This was a fun, steamy holiday romance.

The first half of this book was really good. I liked the body positivity, the self-awakening, the loss of self-consciousness... It really does important work of highlighting the potential harms caused by "purity culture" and the havoc it can wreak on young girls/women's psyches.

The second half did lost me a little bit, though. It felt like the main characters slid into immaturity, and I didn't like how they were portrayed. That said, the second half did force more plot development, so I'd say it wasn't enough to make me dislike the book. A solid 3-star read.

“A Holly Jolly Ever After” by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone was the perfect follow-up to “A Merry Little Meet Cute” in the Christmas Notch series. In book two of the series, readers are introduced to Winnie Baker - a former “good girl” who was the star of multiple Hope Channel films, who married the guy she was expected to married (her childhood sweetheart), and now finds herself divorced, struggling with her narcolepsy, and staring in her first raunchy film alongside former boy band member, Kallum Liebermanis.

Winnie and Kallum have a decades-worth of history between them - and not necessarily the good kind. (Winnie blames Kallum for her “fall from grace” after he shared a compromising photo of Winnie on social media ten years prior.) When Winnie’s inexperience with her sexuality threatens to derail the production of the film, Kallum steps in and volunteers to be her “tutor.” The novel takes us through Winnie’s own journey of self-discovery as she begins to come into her own sexuality. However, it doesn’t take long before both Winnie and Kallum are catching feelings.

Winnie’s entire journey - with her lack of experience with sex toys and pleasurable sexual experiences in general - was so relatable, especially as someone who comes from a very Catholic background where those types of experiences were frowned upon. This book really takes on the hypocrisy of purity culture ideology and how harmful it is for young women.

I loved that Kallum - this goofy, pizza dude with a “dad bod” - was the one who helped Winnie in her path to self-discovery. I also loved that Kallum fell first and was vibing with Winnie from their first meeting at the Hope Channel offices.

And the big kicker! I knew it was coming but I absolutely loved how Kallum went through his own path of development after getting some sense knocked into him (quite literally). To see him grow up for Winnie and the relationship he wanted with her was so heartwarming.

I absolutely loved this book! Both Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone have a knack for writing characters that are relatable - that’ll make you love them (like Winnie and Bea!) or hate them (like Winnie’s overbearing, assho*e parents who made me want to launch the book across the room). This book was the perfect amount of sweet and spicy, had me laughing out loud, and was a great read to start off the holiday season! I can’t wait to read the next book. If you enjoy workplace romances with forced proximity, good girl gone bad vibes, with lots of fuzzy feelings, you’ll want to check this one out!

A Holly Jolly Ever After é a nova canetada das autoras Sierra Simone e Julie Murphy e posso dizer que essa dupla está dando o que falar!
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Winnie Baker foi a estrela mirim cristã de sucesso, casou cedo com o também cristão Michael, mas como sempre acontece o marido cristão foi lá e traiu a queridinha exemplo de pureza. E aí Winnie pediu o divórcio e virou um pária. Perdeu os contratos, se afastou de tudo. Agora ela aceitou um contrato para fazer um filme de natal sexy. E seu co-star é Kallum Lieberman, um ex-membro de boy band que nunca cresceu. Ainda vive uma vida desregrada e tem até uma s3x tape vazada. Agora Winnie que nunca foi muito aventureira precisará de lições e Kallum está ali para ajudar.
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Eu gosto de como as autoras conseguem inovar em todos os livros dessa série e passear pela liberdade s3xual. Aqui temos uma protagonista que foi subjulgada pela religião por toda a sua vida e agora vai se libertar!
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Para além disso, temos um arco muito interessante de Kallum. Ele realmente é meio irresponsável, mas acaba tendo que crescer se quiser ficar com Winnie.
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Meu único ponto de ressalva é que elas colocaram Winnie como narcopletica e isso simplesmente ficou jogado no enredo. Não serviu pra nada e só ficou lá.
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Quero muito ver o que elas vão aprontar no próximo livro.

