I had never ready any books by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone, and I was unprepared for the amount of spice in this book. This isn't a typical book that I like but I did enjoy how the addressed the loss of a loved one and finding love after that loss. I felt like the writing focused more on the spice at the sacrifice of a fluid plot. I wanted to love this but felt that it was based towards a younger reader.

I just could not get through this book and ended up DNFing it. I love a holiday romance and really hoped it would get better but the writing style was just not one I enjoyed

The final installment in the series does not disappoint! A bit of a mystery, plenty of Christmas touches and the spice this series is known for make it a fantastic holiday read.

What can I say? I celebrate the joy of reading a steamy melt the icicles from my grumpy soul and snow heart read! Thank you Avon/Harper for the continued joy of the Christmas Notch reads.

These books are my not so secret secret holiday treat, my once a year I am going to really escape read. If you have read the other two books in this series, you know what you are going to get: fun sexy steamy scenes, body positivity, and themes on self confidence and health relationships blended with self-acceptance. So yeah mostly it's steamy fun but I love how it is blended with these other themes.

I really love the blending of themes on Hollywood and celebrity in these books and the wedding weekend setting in A Jingle Bell Mingle was just a perfect pairing with the previous two books!

The third book of this trilogy flows seamlessly from the previous! Loveable, larger than life personality, Sunny with the brokenhearted heart throb, Isaac, no one is forgotten! I love how the stories weave together so you still get little tidbits of how the other characters lives are still progressing as well! In search for a Christmas miracle, while discovering their own little miracle at work in this beautiful Christmas Notch! The book was fun, their personalities shining throughout the book! I enjoy them working through their struggles together. I wish there was a little more development on the Charlie front and how that relationship worked through into being its own Christmas miracle too! These two authors definitely are a dream team!

5⭐️3.5🌶️

The dynamic duo that are bffs Julie and Sierra have delivered once again a great read with a fun smutty gloomy Christmas 🎄 love miracle with Issac and Sunny love story and HEA.  

Christmas Notch is once again the place where magic, love and smut prevail. 

Issac and Sunny cannot get over their one night stand from 2 years ago and when they find themselves together as roommates trying to smother their flames 🔥 is useless. 

Decisions are made to be roommates with benefits and there’s plenty of benefits, eating🤤, fingering🖖 and swallowing 💦 involved. 

Both Isaac and Sunny are living with their own grief and holding back from their real feelings. 

But when finally Sunny decides to put her heart on the line, Isaac’’s heart is no longer available, it was never available according to Issac after he lost his wife.

 He wants to keep living in his grief, until their friends set him straight and he realizes that he has been loving Sunny from the start. 

And he will give Sunny everything he can. 

This is  a fun smutty gloomy Christmas 🎄 read, I cried, I grieved and I rejoice when Sunny and Issac finally got their 💩 shiit together. 

I’m sad to see the end of the Christmas Notch series but I can’t wait for more from the best bffs writing duo that is Julie and Sierra.

This story was absolutely adorable!! Sunny & Isaac are beautiful together.
I truly enjoyed the adventure that the authors took us on to learn about the towns history & solve a little bit of mystery.

The relationship btwn Sunny & Isaac was so achingly sweet, the pining, the desire, and the LONGING. It was too good. The way that they worked so well together, complimented each other, and truly brought out the best of each other was great to see.

The authors handled the grief that Isaac is experiencing delicately & realistically. The way it was woven into the fabric of his being and was his truest hindrance to finding happiness again was like a whole other character to the story. Like the dark cloud overhead. But watching the cloud slowly fade away & for Isaac to free himself of his grief shackles was like a breath of fresh air.

This is a great example of not judging a book by its cover (and maybe why reading blurbs is a good idea). I thought I was getting a cute Christmas rom com but instead I was thrown into the world of adult film stars and their love lives. I loved it! It was fun, spicy, and the characters were just lovable.

I also loved all the nods to our past shaping our future and the things we do to protect ourselves.

If you’re looking for a holiday romcom with lots of spice, go to Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone!

Recluse Isaac and extrovert Sunny are the focus of this book. This is the third book of the Christmas Notch series, but can be read as a standalone (book 2 is featured in the photo as well).

Things I liked: the humor interspersed with heavier topics, how relatable the characters are, LGBTQIA+ rep, holiday theme

Things I didn’t like: too much spice, not a fluid plot, the prologue seems out of place even having read the other books, too many characters introduced too quickly, side plots were a bit messy. I wanted to love this more but I just didn’t connect to this one 😞

⭐️⭐️ (this books was not for me, but it may be right for you!)

Thank you Avon, Harper Voyager, and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

“What’s up, tampon strings?” This book was a turn off from the very first line of the story.

I kept reading in the hopes it would get more classy and less trashy. It did not.

This isn’t a romance, rom-com or spicy book. It’s a smut book, and packaging it with Christmas just feels wrong.

The title is cute. The cover is cute. The contents are not.

I was interested in this book because I wanted to see how the series ended, and I think this might be the spiciest of the bunch. The spice seemed to overtake everything else in the first half of the book, and I just wanted a little more substance to the story in that part. Unlike the other two books, there wasn't a film in this one, but rather Sunny trying to write a screenplay and Isaac trying to make an album.
There were some appearances from past characters but lots of time with just these two.

