The Naughty or Nice Clause by Kate Callaghan

Thank you Netgalley for sending me an eARC for an honest review.

Lyla’s dad decided to sell his shares to an outsider than his own daughter. Hence, the anger towards the stoic, blonde, type A; Mason Klaus who she is forced to share her CEO title and her office. When Mason decides to cancel the staff Christmas party, Lyla decides to throw the party behind his back. When the party results in a terrible kitchen fire, she knows she owes Mason a favor; even if it means she has to go to his hometown and visit his family as his fiancé. Only his hometown is something of a winter wonderland and his family is something out of a Christmas book…

This was so sweet and adorable! Can this please be a Hallmark Christmas Movie?! I want to see the secret village and Klaus’ family come to life. I was immediately drawn to the hate to love trope (my favorite), and the Christmas theme. If you love the Holiday season and a cute romance, this book is made for you!

Ratings -⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was such a sweet Christmas book, and it got me into my Christmas mood, and I had to bring out my Christmas playlist in October. One of the things that kind of shocked me about this book was the fact that it's kind of has like very minimum elements of the fantasy genre. I went into thinking it's a corporate enemy to lovers, but it's not at all. So this is something I want to tell people about. Also when I say minimal elements of fantasy, it's in the sense of Christmas fantasy with the north pole and stuff like that.

I loved the romance in this series so much. The MMC Klaus was such a sweetheart, and our FMC was so cute they definitely make such a cute duo. There are some really cute protective MMC scenes that I definitely swooned over. I definitely recommend it!!

This is a super cute romance that reminds me of The Santa Clause 2 movie.

It brings a lot of life and laughter around traditions and festivities during the Christmas season.

This was such an easy and sweet read. I felt like I was reading a Christmas Hallmark movie with fantasy, magic and a touch of spice. Winterhe loved the world of Wonderland and the different interpretations of Santa and his role.

This was an easy and warm read, and while it's a holiday novel, I enjoyed the focus on the family aspect a bit more. I cannot say that I was. It was the enemies of the lovers, and then I fell in love with the big (predictable) explosion, and the rushed and completely unsatisfying ending. I wish I had more time exploring the relationship.I don't think their love story was given enough time to grow and bond me as a reader.Ex-girlfriend 's plot points didn't really suit me. It felt like it was thrown in to add an unnecessary conflict that doesn't add much to the story.

That being said, I just walked into the story expecting a sweet time, and for the most part, it was. I wish the ending was a little more exciting. An epilogue is enough. I felt a little cheated. Overall, a good read that I recommend giving it a try.

🎄THE NAUGHTY OR NICE CLAUSE🎄

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Lyla’s dad retires as CEO of his toy company, instead of Lyla getting the shares she expected they are given to Mason Klaus, a real life Scrooge. Lyla tries to work with Klaus but he is insufferable: closes factories, cancels holiday leave, and cancels the Christmas party. Lyla throws the Christmas party anyway and it goes wrong. Klaus says he’ll forgive her if she accompanies home for Christmas to act as a buffer. He’s been away for 10 years but needs to return because his dad has past away…

This book has everything.
Perfect cosy Christmas read✅
Grumpy x Sunshine✅
Fake dating✅
Enemies to lovers✅
Lil’ bit of fantasy✅
Drama✅
Emotion✅
Just the right amount of cheese✅

I loved everything about this book and read it in one afternoon. It is the perfect book to read over the festive period. Curl up with a blanket, mug of peppermint hot chocolate, and a candle and be whisked away to a winter wonderland. I defy anyone to read this and not come away filled with Christmas joy.

The Naughty or Nice Clause by Kate Callaghan is due to be released on November 8th and should definitely be added to your tbr❤️

Thank you @netgalley and @CallaghanWriter for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review✨

INTERESTING WORLD, BUT HARDLY A "ROMANCE" TO REMEMBER

Actual rating: 2.5⭐

There were a few things I liked about this book and more things that I didn't like. But in the end, when it comes down to it, this was an okay book. Just not one I'll remember.

👍 What I Liked 👍

Kevin: While many of the characters didn't really thrill me, Kevin - Mason's younger brother - was a ray of light. He was adorable! So sweet and protective. A cute and funny character.

Magic: What does Santa Claus do at his workshop? Most of us would answer "make toys for children". But not in this world. In this world Santa Claus - and his helpers - deliver something quite different on Christmas Eve. I enjoyed this spin on the familiar story. It was refreshing.

