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Anyone who loves Adriana Herrera’s Dreamers series will have fun taking in this brief holiday visit with Ari and Yin, a secondary couple who appear as background characters in multiple volumes of the series. Warm, fuzzy, heartwarming and sweet down to the bone, it’s a perfectly fluffy holiday feast.
Denpo Myint (Yin)Thuta and Aristide (Ari) Douniama are a happy couple who share a domicile as well as a dream. Ari was an asylum seeker who met Yin, a refugee from Bangkok, while working side by side at Nesto Vasquez’ food truck (American Dreamer). They fell in love and formed a found family among their neighbors and co-workers, who assisted Ari as he settled into American life. Yin and Ari are planning a move from Ithaca to Syracuse together in the upcoming New Year. They’re going to be attending college together at Syracuse University, where Yin’s going to join the nursing program while Ari goes to law school.
In light of the big move, they’ve vowed to keep Christmas a simple affair, but Yin can’t resist trying to make a big to-do of it. Their extravagant gift-giving is – in light of their jobs, social life, and prep for the move and school – supposed to highlight how much they love one another. But Yin and Ari soon realize that the greatest gift they’ve received – in life and during the holiday season – is one another.
American Christmas is a beautiful story about true love and the lengths a person will go to to make their partner happy. Ari and Yin have a beautiful relationship, and their union is a sweet inspiration to anyone who’s trying to balance their lives and make it through to the end of the holidays with the person they love.
We get pop-in appearances from many characters in the series as Yin and Ari try to make each other happy, but the majority of the story focuses on them having happy, quiet time alone in their apartment together. The sex is warm and sweet and familiar-feeling, as any loving acts brought to life by two committed lovers should be.
The plot is very slight, and the read a very quick one. But this likely won’t matter to readers who just want to kick off their shoes and soak in the wonderful world that Herrera has created.
American Christmas is an easy to read, fluffy delight. In the end, it’s going to soothe a lot of souls – after the year we’ve all been through, we deserve some warm fuzzies.
Buy it at: Amazon or Audible
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Grade: A
Book Type: Contemporary Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 05/11/20
Publication Date: 11/2020
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
Lisa Fernandes is a writer, reviewer and recapper who lives somewhere on the East Coast. Formerly employed by Firefox.org and Next Projection, she also currently contributes to Women Write About Comics. Read her blog at http://thatbouviergirl.blogspot.com/, follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/thatbouviergirl or contribute to her Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/MissyvsEvilDead or her Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com/missmelbouvier
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I enjoyed this one, too. I did think it was a bit too saccharine sweet and the conflict was really a non-starter… and I wouldn’t grade it quite as high as you did. It’s definitely a feel good story, and I was happy to revisit characters from the earlier books. Fans will be pleased, but in my case, I’m not sure there was enough in this story to merit a standalone. IMHO.
Oh yeah, it’s super low on the conflict scale – I was fine with that since it’s a quick, light Christmas novella.
ETA: Em, would you have gone with a B?
I’m really looking forward to reading this book – it sounds lovely.
Nesto’s story was my favourite of the series and I enjoyed the part these two played in it, so I’m pleased that they’ve got their own story.
However, I think that I’m going to wait until nearer Christmas before I read it.
I can’t be doing with Christmas books before December! The audio is out this week, so I might pick that up instead.
I hope you’ll enjoy it!
I enjoyed Nesto’s story a lot too.