One Naughty Christmas Night by Janet Berry

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After finishing The Front Runner, I didn't want to get into a book hangover. Since I was still in a cozy feeling, I wanted to pick up another historical romance. Nothing was really sounding good, so I went through some newer releases that were holiday based that would have naughty or nice in the title for Banging Through the Snow. I ended up finding One Naughty Christmas Night by Janet Berry. I was also able to use this for the hot cocoa prompt for the Merry + Bright Readathon and new author prompt for Winter's Kiss.

Victoria and Heath have been best friends since childhood. Their parents are friends and being the youngest of each group of children they were commonly left together growing up. Every Christmas Heath's father hosts Christmas festivities. After being jilted earlier in the year, Victoria is feeling left on the shelf and doesn't want to marry except for love. Heath also wants a love match and they both lean on each other for support. When they are reading in the library one day, Heath's older brother and wife sneak in for a tryst. Victoria and Heath hide and the sounds of Heath's brother and his wife getting intimate cause their desires to rise. When they both give in and kiss, a new door has opened between them. When Victoria approaches Heath for passion lessons now that she's a spinster, their relationship starts to change.

This was a cute and quick novella. I didn't look too much into this before I started reading outside of it being a childhood friends to lovers regency holiday novella. I hadn't ever heard of Janet Berry before and was intrigued by the premise. Unfortunately, it didn't quite meet my expectations. There were bright spots in this for sure and it had a lot more steam than I expected. That was a definitely a pleasant surprise. My enjoyment was kind of hindered though by the writing. It wasn't bad, but it felt newer. There were a few times where the same thing would be reiterated in the same sentence, but in a different way. It also got a little bit repetitive at times. It also felt a little bit rushed in the non-steamy scenes. I would've been completely okay to have closed door or fade to black or even just casually mentioned that they got together again last night to have more development outside of the bedroom. I don't know, it just was missing something for me.

If you are looking for a quick, steamy, historical holiday novella, certainly give this one a try. I did enjoy it and am interested to read something full length from Janet Berry to see what she can do with more pages. I'm still glad I picked it up and it's always fun to find a new indie published historical romance author.

Have you read One Naughty Christmas Night?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: One Naughty Christmas Night, Janet Berry, 3-stars, 0 days, eBook, 133 pages, published in 2021