This is a nice enough story and a good low angst comfort read. It is predictable but there is nothing wrong with a predictable romance. I did like the characters, especially the children but I do have to be honest, it was a bit boring in places.

If you want a comfort read without too many surprises then this is a good one.

Cooy provided via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. This book was a good and quick read with excellent characters.

So I am *slightly* behind on posting a Christmas book review, but the holidays are a whirlwind so I am going to assume you will all forgive me and read this review anyway because this is a story you NEED to know about.

Nic is kind of everything I love in a man. He is decisive, bright, controlled… and in desperate need of someone to lighten him up. Let’s not forget the fact he is moderately broken (my absolutely favorite type of man) thanks to aloof and manipulative parents, but those two are TRULY not worth even discussing because it will just get me too mad. And there is plenty to gush about with Nic and Sasha.

Oh Sasha. He is so much of me it hurts. He takes on the responsibility of the world and leaves nothing for himself. He is happiest when those around him are happy. And he doesn’t at all feel like displaying anything other than a fun, playful demeanor is allowed. In his mind it isn’t okay to show the burdens and pain he is dealing with and, instead, he simply stuffs it all down and manages on his own. Even when it sends him to bed with a migraine.

Yeah, basically Nic and Sasha were meant to fulfill each other’s needs.

But, of course, just when things get so good my heart aches from the happiness of it all… the rug is pulled out from under your feet. I have to admit that when Sasha was brought to his knees by the pain and loss, I was right there with him. Nic had a deeeeeeeeeep pit to claw his way out of in my eyes.

Now, the question is… did he manage to do it?

Well, dear reader, you will just have to grab a copy for yourself to find out.

A feel good story about two people trying to make the best of things. CEO Nic who lives for his job and is still at the beck and call of his retired father from the company who keeps getting involved when he shouldn't, making his life that much more difficult. Not to mention he is also guardians of teens.
Sasha whose love life got tied up with work, now means that job is no longer there and because he was living with the ex, that means no place to live. Taking the job of a manny doesn't seem so bad and this may be the best decision he's ever made.

Nice read all together.

I had been enjoying this title, but I left it halfway and never picked it up again. It was more a me problem, but I felt like the story didn't capture my attention enough to pick it up again.

This story was your typical Nanny/Boss romance except this story is a M/M.

Sasha Lindsey, is a school teacher, he just broke up with his boss at the school they both taught at. Now he's homeless, jobless, and is avoiding anymore work relationships. Having had applied to several jobs, he gets a callback for a Nanny position; which he immediately accepts. He now has a roof over his head, food, and earning a good living watching two kids. He hasn't met his boss yet because he was away on business.

Nic Price is a billionaire CEO, and he's raising his niece and nephew after his sister and brother-in-law were killed in an accident a few years ago. His whole life is his job, working in the family business, which is why he goes through so many nannies, the kids want his love and attention.

When Nic finally meets Sasha, there's instant chemistry, but Sasha made himself a vow that he intends to keep. That is until Nic makes the first move.

DNF at 20%

I think I have to avoid for a while the genre. Maybe it is just my temporary reading mood and one day I'll find the lost pleasure in the contemporary romance genre again, but for now I don't enjoy it at all. 
I really tried to keep on reading, especially after this book had been nominated for the LAMBDA Award in the category Gay Romance, but I was bored to death with this predictablelove story. It was just not my cuppa.

Nic Price is a CEO of his family's company and still dealing with his "retired" father's badgering about the company's returns. Personally, Nic's raising his deceased sister's teen kids, and flailing at the job due to the many, many, hours he's dedicated to bringing in more profits. He hires yet another nanny, and is stunned to meet...him.

Sasha Lindsay is a school teacher with personal problems--mostly a tenured ex who's made life difficult at his most recent school. Looking for a suitable new job, one that would cover the expenses he also pays for his fiscally-irresponsible parents, he jumps into the opportunity for a live-in childcare position. He's there a few days before meeting his actual boss, but he establishes a rapport with the two kids. They make homemade decorations for Christmas, but it's not up to the taste of Nic's parents--who will surely criticize him for the tackiness.

Nic, on his first meeting with Sasha, dresses him down for being too permissive with the kids. Sasha's respectful, but frustrated. Both men profess to have an attraction, yet Sasha knows he can't fall for another person where he works--and that's why I was confused when that's exactly what he did.

