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TL;DR: Overall Impressions

This is an adorable story with well-established characters. It’s perfect for a cute gay Christmas book. The story isn’t too long or heavy, but still feels real and not rushed.

The book does have room for improvement. A lot of head-hopping goes on, with mixed-up point of views. There’s too much past perfect verb tense (“had ____”). I noticed typos and run-on sentences, especially in the dialogue. Overall, the book reads like a really great draft in need of a final line/copy edit.

I give Cherry Wine Kisses for Christmas an overall 3.5 stars. The story earns at least four, but the technical details brought it down for me.

Gay Christmas Meet-Cute

“Gay guys like candles. Do you like candles too?”

This book has a lot of really funny dialogue and one-liners. This line, from an early scene in the shop where Grant works, was one of my favorites.

The dynamic between Grant and Sam was adorable. Sam is a very relatable character who I enjoyed reading about. I also loved Jane, Grant’s friend from work. I would love to see more of this bisexual tattooed chick and her ranch adventures. I absolutely hated Sam’s ex Clayton and was definitely rooting for him to get a slap in the face or something. The whole reading experience was very engaging. I laughed, I cheered on our main couple, I felt all the squees.

Also, let’s address the physicality. There is a lot of sex and beautiful people and casual hookups in this book. It wasn’t what I expected going in, but it was still fun. At one point in my notes about this book of romance and wine, I wrote, “this book is making me thirsty in more ways than one, so it’s doing something right.” Do with that what you will.

Room for Improvement

A lot of technical improvements could be made in Cherry Wine Kisses for Christmas. The author uses too much passive voice and repetition that could be easily reworked (“had” and “as” are used very frequently). The past perfect verb tense was used in many, many places where just plain past tense would have worked much better.

The worst issue I had was the head-hopping. It’s not clear what point of view, or which character’s head, we’re in at any given moment. The same scene will jump from Sam’s dads Ian and Patrick watching him out the window, to what Sam’s thinking while he’s working, back to Ian and Patrick talking inside. It is confusing and gives me narrative whiplash.

There are some stylistic errors, too. Characters’ thoughts and internal dialogue are usually not in italics when they should be. This is even more confusing because a few lines are italicized correctly, mixed in with the rest. In spoken dialogue, there are several instances of all-caps being used to emphasize words. In a published novel, it is more traditional and less jarring to use italics for those words as well.

Several misspelled words and grammatical errors stood out to me. Sam says “dad” where he means “dads”; forest is spelled “forrest”; a line of dialogue is missing opening quotation marks. These are all minor things a copyeditor would correct.

This next bit could just be a me-problem, but the age of the characters was not at all clear going in to the story. Sam has been out of college for around a decade, maybe a little less, but his style of speech and emotional development strike me as a younger 20-something. He made a Ghost reference later that threw me at first, before I placed his actual age. When Grant is introduced, he comes across as one of Sam’s dads’ peers rather than a potential love interest for Sam. The next time we see him, the author tries to point out that he’s shorter (he’s not wearing the cowboy boots), but the wording makes it sound like we’re meeting Grant’s brother. It’s a bit confusing.

And maybe this is a normal gay book thing… but there are multiple instances where Sam’s parents sexualize Grant, and it feels very uncomfortable to me. Patrick makes jokes about a hot tub. Sam wonders if Ian is picturing Grant naked. Who thinks about their dads thirsting for their crush?? Ian and Patrick also often talk about hot guys with Sam in sexual/physical terms, which feels like a weird conversation to have with your son.

Moving on: the ending kiss scene felt a little rushed. Most of that dialogue was run-on sentences with too many commas, which I think contributed to the rushed feeling. Also, the “epilogue” should really just be considered a normal final chapter. No extra time has passed; it’s just the next part of the existing story.

Notes on “sexual predation”

I don’t know where to put this, but I want to talk about Mark. There’s a scene in which Sam does a wine tasting with a side character named Mark, and some sexual activity ensues. Sam then learns Mark planned for them to hook up at the tasting; he calls Mark a “sexual predator.” This really threw me.

Why is Sam calling Mark a sexual predator? Sam was into Mark from their first meeting. Sam was the one who first suggested sex, and as readers we can see his internal dialogue and motivations, so we know he genuinely wants this interaction. Sam drank quite a bit that night, but Mark was drinking just as much as Sam, so I don’t think this could be considered “taking advantage.”

The only thing Mark actually did to try to hook up was book the “sexy” room for the tasting. Mark didn’t even make an actual move, just followed Sam’s suggestion. He’s a douchebag, yes, but predator? His behavior is not, to my eyes, anything worthy of the term “sexual predator.”

If Mark had a position of power over Sam or suggested they do the deed, that would be sketchy. But Sam is literally the son of Mark’s bosses. If anything, Sam has the power in their relationship. Mark could be said to have the power in the situation, but Sam still winds up costing Mark his job. Mark’s definitely a creep, but sexual predator? That’s not a term to be throwing around lightly.

I received a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.