New Release+Review: Holiday Spice by Samantha Chase

I’m a sucker for all things Christmas and especially Christmas romance novels. This book didn’t disappoint as it was a perfect opposites attract type book. Darcy is outgoing and cheery while Ben is broody and a homebody. Their friendship gets off to a rocky start and that’s when the story got interesting. I felt like Darcy got off the hook too easily with her assumptions and she was a little bratty. I wanted Ben to put her in her place for the way that she acted but sadly he didn’t at that time. As the story progressed we got to see the characters in a different light as they are both dealing with some heavy issues. This part of the book I loved because they both helped heal each other and I’m a sucker for those kinds of reads. As expected we had some drama but I liked the way it was resolved this time around. Ben put his foot down and Darcy finally matured. Even though this was book number six in the series I didn’t feel lost at all. I enjoyed seeing the other characters and after reading I will be starting the series from the beginning. This book was well written, evenly paced, we had some laugh out loud moments and some very soul searching and heartbreaking moments. Plus it was based around Christmas which is my favorite time of the year!

4 Book Corner
*ARC Review*

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Read an excerpt of HOLIDAY SPICE now:

The laundry was going.

She’d made enough cookie dough for several dozen cookies and baked a cake.

And she was slowly losing her mind.

Yeah, her usual happy place—baking in the kitchen—was so not cutting it right now. She’d used up most of the basic ingredients and knew if she kept going, she was going to have to get creative. Why the hell had she stopped Ben earlier? Right now, she could be naked and satisfied in that amazing bed of his and feeling completely at peace, and instead, her fingers were coated in cookie dough, and she was frustrated.

Good plan, Darce.

Okay, he’d scared her. Or maybe she’d scared herself. It was all just so intense. So everything. She felt consumed and hot and bothered, and her heart had felt so damn full that she’d almost had a panic attack over the whole thing.

What the hell was that about?

Sex! She was just supposed to want sex! It would be a great way to pass the time, get out of her slump, and move on! Why had emotions gone and gotten in the way? Or worse, her heart! She wasn’t that girl!

Or at least, she had thought she wasn’t that girl.

Rinsing her hands off, she walked over to the kitchen table and sat with a sigh. Wasn’t this exactly what she had been worrying about a week ago at Riley’s house? She wanted to feel like this. She wanted to be wanted like this.

She just didn’t think she wanted it with Ben.

And what was so wrong with Ben?

Um, the whole crush on Savannah thing, she reminded herself. But then instantly, she pushed that aside. He had a point last night, and so did Anna. Darcy knew she was flirty with some of her guy friends, and it had nothing to do with being attracted to them.

Right now, she needed to come to grips with why she was being so closed-minded about Ben.

He was sexy, attractive, considerate—he had saved her from being stranded in an airport in a storm—and when she wasn’t arguing with him and actually let herself relax and have a conversation with him, she found he was funny and someone she enjoyed talking to.

Looking around, she took in her surroundings and sighed. There was the whole he looked a little like a lumberjack and lived like a mountain man thing, but was that so bad? Probably not. She wasn’t looking for forever with him. Maybe she was looking for a hot and heavy fling.

And boy, did she want to get flung.

For hours at a time.

And after discovering how Ben kissed and how she responded to those kisses, Darcy had no doubt that getting flung by him would be incredibly satisfying.

So how did she get them to that place? How did she approach him when he came inside after shoveling and let him know she would be agreeable to…flinging?

“Ugh,” she murmured as the timer on the oven went off. Rising, she walked over to her baking station and started rolling the dough into little balls to place on the baking sheets. “I need to come up with a better metaphor than that.”

Rather than obsess on euphemisms, she simply let herself get into the groove of getting the cookies formed and onto their sheets. It was mindless work and the perfect distraction at the moment. Once she had everything ready to go, she began placing things into the oven and setting timers and starting her cleanup.

This was good.

This was what she needed.

Part of the problem was that she’d stayed up late reading sexy, snowed-in stories. It was feeding her imagination.

At least partly.

Ben being sexy as all get-out was feeding the rest.

And she was just going to have to wait and see what she could come up with where Ben was concerned.

Don’t miss the other books in the Shaughnessy Brothers series!

Books in the Shaughnessy Brothers series

Made For Us / Love Walks In / Always My Girl / This Is Our Song / A Sky Full of Stars / Holiday Spice

About SAMANTHA CHASE

Samantha Chase is a New York Times and USA Today bestseller of contemporary romance. She released her debut novel in 2011 and currently has more than forty titles under her belt! When she’s not working on a new story, she spends her time reading romances, playing way too many games of Scrabble or Solitaire on Facebook, wearing a tiara while playing with her sassy pug Maylene…oh, and spending time with her husband of 25 years and their two sons in North Carolina.

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