SANTA DADDY, kink romance for celebrating the holiday

SANTA DADDY
KEIRA ANDREWS
self-published (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Mall Santas aren’t supposed to be hot!

Hunter is hopelessly adrift after college. He’s still romantically inexperienced, can’t find a real job, and has no clue what to do with his life. Desperate, he returns to his humiliating old gig as an elf at the Santa's Village in his hometown's dying mall.

Enter the sexiest Santa ever.

Twice Hunter's size and age, lumberjack Nick makes Hunter tingle. Too bad he's super grumpy and intimidating. Years after the tragic death of his partner, Nick has his beagle and long, hard days on his Christmas tree farm. That’s plenty. But he can’t refuse a loyal friend’s plea for help and finds himself filling in as Santa. Despite Nick's attempt to stay aloof, the beautiful, anxious young man playing elf brings out his long-dormant daddy instincts.

Then a surprise blizzard traps them alone in Nick’s isolated forest home. Will they surrender to the sizzling spark between them and find the release and comfort they crave?

Santa Daddy is a sweet and spicy holiday gay romance from Keira Andrews featuring an age gap, m/m first times, role playing, Christmas romance feels, and of course a happy ending.

I RECEIVED THIS BOOK FROM THE GOODREADS M/M GIFT EXCHANGE. THANKS!

My Review: Spicy indeed! Eww-ick homophobes strongly cautioned.

Workplace romance that would get both guys canned (!) in 2025, with an age gap that would cause serious high-volume tuttage from the puritanical purseylipped posse of pisspots who decide these things for other people. I trust my strenuous exercise of kindness and diplomacy is masking my real feelings from their gaze or further contumely will head my way.

Those tedious persons dispensed with, we'll now enter the chatroom.

These men are insta-lust bonded, as a novella's limited size demands, and believably so to me, as they're each in very needy stages of their lives. Nick's lost a partner long enough ago that he's past the rawness of fresh grief. Hunter's out of school, transitioning to adulthood and as astrologers say, "void of course." He's casting about for what to do now, and meeting Nick plants the seeds of a future he realizes he wants. Nick, as Santa, is incongruous being so majorly studly and not a little grumpy of affect. Te saving grace for Nick is the way Hunter brightens his world. It's a little uncomfortable, he's told himself he's a hookups-only kinda guy, but Hunter...gets under his skin.

Of course he can't show that to Hunter. He presents himself as cold and judgmental. He's ready to be more but this is who he's been for so long that, well, the mask became the man.

Hunter's not having it. He's hot for the body and convinced there's a volcano under the snowpack. He's excited by the domineering way Nick chastises him for being late to work...he's got his kinky side...and wants a bit of the heat he feels coming off their mutual interest.

Generally daddy kink needs more room to develop than a novella. It works better if we see the men settling into their roles in the lifestyle, see them negotiating their needs from each other and finding the balance point between love and desire. That's something that's rushed through...dare I say past...in Santa Daddy.

I think this is a good chance to say these guys were made for this kink, they were just waiting for the right partner to come along. Nick even has moments, like in Ghost, where his dead partner urges him to let loose and live again. It's creepy to the materialists, but I see it as his own emotional system communicating his real feelings using imagery he'll trust to be truthful and safe.

You're getting a good, happy-results holiday story and a nicely smexy package it's wrapped inside, with most all Keira Andrews stories. This one is a good example of a shorter-than optimal version.