I really, really enjoyed this! I loved watching Winnie break free of her sheltered past and become who she was meant to be. I loved Kallum's free spirit and overall joy of life. The two together shouldn't make sense, but they did. It was a rollercoaster of emotions and, hopefully, with a third book (fingers crossed!!) I will gladly jump back on.

This was my second visit to Christmas Notch, the town where all the "Hope Channel" aka Hallmark Channel wink wink movies are shot. While the first book covered a porn star making her debut with a retired boy band star, this book revolved around a Winnie -a "fallen" Hope Channel star making a Christmas soft core movie with Kallum, another of the retired members of INK (hoping for Isaac's story next year!). Poor Winnie had never experienced real pleasure and had spent her youth as a sexually repressed "good girl" star of Hope Channel movies and Christian family programming. There had been one silly picture of her taken as a teenager where it looked like she'd been drunk and the next thing she knew, her parents had married her off to another Christian star. As this story starts, Winnie has divorced her cheating husband and has left her parents and is looking for something to restart her career. She gets offered this soft core movie and decides to become a new version of herself. Kallum is known for a sex tape and is famous for screwing bridesmaids who then find their "One". He also runs a string of successful pizza parlors. Kallum was so laid back and generous with his feelings but Winnie had never had a relationship beyond those where people want something from her. I loved seeing Winnie come into her own. The book took a turn about halfway through-it was almost like there were two plots to this book. It was a great read-my only critique might be a little bit TOO much explicit steaminess but still a very fun read.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in return for my honest review.

The sass! The spice! The banter! The inclusivity! And did we mention the spice?! Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone are my new queens of festive books. Love love love!!!!

Some of the quirky characters we first met in A Merry Little Meet Cute return to film the first Hope After Dark Christmas movie, which would "combine the unironic joy of the Hope Channel's (think Hallmark Channel) usual fare with a softcore raunch." This time our co-stars are Kallum Lieberman, former boy band member (a la N*Sync), and Winnie Baker, who followed all the rules set out by her parents and her ex-husband. They shared a past touched by scandal that still has Winnie seeing red when Kallum's name is even mentioned. Now divorced from her cheating ex, Winnie "wants to define Winnie Baker for herself" rather let others dictate her life so agrees to do the movie. When she and Kallum meet with the intimacy coordinator to safely choreograph their "risque" scenes, they all realize Winnie will need some help with her "O-face" to make the scenes believable so of course, Kallum offers his services. When Kallum and Winnie's lessons become personal and not just work, hilarity ensues as they try to keep their relationship a secret from everyone on set.
I loved how sensitive Kallum was to Winnie's needs and how family-oriented he was with his sister and nephew. I also loved the transformation each of them went through as individuals which helped them determine their future. Loved these two!

A Holly Jolly Ever After by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone, book 2 in the A Christmas Notch series, was such a fun and sexy read. Kallum and Winnie are set to star in a new film together for the Hope Channel. Kallum, a former boy band member, is ready to be back in the spotlight. The fun, charming and easy-going guy is excited to work with Winnie. Winnie is the woman that did everything as expected whose life just imploded. She is ready for the next step in her life. But she needs help. Can Kallum be that man? This story was so much fun to read. I loved the witty banter between Winnie and Kallum, their chemistry and sweet interactions.

Happy reading!

A Holly Jolly Ever After is book 2 in the Christmas Notch series. It's a racy romp with Kallum, former INK band member and Winnie Baker, actress of the Hope Channel, now filming for Hope After Dark. This is not closed door at all so beware of that if it's not your thing! Other than that it's a fun wintery romance!

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review. All opinions are my own.

Publication date: 10 October 2023

Another fun book in this series. Enjoyed getting to learn more about Kallum and Winnie. Has some very funny parts. I preferred the first book in the series more than this one. Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy. # NetGalley #AHollyJollyEverAfter

Winnie never expected to get a second chance with the Hope Channel, but she is definitely getting it, only with their new, steamy division. And with former boy bander Kallum, the guy who helped kill her reputation. Except Kallum's not really a jerk, and he offers to help her with her little problem - that of not being able to act out having an orgasm because she's never had one in real life.

