Publisher: WOLF Publishing
Format: ebook
Release Date: October 18th 2022
Genre: Romance – Regency – Christmas
Goodreads
Full Naughty or Nice: A Holiday Regency Anthology Novella Reviews – Once Upon an Aggravatingly Heroic Kiss Review / A Diamond for Christmas Review / The Governess Gamble Review / The Countess’ Christmas Groom Review / A Very Daring Christmas Review / Gentleman of Christmas Past Review / Christmas Intrigue Review
Thank you to WOLF Publishing for providing a copy of this book via NetGalley. Views, as always, remain my own.
This was a nice collection of Regency Romance Christmas novellas by some talented writers. If you’re a fan of this subgenre, there’s a lot to get out of this one, and it makes for perfect reading over Christmas. It’s amazing how many different stories can be found here, though admittedly it would have been nice to see perhaps a little more diversity.
If you are planning to read this, as a whole book it is quite long, which made it just a little bit of a struggle at times. None of these stories were disappointing, and all had some elements that were enjoyable and made me interested in reading more from these authors and characters. Quite a few of these serve as prequels to existing series, and I will hopefully be able to check these out at some point.
The Countess’ Christmas Groom was the stand out story for me, with Fenna Edgewood doing something different in a Regency setting, giving us a slightly older woman who already has a son, as opposed to the usual late teens/early twenties female characters. Overall, I think the first three novellas in this collection – Edgewood’s novella, Once Upon an Aggravatingly Heroic Kiss by Bree Wolf and A Diamond for Christmas by Sydney Jayne Baily – were the strongest of the stories.
Gentleman of Christmas Past from Jennifer Monroe was also a fun tale, with some great characters to follow and a really nice premise.
The others were still enjoyable enough, but the last two suffered from some more obvious flaws than the first few, often introducing complications there wasn’t room to explore in the novella or suffering from pacing issues.
This is a good collection for Christmas, and there’s nothing here that would make me reluctant to recommend it to those who enjoy Regency Romances. It’s also a good opportunity to discover some writers and series within the genre.
Unwrapping Words 