Santa’s Relative Gives Overworked Office Drone a Dirty Gift
About:
Warning:
There will be spoilers for the novel or novel series Sexy Santa Charisma.
Content Warning: There may be references to prejudice, homomisia (including use of the f-slur), power imbalance, racism, body insecurities, bullying, overwork, mentions of excessive drinking, mentions of breakups, animal abuse, religion, mentions of BDSM, dubcon, and possible grooming as they appear in the novel or novel series.
Synopsis:
Ein Lee just wants one thing for Christmas: a sexy, steamy encounter with a man. Every year for Christmas, as far back as his childhood, his wishes have consisted of kissing men, touching men, and eventually evolving into dirty, nasty fantasies with men. This year is no different. Once again, like a ritual, Ein writes down a dirty fantasy with the man of his dreams, sticks it in his stocking, and hopes for the best. Of course, he knows Santa doesn’t exist, but he does it all the same.
That is until his boss assigns him one of their company’s best-kept secret clients: the Claus family. Yes, that’s right. The Claus family is real, and Ein is now assigned to them. Even with his boss telling him, Ein can’t believe what he is hearing, and even when he heads to the meeting with the client, he questions how real all of this is. But then he meets Hakan Claus. Hakan is an asshole, far from the jolly image the Claus family usually elicits. But Hakan is also super hot, which makes it hard for Ein to hate him (completely).
After the dumpster fire of a meeting is over, Ein assumes he can go back to his ignorant life without the Claus family, only to be told Hakan Claus requested Ein to be their dedicated representative. Ein’s worker drone life is suddenly thrown into a winter fantasy beyond belief. And Hakan Claus seems to be interested in helping make all of Ein’s past wishes come true.
Review:
I was a bit surprised by this one. I’ve reviewed a couple of Mullebooks titles, and I’ve been pretty disappointed with the quality of the translations and edits. I wasn’t expecting much from this one either, but then I read it. This is actually a decent read. It’s pretty well-written and is very legible. Nothing is perfect, of course, as there are still awkward phrases and things, but overall, this is leaps and bounds above the other titles I’ve reviewed. It makes me feel like maybe the original text wasn’t as well written on those other titles, or the translations and editing have improved. Either way, I was very pleased with the quality of this one.
However, as much as I am pleased with the quality of the text itself, the story is severely wanting here. This is a short guy. I think on my Kindle app, it was estimated to be 88 pages in total (based on my settings, of course). That can mean it’s going to be a scrumptious morsel, or it can mean it’s going to be a treat that leaves you unsatisfied by the end. Unfortunately, in this case, it is the latter. This desperately needed more time to simmer, but it just doesn’t. It makes massive leaps in logic and relationships that are just unfathomable and makes me either dislike the main couple or just not believe in them, both of which are not good conclusions.
The main couple is between Hakan Claus and Ein. But the first time we see them together, Hakan is being an absolute jerk. It makes it seem like Hakan is disgusted by Ein or looks down on him in some way (even going so far as to note that he may be racist), which sets us up for a very interesting hate-to-love story. It’s not one-sided, of course, as Ein feels Hakan’s assholery, and though he’s attracted to Hakan, he definitely sees him as the jerk he is. This level of tension between the two, not sexual tension, mind you, is so strong that we’re setting up for a lot of work where these two learn about each other, realize that they’re not the people they judged them to be, etc.
But that just doesn’t happen. The next time these two see each other, Hakan is sweeping Ein off his feet, planning to ravage him and then start a beautifully romantic relationship after all is said and done. It is totally nonsensical and wholly unbelievable that these two people would ever fall in love, even after some of the most incredible Christmas sex of their lives. The story needed so much more time to delve into these two and give them more opportunities to realize they like each other. There is also a big reveal that Ein has a memory of being in love with a neighbor when he was a kid and wishing to kiss that neighbor, which was granted (weird, but okay), who ended up being Hakan. Icky, icky, icky. I hated this reveal so much. The idea that this weird fantasy man who has lived for hundreds of years meets a neighbor kid, grants his Christmas wish by kissing all over his face, and then comes back to the kid in his adulthood to grant all of the sex wishes he’s had since then feels uber groom-y and gross. It’s a shit cherry on top of a really shitty cake, and I could’ve lived my whole life without that.
Results:
I was so disappointed in this one. I was so happy to see the quality of this translation, and I was looking forward to a wintery enemies-to-lovers tale between an office drone and a member of the Claus family. But this ended up being so disappointing, mainly because it’s far too short to achieve the time and development that these two needed to actually show that a relationship between these two could ever work. It just left me wanting in the worst way possible. I enjoyed the sex, I enjoyed Ein as a character, and I like the idea of this in general (except for the weird pedo-vibes, that is). But it was severely lacking on all other fronts, making this a miss, in my opinion.
Have you read Sexy Santa Charisma? If so, what do you think? Do you agree with my assessment? Do you not? Let me know, and comment below!