say about generic contemporary romance!)
Ronan (H) is a college football player home for the Christmas holidays. Gigi (h) is his next door neighbor and target of his childhood pranks growing up. He thinks she is a stick-in-the-mud, while she plain ol' hates his guts. They are volunteered by their moms to serve as Santa and Mrs. Claus in the town's annual festivities. Can they survive the season without killing each other? Or - with a touch of family meddling - could there be something more there?
So, those devilish details. It's like the author started writing about college age characters, but was pulling in details and character attributes from a story about full adults - mid to late 20s. Basically, things weren't consistent, as if the writer couldn't decide who she was writing about, or was combining lots of scenes from other stories (patchwork writing?). Examples:
* Both leads are students, supposedly in their senior year (she's taking MCATs and he's looking at NFL possibilities). But he'll "just quit" to be with her - a semester before he graduates??
* The whole 5 year relationship with James. She's taking her MCATs, so she's a senior, presumably. Which means, if they'd been together 5 years, he's from her home town and they'd been dating in high school. But that doesn't seem to be the case at all?
* They talk about themselves "acting like teenagers," horny, idiotic, or otherwise. Except these characters are still in college. College seniors don't really talk like that - they're only 22 themselves (on average). It sounded more like someone in their mid-upper 20s would talk.
* Likewise, Lance seems so weird, the way they talk about him as 'a frat boy gone to seed'. Again, these are all contemporaries, so they're all in their early 20s. That just doesn't sound right for a 22 yr old talking about another 22 yr old. And Lance didn't go to college - older adults might call him a frat boy even if he hadn't been to college, but another college student wouldn't. Another example sounding like the way someone a little older would talk (and in that case, if they were all in their upper 20s, the story might have been written that Lance had been a college classmate, making this potentially an accurate description). Again, like the author changed her mind about the characters and setting while she was writing.
* Ronan seems super unconcerned about his ankle injury for someone on a sports scholarship so close to graduation and/or signing a pro contract. I get the "wanting something more than football" but this was a bit much.
* Speaking of attitudes about his football... she talks about him already having a "booming career." Except he doesn't. He's a student playing football, not a pro. He might know he wants to play football (which isn't even the case), but until he has a signed contract, he's actually in a very precarious position. Not a booming career at all.
* Liam is a mess, descriptively. He's older than Ronan by 2 years. Ronan's a senior, so even if he's a 5th yr sr (was a red shirt freshman, maybe), that puts him at 23-24 at most. Which makes Liam 25-26ish. But he describes himself as "a thirty-year-old temporarily living at his mother’s house." But he's not temporarily living with his mom - he's home for the holidays. Huge difference!! For someone mature enough to be living alone in Manhattan, teaching at a community college (working on his Master's, as we find out in the Book 2 preview), and aware enough of others to accurately play Matchmaker, he then flips and acts like he's still in high school! He's just all over the place.
* The setting is a descriptive mess too. Danville apparently has a massive Christmas parade where they will custom tailor Santa suits for two college students (who probably won't be back next year) but the Nutcracker production is sad and pathetic and barely attended? And even if the former Claus volunteers weren't available this year, wouldn't there have been someone to take their place who was (a) closer to the actual age and build of the characters, and (b) a settled local?
* Ronan is a player for Northwestern - located in Illinois. The story takes place 'back home' in Connecticut. So what team is he practicing with in CT over the holiday break?
* Who the heck are the Flames? Northwestern is the Wildcats and Rutgers the Scarlet Knights. Is the Flames a fictitious NFL team? But a local comments that Ronan is - present tense - the QB for the Flames??
* They move in together 3 months after they start dating. While they're both still finishing their senior years? Three months after Christmas is March - midterms in Spring semester, at best! Certainly not at a point where they could move intogether, seeing as their schools are Illinois and New Jersey.
* At the end, he's making money as an Instagram influencer. Has he graduated? Because if not, that's completely against NCAA regulations.
And aside from those big picture issues, there are little continuity inconsistencies that could be distracting too. She's wearing a little black dress in the restuarant, but jeans in the car on the ride home. Or how she noticed he had shaved at the beginning of their date, but by the end, she's running her fingers over his stubble. That sort of thing.
Minor quibble time. While the epilogue has a cute proposal, what tree topper is small enough to be mistaken for a ring box? Would have been much more believable if it had been an ornament and not specifically a tree topper - those are always so much bigger.
Finally, there are some just weird character comments, mostly from Gigi. She comments at one point that James "couldn’t pluck up the courage to knock." But he had just rung the doorbell... Does knocking take more courage than ringing? I wasn't aware. Or how - in apparent Deep Self Reflection - she "get[s] hurt too easily. First James, now Ronan." Um, James was (apparently) a 5 year relationship, and she hadn't even really cried over him. None of that really the sign of someone who gets 'hurt too easily.' And shouldn't it have legitimately been a hurt anyways? Even though it turned out not to really be, he dumped her out of the blue after all! That sort of break-up, especially in a long-term relationship, if definitely not 'getting hurt too easily.'
Also weird character moments - why were the moms so close? I can get it on the surface, both being single moms next door to each other with kids about the same age. But with the boys playing pranks on Gigi for a decade or more, if the moms were friends, why hadn't they had a serious Come To Jesus moment with the boys about picking on Gigi? It seemed weird that the moms were so close when the children were so blatantly antagonistic. Of course, they were both very weirdly meddlesome, so maybe they bonded over that.
At least it was well edited from a technical standpoint, and a free find on Kindle too.
Alternating 1st person POV. No cheating, no OW/OM drama, no love triangles. Some minor trouble from his brother and his former best friend (not really enough to be full OM/Mean Guy drama). Juvenile banter and quibbling and attitudes from most of the characters, which could have been more fun, but a lot of the character and setting development left it a mush. They'd flip from sounding juvenile (and probably accurate for being about 22-23) to sounding like they're 5 yrs older. Rather a mess. HEA and no cliffhangers. Epilogue about a year down the road.
Would I read more from this author? Maybe, but not as a high priority and certainly not Liam's story. I don't like teacher/student stories anyways, but in the preview for the next book, his h (Blair, I think?) sounds extra irritating. The spoiled "I screwed up, but you have to fix my grade anyway, and you owe me special consideration for being your best student" attitude. A Karen in the making. Not someone I'd look forward to reading. And in a trope I don't like anyways? Yeah, big nope.