I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. This was a spicy MM holiday read.

This collection of short stories was okay, but I was expecting more. None of the stories were bad, but nothing really jumped out at me and commanded my attention either.

I found this to be an interesting collection of well written short stories. Gay-themed tales that focus more on relationships than the holiday framework that is suggested. My favorite was I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus by Ryan Field. This is good collection, but not a 'feel good, holiday story' collection. The holiday is secondary. I say this for those that might skip this because of the holiday connotation.

I received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Writing a short story can often be more difficult than a full length novel. Keeping the reader engaged, but also providing an interesting journey from beginning to end, is a delicate balance. The unfortunate outcome can sometimes be a rushed narrative with little room for exposition. This is the case with “Holiday Gay”.

Maitland McDonagh has curated a selection of short stories that fit around a gay background but, unfortunately, the various subjects and situations do not lend themselves to an investment in the characters from the readers perspective.

The stories seem to hurry to a conclusion and often leave the reader wondering what the objective of the piece was. Having said that, it is still an interesting example of romantic gay writing and worth reading if you are new to the style.

Some of these stories are better than others, but overall the tone of it was overly camp. Nowhere on the book or description did I notice (doesn't mean it's not there) that this was a book focusing on one specific presentation of a gay man, but wow is every single gay man in this book camp. There's also one story about lesbians that's narrated the entire time from a straight man's POV and that was annoying.

Book Review
Title: Holiday Gay
Author: Various
Genre: Erotic/Romance
Rating: ***
Review: As this book is a collection of LGBT erotic romance holiday themed stories, I will be reviewing each story individually.
Christmas is Cancelled By Adam Schubak
Christmas is cancelled is one huge satirical take on the gay community celebrating Christmas. We are introduced to Kevin who is dealing with the aftermath of posting an anti-Christmas post of his blog when he meets his best friend Omar for drinks. During the course of the night we are introduced to a hot bartender, the sassiest drag queen ever and the liveable Jack just filled with Christmas cheer.
After bumping into each other Jack makes it his personal mission to cure Kevin of his scrooge affliction before the night is over. What follows is the sassiest, fluffiest most adorable gay romance short story I have ever read. Kevin and Jack's chemistry is great from the moment they met, and I would have loved more from the pair and some more explicit content, but I am happy with the first installment in this anthology.
Three Cars, Two Miracles and a Matador By Alan Amtzis
This story was ok in my opinion, it centres around a couple travelling around Mexico on New Year's Eve after being kicked out of one of the only friendly gay hotels. After their second accident the couple get into a huge arrangement and call off their relationship. They then decide that many drinks are in order and end up meeting several interesting people which leads them to a disco where one of the men meets a matador named Flavio, after sharing a passionate kiss he agrees to watch Flavio fight the next day.
True to their word the couple watch the bull fight and end up outing their relationship right and it is all thanks to the mysterious matador who the couple could find no mention of years later when they try to search for him. While I liked this story it didn't really hold any major appeal for me other than a laugh out two when the couple total their second rental car of the week.
A Tale of Aloha By David Noh
A Tale of Aloha was my favorite story so far as the couple and the romance are adorable because they share many loves, but they also have to deal with prejudice from their families which made the story more real to read and made it far more relatable. I would have like this story to have been a full-length novel as I feel it would make a perfect LGBT contemporary romance, almost like a note adult version of Adam Silvera`s work which would be a hit.
The Pope of West 44th Street By Frank Lovece
The Poor of West 44th Street want that interesting apart from the ending of the story which was a delightful addition, but I didn't like the fact the whole story was told from the perspective of someone who wasn't even involved in the romance.
I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus By Ryan Field
This was my favorite story of the whole collection as it was hot and heavy and exactly what I wanted from this collection of stories. The couple, the romance, the sting and the fantasies were just perfection and I would definitely read more from this author in the future. If you don't read anything else in this collection read, I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus, it was utterly delightful.
My Big Fat Gay Thanksgiving By Jackson Gold
The final story in this collection was ok, this series overall wasn't what I'd expected but a few of the stories really saved the day in keeping me hooked.

This is a collection of six upbeat short stories about Christmas holidays from a mixed bag of authors. As to locale, the stories take readers to a disco in Hawaii, to a bar in Queens, to New Year's Eve in the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula, to Brooklyn, and to Times Square. In her introduction to the book, the editor writes an apt description in describing the stories as "seasonal romances with some naughty but nice twists". I found that to mean the stories were playful and saucy, with some, but not a lot of, explicit man-on-man sex. There is a smooth transition between the stories with no abrupt changes in mood or atmosphere. It is recommended as a pleasant and enjoyable light feel-good read.

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I received a review copy of the eBook for "Holiday Gay" from Riverdale Avenue Books via Netgalley. The comments about it are my own

I can't say I really enjoyed this anthology of tales. There were one or two that were ok, but nothing really spoke to me of love, lust or romance as indicated by the title.

Thanks to NetGalley and Riverdale Avenue Books for a copy in return for an honest review.

This is a collection of 6 Christmas-themed stories all written by gay men, even the one about two lesbians.