I really liked Sasha and his interactions with everyone were awesome. Nic was a jerk for at least the second half of the book, and I couldn't figure out why Sasha kept going back to him. I got that he had a lot of pressure on him, but it seemed artificially high, and he was way too much of a jerk to EVERYONE for any level of acceptability. I also had trouble with all the parents in this book. Nic's folks were awful, to Nic and their grandkids. Why they didn't have any role in caring for their orphaned grandkids made zero logical sense. Likewise, Sasha's flighty folks who would take the mortgage money SASHA paid on a cruise? Yeah, no. If these are "parents", I'd rather be an orphan.

The grand gestures were nice. I only wish I didn't want to smack Nic so hard leading up to the big fix.

This one wasn't quite for me.
I wish the characters were a bit more fleshed out and their interactions a bit more meaningful.

This a light read well written that gives a reader everything one would expect from a Romarntic tale.
Gay or straight this is a nice read for a cozy evening in or an afternoon at the pool.

A cute, fun holiday read. Loved getting to know the family and seeing them come together in the end.

This is a pretty common Harlequin-style romance, with the aloof billionaire CEO Nic Price having no work-life balance and (unintentionally) neglecting his niece and nephew, who have been in his care since his sister and her husband died. At least until his new manny (and goodness do I hate that word) Sasha Lindsey, accomplished teacher and people-pleaser, enters his life and Mary Poppins his way into Nic's heart.

For as trope-filled as it is, it's a cute story with actual angst, and a resolution that is practically perfect in every way.

I enjoy the way the Dreamspinner Dreamspun Desires series takes traditional romance tropes and updates them for M/M romance. In this case, Nic, the fabulously wealthy very attractive billionaire, guardian of his deceased sister's kids, needs a nanny. Sasha, a school teacher in need of a job and a home after a bad break-up with his co-worker / boyfriend, takes the job because it solves many of his money issues.

Nic is a straight-up workaholic and makes little time for his niece Lucy and nephew Ben, instead throwing himself into making his father's company profitable, with no help from his demanding heartless parent. It's a no-win situation, but Sasha is a bit of a miracle-worker, helping Ben and Lucy feel secure and slowly making Nic realize he needs to spend more time with the kids.

Along the way, Sasha and Nic give in to their sizzling attraction and it all seems like a happy fairy tale, until Nic totally over-reacts and deals Sasha a stunning blow. At this point, the story totally fell apart for me. I found it unbelievable that Nic would SPOILER ALERT ...

fire Sasha simply because a fun Christmas outing with the kids at a shopping mall initiated by Sasha made Nic miss some important business calls - because Nic hadn't charged up his cell - and made some clients cancel their business dealings with the company.

END SPOILER

To me, this seems like the act of a spoiled child who seeks to punish someone for their own actions and while the story ends with a HEA and a reconciled Nic and Sasha, I felt Nic's behavior was so unacceptable that I could not abide him. In addition, Nic's totally tone-deaf relationship with Lucy and Ben (wanting to send them away to a boarding school at one point, and not realizing that he needed to be a part of their lives) was frankly pretty asshat-ish.

I like the author's writing style (and she can really write a steamy sex scene) and I will definitely read more of her work, but for me personally I could not get past Nic's personality. 3.5 stars.

I really enjoyed this manny story! Nic is a workaholic who must take care of his niece and nephew after his sister died. He is struggling because although he wants to be close to them, he doesn't know how. His parents were cold and sent him away to boarding school. He never learned anything about being a loving and supporting family. Then Sasha arrives.

Sasha is getting over a bad breakup and takes a new job as a manny. His teaching and childcare background is just what these kids needed. Sasha is a positive influence, and before you know it, he is working his magic on Nic! But Sasha has some baggage too. Will Nic embrace the family Sasha is showing him he could have? Can Sasha open up to Nic by unloading his baggage?

I loved how Sasha was with the kids! Nic slowly was learning the acceptance he craved. The characters were likeable and realistic. The pace of the story was good and I liked the journey the author took us on! A highly recommended read!

I finished reading The CEO’s Christmas Manny by Angela McCallister. I was interested by the blurb I read, and the cover. But as I read the book, I realized that I had misinterpreted the cover art completely. I was under the misguided impression that at some point the CEO and his manny were going to go on an Alaskan cruise.

Which probably explains why I got to the halfway point and asked myself, are they going on this cruise or not? What gives? I took a second look at the cover art and realized that what I thought was a cruise ship was actually a ferry, since this takes place with the CEO living on an island off the coast of Seattle. Ha! Of course, I had to make some mental course correcting which is why it took me so long to finish reading the book. No fault of the author. The mistake was all mine.