A jingle bell mingle by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone is about sunny trying to write a screen play while also ignoring her brother. Isaac also lost his muse and needs to finish writing his Christmas album. Together they help eachother however they can, and I mean however. The spice from this was amazing but also showed life is still worth living even with great loss. Although this book was a first from these two authors together, I will definitely read whatever they write.

I'm not sure how to review this book. It's part of a series, and had I known that, and read the previous books at least I would've known what to expect. Instead, I went in blind.

Let me preface the rest with this; I'm not a prude. AT ALL!! If you knew what I grew up with you'd be shocked. That said, this book was way too raunchy to be considered a romance, in my opinion. If it had been labeled erotica it would've made total sense. Instead, you think you're going to read a romance, and instead you get very dirty talk and sex scenes. Again, I'm not against them, but the books containing that kind of material should be labeled appropriately.

Oh, the prologue! I almost forgot to mention it. I read a lot of books. Not the most ever, but lots & lots. Never before have I read a prologue that made me not want to read the book. This prologue had an insane amount of information. So much so, I almost cried and gave up. I hope I never read another prologue like it.

I'm not sure this book was for me. I think it's labeled incorrectly, and wasn't what I was looking for in a Christmas book. I wouldn't recommend it.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

3.5 stars

I wasn't really feeling this until about halfway through, yeah of course the steamy parts were well done and steamy for sure, but I wanted more of a connection like I felt for the other couples. At the end this is a heavier topic and I really enjoyed the way it ended and everyone came together.

Thanks to Avon, Netgalley and the authors for access to an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

We’re at the wedding of Bee and Nolan (from Book 1) and start with a second one night stand for adult film actor Sunny and widowed boy-band member Isaac. And then Sunny’s motel room floods and she ends up staying at Isaac’s mansion while she’s working on a screenplay. Meanwhile Isaac needs to finish writing one more album to fulfill his contract with his music studio and the dead wife card just isn’t working anymore. They peacefully cohabitate with Sunny’s cantankerous cat and try really hard not to fall in love. High steam, high chaos, and high emotion here with both Sunny and Isaac dealing with their separate feelings of grief and figuring out how to move on with their adult lives.

This is was a cute spicy story of our main characters Isaac and Sunny who have had prior one night stand coming back together at the wedding of each of their best friends to each other for a repeat one night stand… or possibly more.

It’s a Christmas time wedding one bed, I’m lonely you’re lonely let’s hook up type of story, it’s not something I am not whole heartedly into. The writing was great, the story was cutesy, very what you expect from a “holiday spicy” story it however just did not grab me like I was hoping it would from the blurb, and that’s fine, I think the holiday tropey stories just are not my thing. If it is something you are into and enjoy this is the books for you.


Thank you to Netgally and HarperCollins Publishing for my e-arc.

2 Stars

Listen, I know there is an audience of people who will love this book. The reviews speak to that! But this was absolutely not for me.

First off, I had no idea it was part of a series! And it’s not a series that can be read as a stand alone in my opinion. There were so so many characters and I was completely lost on who they were & couldn’t keep them straight. The main characters also have some history and it was briefly mentioned but I felt so behind on the extent. Bottom line, you need to read the other books in this series! Don’t make my mistake.

Second of all this was one of those books that I would deem spice >>> plot. More spice than plot. Which I know some people love. It just missed the mark for me and I couldn’t get into it no matter how hard I tried!

Thank you to NetGalley & Avon and Harper Voyager for the ARC of A Jingle Bell Mingle!

Isaac Kelly and Sunny Palmer are both stuck in their own creative ruts. Isaac is the music industry’s resident Sad Boy after being widowed years earlier, trying to write one last album to finish out his contract. Sunny is at a standstill trying to write a screenplay she accidentally sold to the Hope Channel. After a post-wedding one night stand and a sketchy motel room, Isaac invites Sunny to stay with him in his historic Christmas Notch mansion, where they are both hoping to find some inspiration. The pair end up spending the coming weeks being not only inspired by the local Christmas miracle, but by each other too.

Ok so I know it’s been 2 years since I read it, but I don’t remember A Merry Little Meet Cute being THIS corny?! I think I maybe just didn’t really enjoy Sunny’s character. It felt like she was always just trying SO hard to be funny and that feeling stuck with me throughout the story. It was also so extremely cringy that she was immediately googly-eyed around any attractive person she saw. Like girl, calm down please.

I wasn’t really feeling the chemistry between Isaac and Sunny, but I did love that they both had their own grief to work through - separately and together. For what seems like a fun Christmas romcom, that was a nice addition for some depth. And of course, the openness and inclusivity around sex, sexuality, and body positivity are great!

Not my favorite of this series, but definitely a fun little not your typical holiday read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced digital copy!

Another fun book in this series! These characters always make me laugh, and I dream that Christmas Notch was a real place with a strip club called The North Pole. Alas...it isn't, but this book made it feel real.

This conclusion to the series follows Isaac and Sunny as they try to move on from their grief in order to see the love in front of them. Sunny is hilarious. Isaac is brooding, but in a fun way??

Ok, it's almost a little too spicy for me, but I knew what I was getting myself into. It was a fun ride. All of the favorites from the other books are back. It was a satisfying conclusion.

This fantastic romance is fun, flirty, fiery and fabulous! I adored Isaac and Sunny, and their mega feels love story. Scorching heat, laughter, emotions, drama, swoon, heart, and mystery are skillfully combined into an enticing tale that I found irresistible.