In the days since his boy band INK disbanded, Kallum has made a good life. He has his successful pizza business, Slice, Slice, Baby, his family and friends, and more than a few women wanting him to toss their dough *wink wink* He shouldn't want for more, but when an offer comes in to film a steamy version of a holiday film, he's all in. That his childhood crush is his costar is just icing on the delightful cake. That she needs help "researching" the role, even yummier. But is he up to more with her? Can he offer her everything?

I'm so yearning for the holidays now. And make them steamy and delicious like Winnie and Kallum are. Pretty please with some holiday frosting on top? Winnie is so relatable with her insecurities, insecurities that probably every woman has felt before. Even though she's in an industry I have no insider knowledge of, I am a woman so I understand the box women are put in, the one she was put in, that she clawed her way out of in awesome fashion. Kallum is a sweet cinnamon roll hero who, though he started out as an overgrown man child, managed to redeem himself and do some growth of his own. Quite simply, these two are adorably yummy together, and I am anxious for Julie and Sierra to write more Christmas Notch stories now.

I really enjoyed A Holly Jolly Ever After! Thanks to Avon Books for my copy!

This is book two in the Christmas Notch series and it can be read as a standalone but I think they are both fun so if you haven't read A Merry Little Meet Cute you should!

I love the idea of the Hope Channel After Dark and this book is definitely steamier than the first. I'm not usually a surprise pregnancy fan but I thought this was done really well!

A Holly Jolly Ever After came out on Tuesday - October 10th.

Book two, in what I'm hoping will be a trilogy (eagerly waiting Isaac's second chance at love!), did not disappoint! Kallum and Winnie heated up the pages until I was sure my Kindle would combust. I loved the return of so many beloved characters from Nolan and Bee's story, and can't wait for a third trip to this Christmas Wonderland with Isaac.

What a cute and steamy way to gear up for the holidays!! Kallum and Winnie are the definition of opposites attracting. Their relationship is set up so nicely with the casting of a movie that requires a bit of research on Winnie’s end. She has led a very conservative life up to this point so she doesn’t have the necessary life experience to act out love scenes. Enter Kallum who is all to willing to help out!! This story has so many laugh out loud moments and is such a feel good story. It’s so fun to read but still brings the heat when needed.

So the positives: The first half of this one was funny, steamy, and entertaining. I loved Kallum and I appreciated how Winnie's character was handled. Real talk here: I didn't grow up as entrenched in purity culture as some of my friends, but there were definitely elements of it where I was, and I was adjacent to the more intense stuff. Even what I experienced f'ed me up to a degree as an adult. I had to unpack a lot of s**t along the way for sure, and I count myself lucky that I wasn't as screwed up as many who came out of that environment in the late 90s/early 2000s. That all said - I thought the authors did a great job of portraying Winnie as a character who grew up with that background, went into her failed marriage from that position, and has already come out on the side of "this is bs" and is working on moving forward. I'm glad we didn't have to see her go through the process of unpacking all of that, but we still got to see the small ways that it continued to impact her further down the road. A+ for how this character was handled. She DID come across a little naïve and immature at times, but I think that fits with her background and upbringing. Her history and her earlier beliefs would have absolutely had an impact on her emotional maturity (as it did for me), so while I've seen a few people who were a little annoyed by her, I think it fit what we know about the character and I feel like we also got to see her coming into her own a bit more throughout the story.

The not so positives: The second half of this felt like a totally different book. There's a universally hated trope that makes an appearance around the mid-way mark. I might could have dealt with that on its own (there ARE books with this trope that I enjoy), but the way it was handled made it so much worse. I can't go into too many details without spoiling it all, so Ill just leave it at "I was not a fan". Some portion of that storyline pretty well dominates the entire 2nd half of the book, so it's not exactly something you can just skim over or ignore either. There was also an event that is potentially triggering to a lot of people that didn't really serve a strong purpose to the story. Aside from a few reviews, I haven't seen it mentioned as a possible trigger anywhere - not cool. For something that was really only there to be a driver to another plot point (that I also wasn't a fan of) it also took up an oddly long stretch of story. It felt very out of place in what was a fun, sexy rom-com in the first half. Truthfully, I disliked the 2nd half enough that my 2.5* rounded up is feeling REALLY generous at the moment.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first book, I'm still looking forward to the next novella and the final book - but this one was not for me.

