A Man For All Seasons was surprisingly enjoyable. I only bought this because the book was on sale at Harlequin, and I wanted a Christmasy read.
The premise sounded cute, but not romantic, the hero, Ty, buys twelve dates for his roommate Marlie to get her out of the house so he get have some alone time with his girlfriend. I wasn't sure how Heather MacAllister was going to create a believable romance since both the hero and heroine are dating other people, but I thought the author did an admirable job getting the two of them together.
The author's voice is engaging, and she managed to avoid several cliches that I thought were going to be inevitable. I loved the humor in this book, there were several moments where I actually laughed out loud. And thanks to this book, whenever I think of tinsel, I will imagine it turning the hero's "manhood" all "silver and sparkly".
A lot of this book is told from the hero's POV, Ty, who is a total dufus. A lovable one, but a total dufus. It was fun watching him struggle with the whore/madonna dichotomy. He started out convinced that Marlie was a wife/mother kind of woman, and that meant he couldn't have sexy fun times in bed with her. It takes awhile, but he eventually gets over that.
Marlie is recovering from being dumped by her fiance. And uses this gift as a way to jump back into the dating pool. I liked that she enjoyed her dates with the 12 guys. I was kinda afraid that they were going to turn out to be total duds, but instead she had fun and her flirting was cute.
The Christmas stuff was fun. I really liked that it was the hero who wanted the holiday decorations and not the heroine, which is what usually happens.
I also liked Axelle, the woman Ty was dating. She could have easily turned into the bitter other woman, but the author avoided that, and I liked how Ty's relationship with her turned out. I thought Axelle was an interesting character and I hope that we get her story someday.
This was a fluffy, fun, quick read, and I'm glad that I took a chance on a new-to-me author. I'm definitely looking forward to her next book.