👎 What I Disliked 👎

Beauty and the Beast: Let me describe a scene for you. A couple fight, the woman flees out into the night. The ground is covered in snow. She enters a forest and gets turned around. Suddenly, a pack of wolves surround her. Luckily, the man arrives just in time to save her, though he gets injured in the process. Sounds familiar? Yeah, while this sounds like a scene from the Disney movie, Beauty and the Beast, it actually occurs in this book. And I just couldn't take it seriously. It felt... lazy.

Romance: I did not feel the chemistry between Mason and Lyla. I couldn't fathom or feel the attraction between them. The romance didn't lift off the page.

Dialogue: Perhaps one of the reasons why the romance didn't come through was because of the dialogue. It was empty, stilted and emotionally flat.

Ending: The ending was super rushed and left me with an overall feeling of dissatisfaction.

This was the perfect Christmas feel good read that is so magical. I really liked Lylas character she was really relatable. This has made me so excited for Christmas

Thank you Netgalley and the author Kate Callaghan for the eARC!

This was such a light and cute read. I felt like I was reading a Christmas Hallmark movie with a touch of fantasy, magic and sprinkle of spice. I loved the world building of the winter wonderland and the different take on Santa and his role.

This was an easy warm read, while it is a holiday romance, I enjoyed the focus on the family aspect a little more. The main characters were just ok for me, I can’t say that I believed in their romance enough. It was enemies to lovers then the big (predictable) blow up, then being so in love with an ending that felt rushed and not quite satisfying. I wish we had more time with them being in love and actually exploring their relationship. I don’t think their love story was given enough time to flourish and for me as a reader to connect. The ex girlfriend plot point didn’t really fit well to me, it just felt like it was thrown in there to add an unnecessary conflict that didn’t add much to the story.

With all that being said, I went into the story just expecting a sweet time and for the most part that’s what I had. I wish the ending was elaborated some more. Even an epilogue would’ve sufficed. I felt a little cheated. Overall a good read I’d recommend giving a try.

Life is for the living, and I wish you would do the same—”


Many thanks to Netgalley and Kate Callaghan for providing me with this eARC in exchange for an honest Review.

This is Layla's story, a woman who has been working with Mason Klaus for almost a year trying to save her father's company, and her legacy. Mason has the majority of the actions of the company so he "makes the hard choices" and Layla wants to make a Christmas party and what happened? Everything burns, and no this is not a joke, literally the building burnt, and now they're forced to have some days off. And because of this, Layla and Mason goes for a "family visit" where she plays to be his fiancée, but there's a secret, a family legacy and difficult choices to make.

I really enjoyed this book, it was fun, magical and full of Christmas spirit. But everything happened a little fast, so it's hard to love these characters because I didn't have the time to really meet them. But you know what I loved? How cute and festive the place where this book is settled felt. If you like Christmas movies with magic involved, this book is for you.

I think this one is perfect for holiday season, I'd love to have a sequel for reading all Layla and Mason's adventures after Christmas so finger's crossed

The Naughty or Nice Clause was such a fun book to read. It is perfect for the Christmas season and if you are in the mood for a Christmas romance. Spoiler alert, there is a change of worlds, which I really enjoyed. I love when a Christmas novel immerses you into a super Christmas world and this is exactly what happened in this story. If you are looking for something light and Christmas related this is the book for you.

This book was cute and I had a good time. It takes a while for the romance to get started but I enjoyed it. I wish there was more at the end of them actually being together though.

I received an arc through netgalley.

If you lwant to read a short Hallmark type books with. Every conceivable trope you can think of for a Christmas holiday reading, this is the book for you. You need to give the characters chance to grow on you and believe in Magic. I could definitely see this as a Christmas TV you find on the Christmas live channels.
I
Wouldn’t say it’s got much romance in it as it’s very late on in the book
But if you love reading Christmas stories and hallmark type books then I think you would enjoy it.
I did struggle in parts and did find things hard going at times but maybe I wanted more. More romance , more magic, and not every trope thrown at it because sometimes less is More

When Lyla's father retired as CEO of the toy company which has been in their family for generations, she was meant to receive his shares. Instead, she discovers the company is bankrupt and her father has given her shares to Mason Klaus, an investor known in the corporate world for his cold and callous nature. Much to Lyla's frustration, her only option is to run the company with him, despite their evident loathing for one another.
When Mason cancels the annual Christmas party, Lyla throws it anyway - only for the event of the season to result in a terrible fire. With the offices and Lyla's credibility ruined, Mason offers her a deal: he'll forget her part in the disaster, but she must join his family for the twelve days of their Christmas holidays.
Taken to a fantastical winter wonderland, Lyla hopes that she might discover some of the secrets Mr Klaus is hiding, and maybe even a way to get her company back. However, when Mason introduces her to the secret village as his fiancée, she is horrified to realise she has no choice but to go along with the pretence - because the cost of bringing an outsider to their magical land is far too high.
Can Lyla resist the devilishly handsome Mr Klaus and the enchanting village to win back her company, or will she give into temptation?