It's a pretty eclectic mix of stories, and five of them were really tame, in terms of fade-to-black sex, when it happened. I've only read stories by Ryan Field before, and I've usually enjoyed those.

I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus, by Ryan Field was the one I anticipated most, and it delivered the usual twisty love story with some kink and some blurry-attraction elements. It's a story about two well-settled married men who might have lost some spark since becoming daddies. The end fully demonstrates all the love they share.

The A Tale of Aloha was totally bittersweet. The prejudice and struggle overwhelmed the budding romance, and the narrator's melancholy left me sad in the end.

My Big Fat Gay Thanksgiving had a ring of nostalgia through it that made it seem more memoir than story. It was interesting, but not romantic, though it's got a sweet rap, and I'm a long-time fan of old-time movies so it was fun to be in Michael's head for a while. I liked how he really figured himself out, and found a forever love.

In all, I think it's a decent collection of holiday-themed stories, but don't expect too much romance.

Six different stories of gay holiday romance. This was an ok collection of quick stories and not always wine and roses.

I only liked a couple of stories in this and of those two only one that I'd like enough to talk about it after completing the six. The ones set in the past didn't grab me at all. The last one could have been great but the perspective didn't work for me. I didn't like the way the story was told. The voice of the character wasn't engaging.

I Saw daddy kissing Santa Claus was my favorite. Even with the issues, I had with it. I didn't understand why the MC didn't just talk to his husband about what he wanted. Also hated that he fantasized about other people while they had sex but the story was linear. The kink elements were cool. Loved the husband character. The MC does love his husband, We get that from small things. Sexy dream and fantasizing aside. I feel like they are in the right direction to liven things up at the end. This feels like an important for them.

I liked one out of six.

Most of these stories just didn't do it for me so I'm writing this review about the one story I really liked: I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus by Ryan Field.

This was a really sweet, yet hot, short story about an established couple (Dennis and Mario,15 years together) with 10-year-old twin girls. Mario's sister is visiting and Dennis wants to do something nice for her since she's been having a hard time after going through a bad divorce.

Dennis goes shopping and decides to get her an extravagant bottle of perfume. While he's waiting, he's attracted to a display of nail polish. The salesman who helps him with the perfume kind of hits on him and asks if he wants to see the polish on his toenails as it's the color that Dennis was admiring.

This all leads to Dennis reminiscing in his mind about how he and Mario were together before life and kids changed things. I really liked this story and my rating for this one on its own would be 5 stars but since it's part of an anthology I have to rate the whole thing. I tried to read the other short stories in this collection and just couldn't finish any of them.

A review copy was provided by the publisher via NetGalley but this did not influence my opinion or rating of the book.

A big thank you to Riverdale Avenue Books and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy in return for an honest review.

<i>Holiday Gay</i> is a book compiled of six short stories, all centring queer characters and relationships during the holidays. It's quite diverse, in the sense that it's not all just loveydovey stuff. In terms of diversity beyond that, don't expect too much. There are only gay men, and in one story two gay women are featured, but it's short, barely there, and written from a man's point of view. That, and the lack of female writers, were the only true disappointments I had with this book.

Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed this collection! The foreword already set the mood, and the stories were easy to read. I would recommend reading one story at a time, to make sure they don't blend all into one. Out of the six stories, I absolutely loved four (one of them is NSFW, be warned!), and was pretty meh about the other two- one being the one featuring the gay women. I did love the '20s setting in that story, however, and the ending had me smiling broadly.

My favorite story I'd say is the third one, <i>A Tale of Aloha</i>, written by David Noh. The setting is beautiful and it's a lovely love story, but with a bittersweet ending that broke my heart, wanting to know what happened eventually.

In the first story, <i>Christmas is Cancelled</i>, I was uncomfortable with some of the words and descriptions used, as I felt they geared too much to stereotypes, but as I am not a gay man myself I don't know if that is just me, or an actual thing. Other than that, the dialogue felt a bit stilted at times, but nothing that really drew away from my enjoyment of the story.

A small note for Ryan Field: I loved <i>I saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus</i>, but I have to ask- where was the prep!? I know a lot of authors find writing that tedious but it's honestly so important. The lack of a condom gets explained, which was great, but then prep was completely non-existent, which made me feel kinda bad for Dennis.

I won't go too much into the stories, or the ones unmentioned, because this is really a collection you have to experience for yourself. Don't expect some out-of-this-world writing, or life changing stories. Just let yourself be entertained, be swept into the stories provided, wishing there was more of them.

Of all the short stories, I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus was the best of them all. It was romantic and erotic in its writing and was a good read. The others were not as captivating as this story and did not hold my attention.

The best story in this anthology is definitely Daddy Kissing Santa Claus. It;s cute, steamy and a nicestory about a long-term couple rekindling some fire in their realtionship. The other stories in the anthology while not as steamy are definitely descriptive and more of an intellectual romance. They make you think about the topics they present but romance is very secondary.

Unfortunately, I was unimpressed with this selection of stories. I didn't find any of them very interesting and I read them all relatively quickly just trying to get to the end. None of them really stood out to me as great so none of the authors are on my list to follow. Maybe next time....just not the short stories for me.

These were all pretty good holiday tales. Tales of holiday angst, cheer and love. But most of all, love.