When you kiss your perfect boyfriend under the mistletoe…only for your cousin to scream to the family that you stole her man, Christmas is OVER.
In my defense, I didn’t know my boss—yup, boss. Buckle up because this is messy—was my cousin’s newly minted and totally lying fiancé. I thought he was the Nutcracker Prince come to finally show my family that I, too, was worthy of putting the star atop the Christmas tree.
I was so wrong.
Now my entire family thinks I’m a ho ho ho.
I’m at the top of the naughty list, not in a fun Elf on the Shelf way, but rather in a snide-comments-at-brunch and sitting-at-the-kids’-table kinda way.
I have to clear my name, or Christmas is ruined. Again.
What better way than to blackmail my family’s number one sworn enemy?
Anderson Wynter is this desperate elf’s last hope. Six-foot-five, ethically challenged, with washboard abs and a death wish, Anderson is the perfect weapon to expose my ex and help me get back in my family’s good graces.
That is, until the weapon massively backfires… and no, not like that.
Anderson goes full Nightmare Before Christmas and shows up at my family’s annual holiday party in nothing but tattoos and a motorcycle helmet and tells everyone we’re dating.
Yep, that kicks me off the naughty list and sends me straight to the Grinch’s garbage dump.
Now I’m chained to a motorcycle-riding bad elf with terrible morals and an even worse attitude—one who sticks his hand down my shirt in the middle of my parents’ posh country club and tells me to ride him like I do his bike.
When I slap him, he just smirks and asks if I fluff my marshmallows while fantasizing about betraying my family with him.
As if.
No way am I sleeping with the man my entire family hates.
Because that won’t just ruin Christmas.
It’ll ruin the rest of my life.
Naughty elves of Christmas checking in! We’re drunk caroling, eating cookies at midnight, surviving family drama, and drooling over hot, unattainable men who are oh so wrong for us. This standalone holiday romantic comedy has all the Christmas cheer you can fit under the tree and a happily ever after guaranteed!
My Review
This book’s holiday story is a smutty, dark romance with a side of chaos. While the characters are intriguing, the family is an epic disaster, and the storyline itself is more about revenge and dark themes with a side of blackmail. I didn’t love this book for a holiday read. I love Alina Jacob’s other books, but reading this gave me a sense of Deja Vu to a previous book in this series, and it just didn’t give me the holiday vibes.
Evie is horrible in the boyfriend’s department, and a holiday mix-up leaves her empty and embarrassed. The prologue of this book is heartbreaking for Evie.
Her pact with the strange bad boy is weird and kind of out of nowhere, but somehow, it is interconnected to her crazy family. Evie is the black sheep of the family, and Anderson is all sorts of tall, dark, and morally grey.
So, this book interconnects, but the story reads much the same as the last, to the point that I thought it was duplicated and just changed the character names. If you have read Good Elf Gone Wrong, the first in this series, you know what I mean. I have to admit Granny Doyle is a class act in this story.
This family is very dysfunctional while it does have holiday vibes, but it is more of a catastrophic book with great food. The main characters seem to be midlife, and the book does get a little suggestive. This story goes from suggestive to steamy, but not in a loving way. Also, I still feel like I’m reading Deja Vu with this book.
I consider this a dark romance because of how the family treats Evie. He talks and treats her, and of course, there are the intimate scenes with the demands and praise. Overall, Anderson is no cinnamon roll; he is more like bad to the bone.
This story implodes and magically becomes more confusing as more characters are introduced. It is very smutty and confusing, and I need to get the holiday vibes. This story ends unresolved to me.
If you want to read Elf Against the Wall by Alina Jacobs, you can find this on Amazon. As an Amazon Assocaite, I earn on qualifying purchases. \
If you like this book, you may also enjoy books with these tags and categories: Curvy, Midlife, and Dark Romance.
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