This was a fun, quick Holiday read! I enjoyed all the Christmasy feels this gave me, but I wish it was a bit longer! I finished this pretty quickly, and the ending felt very rushed. While this was technically a romance, I sadly didn’t feel as much of connection between Mason and Lyla as I wanted to. There is one semi- spicy scene that showed me a bit of chemistry between the two, but it was over as quickly as it started.



Thank you to netgalley and the author for my copy in exchange for my honest review!

The good: this was a near perfect enemies to lovers Christmas romance. I didn’t know what to expect from the book description but the it surpassed all my hopes and created a cute and magical holiday story.

The not so good: there were some plot holes you could drive a truck through. Why did Mason kidnap Lyla? Why was Mason at this company? Does anyone think Natalie can be rehabilitated?

But if you think of the book as a fun beachy read (yes I know it’s fall) it makes the problem areas fade away and the book is a fairytale for adults. Totally enjoyed!

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC.

Alright, I hate rating a book so low, but this story did not jive with me at all. The writing isn’t bad but the characters are *so* aggressively annoying.

First, I did not expect this to be a contemporary romance in an alternative universe*. In this story, we have two work rivals who find themselves home for the holidays under the guise of a fake relationship. At face value this book has many of my favorite tropes: relationship of convenience, fake dating, grumpy/sunshine, rivals to lovers, to name a few. However, many of these tropes are underdeveloped, if not poorly executed. Throughout the story I found myself skimming the dialogue because everything else was losing my interest. But the dialogue could not keep me engaged, because I ultimately had to stop reading at 33%.

Thank you to NetGalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

*universe, for lack of a better word, but really this is the North Pole hidden from everyone else due to magic

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5051798412

This was a cute Christmas book about two people who owned a company and cannot get along during the holidays. Lyla decided to go against Mason Mr Klaus and throw a Christmas party despite his wishes. She ends up needing the help Mason and ends up on an adventure in a magical wonderful winter Christmas wonderland. I truly enjoyed how creative the author was in creating this Christmas wonderland and taking the traditional idea of Santa clause and making it into something new and different. I rate this 4 stars as it was a good read. I don’t prefer enemies to lovers as much.

This book is such a fun hallmark-esque story with a light fantasy twist. I wasn’t expecting much from this other than a fun and easy read but it absolutely surpassed that and has become one of my favourite reads of the year. It’s fun, cute, a little cheeky, but also addresses real problems and the conflicts in this book felt as realistic as this story would allow. The characters are so well written and that includes side characters. Yes, the fantasy element twist is a little obvious but honestly I think it’s perfect for this sub genre.
I really hope the author continues writing this style of book, and not just Christmas ones. They obviously have a lot of talent and I would absolutely read them as soon as possible.

A perfect Christmas romance. The characters are great; a really well thought out romance. Lyla and Mason's relationship progresses in a really natural way, and its a delight to follow it. I loved the ending as well, not quite how I thought it would end, but I'm glad it did end that way! I hope that we see more of Lyla and Mason!!

This book was a lovely, short Winter-read. It made me quite excited for the Christmas season. I wanted to read this book because it sounded quite like a Hallmark-esque Christmas movie, which are my favorites. And that's what this book was.
At times certain things felt predictable, like who Masons family was, but to me that's fine with this type of book. I want predictable (to an extent, obviously not everything was predictable nor did it have to be) with this type of feelgood story.
I highly recommend this book to others who also enjoy feelgood stories!

I received an eARC from NetGalley and Kate Gallaghan in exchange for an honest review.

DNF - I found the FMC (female main character) to be hard to relate to - she first presents herself as a strong, confident leader, but then allows herself to be second-guessed, bullied, and disregarded at work, while also not really displaying any strong leadership skills at her actual job. Mason (MMC) was completely unlikable. He was a bully, controlling, and drags Lyla away with absolutely no explanation? I found the whole love-story to be hard to believe (even understanding that the premise of the plot was a fantasy-type setting). They seemed to have a terrible relationship prior to the books beginning, but then after one night of drinking, he shows up at Lyla’s place and takes her to the North Pole and they fall in love? I think the issue is there’s no emotion behind the words. The book reads too factual, almost like a screenplay, with no cues on anything, so it just felt flat and I was unable to finish it.