The book itself was well written. At the start, Nic the CEO and Sasha, the manny, had obvious chemistry. I could see how it would be conflict of interest to get involved with the live in caretaker for your kids, but the kids were teenagers and Nic’s niece and nephew, so not his children exactly. Sasha had been working as a substitute teacher so when he took the manny job, it was a boon for him because he was broke and needed something steady since his last relationship left him sort of destitute.

I was with the characters all the way until the part where Sasha explained to Nic that he was paying the mortgage for his parents, and lo, they were rich (with trust funds) who were off gallivanting somewhere leaving him to deal with things. So he’s burdened with paying their bills with his paycheck? What? I lost interest in Sasha’s plight because really I wasn’t invested in someone who would be such a doormat that he would pay the bills for his rich parents just because they were irresponsible, but he wouldn’t take/use their money. SO which is it? Are you poor, Sasha? Or are you just a suffering fool?

It was roughly at this point where I realized there was no Alaskan cruise vacation on the horizon and I struggled to connect with Nic, the CEO who can’t seem to get his work/life balance together. He forces himself to be an outsider in normal activities because he wants to appease his parents. Nic and Sasha managed to hook up decidedly but every time I thought their relationship was going to get stronger, some obstacle would come along and they’d go sliding about two steps back for every step of progress.

The ending seemed a little too neat, and their Christmas holiday was a little too cute. But maybe that’s just because I was bitter since I wanted them to be on the cruise to Alaska fighting their attraction in the close confines of a luxury cabin. This is the first book I have read from this author, so I will say that overall the book was good and I would read another of her works but I will pay more attention to the cover before I start reading!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced electronic copy of this book from NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

3+ Stars

I kind of expect - from the title and blurb - what to find when I picked this book. An MM version of the Nanny but an uncle instead of a father for the boss. While it wasn’t shouting sublimely wonderful, I found this book enjoyable to read. Both main characters were likable enough, especially Sasha the manny, that it made it easy to like the story as well.

As the first entry to “Beyond the Boardroom” series and introduction to Angela McCallister’s writings, I thought “The CEO’s Christmas Manny” hit the right spot at the right time. It had that insta-attraction element that I often found meh in contemporary setting. But complimented by other elements, such as supporting characters and Sasha’s personal issue added more meat to the story. Let’s not forget it’s a Christmas story with two mischief-making kids! (see the Christmas on the title, duh). And I didn’t take issue with the author’s writing style or the alternate POVs way of narration. If any, my biggest issue was with certain parents who I wasn’t too clear on way they treated their offspring the way they did and why it took that long for Nic to act - I mean, he was not stupid.

In short, as a holiday romance this is a cute lighthearted read. Perhaps not a notably memorable one, but entertaining enough with a slight dose of angst and emotion thrown in. And I sure am game to read the following entry to this series!


Copy of this book is kindly given by the author/publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I knew going in that this was going to be a bit formulaic, but formulaic doesn't equal bad. It does, however, take a very good writer to write within the formula and create a good book. McCallister doesn't write a bad book, but the seams of the formula are a little too recognizable for this to be higher rated for me. I would be enjoying the book and then it would take a jump in plot that wasn't fully developed or it would veer off in a different direction depending on what the formula needed. This book would have been better is McCallister hadn't written it to this imprint's specifics OR if she had laid out the plot a little tighter so that those seams weren't as visible. Still I liked the characters for the most part, including the children, which that is hard to make me do, and I liked the plot. I just wish it was tighter or that McCallister had had more pages to fully flesh it out.

First things first this title is incredible. It immediately caught my eye and I am sure it would do the same to any reader with an interest in LGBT romance. This is a Hallmark Christmas movie waiting to be made. My impression is that the author had female readers in mind while writing. If you enjoy romance books that aspect will not bother you at all. Quick read with a great premise.

I enjoyed this M/M romance story but wanted more length and perhaps more depth in Nic and Sasha's developing relationship. I liked the supporting characters, Nic's best friend, Percy, and his niece and nephew who provided the reason for Sasha to come into their lives. I do look forward to reading more by this author.

I loved nic and sasha loved the build up and romance but also
the reallife issues.for me the story is a bit too short.
loved to read more about the relationship.
but you can`t have it all,loved the read .