Reviews
This book is so real. Major CW for religious deconstruction and evangelical family members still around and the complicated dynamics that can come from that.
Okay so it starts off pretty light and fluffy, we have forced proximity snowed in previously childhood friends haven’t talked in 20 years thrown together. They left on horrible terms and they have to delicately catch up and then obviously this is a romance, they start falling for each other.
One aspect of the snowed in part that I loved is that they don’t just stay inside. They are out in the snow together, FMC learns about some of the MMC’s job and special projects, etc. There’s some rom com-y shenanigans but nothing all that annoying or disingenuous. Also, the intimacy that builds in the cabin was so compelling. Roxie Noir is so great at writing a variety of spice.
This book felt like it was in 2 parts honestly. We have the encapsulated world of being snowed in and then they are tested in the real world. That’s when some of the religious aspect comes up. So the MMC is from an evangelical upbringing and to spare spoilers it comes up again and you see his continual deconstruction (he’s like 80-90% there at first though, he does not cause harm to the FMC or some of his other siblings). Like I mentioned, the accuracy of this is not glossed over. I really appreciated on how he still had intrusive thoughts, he still struggled even with intimacy at times.
The narration was great, very 2x speed friendly. I will say the male narrator truly knocked it out of the park. He did a great impression of the opposite gender. The female narrator wasn’t my favorite, especially with some of the impressions of when the MMC was speaking BUT it didn’t interfere with the story for me and the male narrator more than made up for it and I do think dual narration is cool. loved the voice the male narrator used for Gideon.
Thank you to the author for an ALC! I highly recommend this content wise and also audio if you feel so inclined.