4.25 stars

If you’re looking for a book that feels like a Hallmark movie after dark, this is the book for you. A Holly Jolly Ever After is the perfect mix of sweet and spicy and is the kind of book you’ll read in one sitting next to a fire with your favorite hot beverage in hand.

The chemistry between Kallum and Winnie leaps off the page, and both have to grapple with issues they’ve been harboring from their pasts. This story is sweet, steamy, and heartfelt, and a fantastic holiday (and every day) read. It’s a cozy hug of a novel that’ll also get your blood pumping. (If you know, you know.)

Thanks to Avon and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Super cute and smutty. So cozy to be back in the world of Christmas Notch. So much fun to love the pizza king of KC and the Hope Channel's fallen heroine. Winnie and Kallum have this insta love, heat thing that is elevated a bazillion times by sex lessons. She is so relatable and honest about her hang ups and upbringing and her sweetness and authenticity make her the perfect compliment to his sex tape. lol.

I like this series so much. Much more than I expected. And I am happy to hang out here for the holidays.

Don’t let the illustrated cover fool you, this book is 5 alarm hot! Julie and Sierra never disappoint when it comes to spicy, humor, content and story and Christmas notch is the best way to get you some holiday goodies. (Wink*wink*). I loved loved LOVED the continuation of the ex-boyband member storyline and I really loved watching Winnie’s growth over the course of the story. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it a million times, secret baby/accidental pregnancy trope is my least favorite trope ever, but it never deters me from reading a book. Done well, I can still enjoy a book that contains it and this was done well. I love the prism of emotions you get with these books, you’ll laugh, you’ll sweat, you’ll swoon, you’ll have a wee bit of rage (this conflict tore me apart) but it’s all worth it in the end. 4.5/5 stars.

What does a teen star who gave it all up for love and one third of a former boyband turned pizza mogul have in common? They’re both trying to kick start their careers by starring together in a steamy new movie. Nothing to it you might think but the heroine Winnie has always played the role of the good girl, something that came natural to her raised in a family where purity culture was everything. She’d even been a virgin on her wedding night and look how that turned out. She’s got no idea how to vamp it up for sexy scenes in the movie never having experienced any pleasure. Fortunately for her, her co-star Kallum is more than willing to help her ‘rehearse’, after all back in the day, Winnie was the object of his unrequited teenage crush, and it is for the movie after all.

I’ll admit I had trouble getting into this book. I think it was mainly so far from what I expected from Sierra Simone although when it came to the steam factor, it was pure Sierra… just balanced out by a fun and sweet but not too Hallmarky story. Once I got into the flow of A Holly Jolly Ever After, reading did get a bit easier, and I finally began to enjoy the story. I loved the development of Winnie’s character as she finally took control of her life. The whole purity culture was a novelty as it’s not a thing in Scotland, but it seems to me it's mainly about making young girls feel ashamed for having natural desires but that’s my personal opinion. I also loved that the hero didn’t come with the requisite washboard abs but had a dad bod, perfection in a man is great for a fantasy but let's face, mostly fiction and Kallum’s imperfections just made him that bit more believable and appealing. With some fantastic dialogue, an engaging story and great characters I’d definitely be up for reading more from the writing duo of Sierra Simone and Julie Murphy.

Winnie Baker's life is in shambles. She is living in her friends boat house, there are no acting roles for her, her parents have disowned her and her husband has divorced her. Kallum Lieberman was a rock star, likes to do some acting but he is the pizza king. It seems that the studio that Winnie had worked for wants to do a little risque film. Her agent is going to team her up with Kallum. Let the fun begin. Winnie has led a religious sheltered life and Kallum knows his way around a body. Santa, Baby was an education that Winnie needed and in the process she fell in love. Words were said but couldn't be taken back. She needed space and he needed to get his house in order. Winnie finally has the family she always wanted, the Lieberman's and the friends she made along the way.