Review: The Holiday Hoax by Skylar M. Cates
Publisher: Dreamspinner
Publish Date: December 12, 2014
Reviewed by: Heller
How I got this book: E-Arc from Publisher
“I’m Evan Goodman, budding actor, future star, college freshman. Oh, and let’s not forget—recently dumped. If only my family wasn’t expecting to meet my new boyfriend over the holiday break. Enter JD Laurens—a sweet and quiet science major who mostly keeps to himself. When he gathers the courage to come out, poor JD gets abandoned by his only family right in front of me, and now he has nowhere to go for Christmas. But I have a proposition for him: pretend to be my boyfriend for the holidays so I can take him home. It’s a win-win. What could go wrong?”
I went into this expecting more of a lark but this actually turned out to be a very tender-hearted story. I thought Evan was going to be a player but he wasn’t at all, he was tremendously sweet, goofy and so very kind to offer JD a place to stay over the holiday break. I loved the relationship he had with his mother and the fact that his family opened up their home to “Tyler” over the holidays even after the big reveal.
This was a wonderful NA romance but tinged with sadness with both the events going on between JD and his brother as well as when Evan meets an old school bully. He suffered a lot of torment over the years, the fact that he’s so sunny and positive now is a testament to his strength.
If we had gotten JD’s POV my rating would have ramped up even higher. I really loved his comments on how Evan’s attitude in the dorms was able to help him in his own life. As it was though, this was such a great little holiday romance. I felt so bad for Evan as he recounted his time with Tyler and how everyone in the dorm was witness to it all. I’m not sure what Tyler’s issues are but he treated Evan horribly. I was happy to both Evan and JD move on in a very realistic way.
This had a fun and touching epilogue that just cemented my love of these two characters.
I’m giving The Holiday Hoax a B+