This is book is half marriage in trouble, half wacky take on The Santa Clause. It's an odd dynamic. Actually, it's more 1/3 of each and 1/3 flashbacks into the MCs relationship.

Patrick and Quinn haven't even been married a year, but they've grown apart given the pressures of their work and the fixer-upper house they sacrificed their honeymoon to buy. And now Patrick has committed Quinn to making Christmas dinner for Pat's exacting family? Good thing they assaulted Santa with a frying pan and have to take over the gig in order to literally save Christmas.

There's a tension between the serious relationship in trouble plot and the saving Christmas plot. They take a while to fully converge. The flashbacks reveal a relationship that may have moved faster than either of them were particularly comfortable with, and how quickly and clearly Quinn suppresses who he is to be acceptable to Pat's family, and the pressure Pat felt to achieve in order to please his parents. This left me feeling more like the relationship needed a re-start than to be saved.

I did appreciate how Patrick never felt Quinn needed to change, and assumed (with Quinn's help) that the changes were what Quinn wanted. I appreciated the secondary plots of communicating and reconciling with family.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.