One More Gift by Holly June Smith 160 pages • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ • 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
If this were a Blumhouse film, the surprise visitor at the cabin would be a demon, not an ex-husband. Fortunately, this is smut, not horror, and instead of blood on the snow we get… bodies on the furniture.
What starts as a cozy little snowed-in getaway for our FMC and her new boyfriend turns into something far more intriguing when her ex-husband shows up and crashes the party. What should be the setup for jealousy and drama becomes a full-on holiday upgrade, as everyone in this tiny cabin decides that collaboration is better than competition. ⚔️
Staying friends with your ex is one thing. Staying really, really good friends while your current boyfriend also becomes very close with him? That’s a whole different candy cane.
The plot is loose and wildly unrealistic, but that’s part of the charm. This is not here to be a profound exploration of human dynamics; it’s here so you can watch three consenting adults make terrible, excellent choices in a snowed-in cabin.
Kink buffet includes tease & denial, breeding kink, bondage, anal play, and DP, all wrapped in warm festive depravity. This is not a “maybe it’s romance with some spice” situation. This is “I need to open a window and it’s December.”
The audiobook cranks the whole experience several notches higher. Holly June Smith clearly understands that listeners are obsessed with duet and multicast narration, and this production delivers. Three luscious British accents pouring filth directly into your ears is a public safety hazard in the best way.
Narrators Evelyn Rose, John York, and Ryan Mairs absolutely do not disappoint. They turn a boring workday into, “I suddenly need to concentrate very hard on this… ‘data.’”
If you’re craving a quick, unapologetically smutty holiday romp with exes who are way too compatible and a boyfriend who’s very on board with group projects, One More Gift is exactly the filthy little present you’re looking for. 🎁🔥
A Very Krampus Holiday by Katee Robert 15 pages • ⭐️⭐️⭐️ • 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
That’s right. Fifteen pages. One-five. So if you opened this expecting Great Expectations, that’s on you and your Victorian delusions.
What you do get is a filthy, depraved cannonball straight into Krampus smut that is absolutely the perfect starter shot for your holiday filth marathon. Think of it as a peppermint-flavored sin chaser.
This thing is outlandish in every direction. The spice? Unholy. If I wasn’t firmly on the naughty list before, Saint Nick has definitely filed a formal complaint now. For a story this short, the letter-to-spice ratio is obscene. Every consonant and vowel is doing overtime.
Katee, as always, shows up to do the Lord’s work and by “Lord” I mean whoever is in charge of panty-soaking demon degeneracy. I did not have “reconsidering two-horned monsters dragging me into the pits of hell” on my holiday bingo card, yet here we are. If it is only fifteen pages, maybe being dragged off screaming isn’t the worst way to spend an evening.
If you are craving longing, yearning, tender feelings, and holiday heartstring tugging, keep walking. This is not your cocoa-and-cuddles read.
If you want your brain gently concussed by “what in the kink exploration did I just agree to” smut, this might be exactly your flavor.
Also. It is fifteen. pages. Just take the win and let Krampus rearrange your holiday spirit. 🎄🔥
Bad Intentions by Mila Kane 454 pages • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ • 🌶️🌶️🌶️¾
Bully romance: the genre where boys have the emotional range of a teaspoon and work it out by tormenting the girl they’re already in love with. Very enlightened. Very mature.
Here, we’ve got the classics. Bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Awkward nerd. Coach’s daughter. “Love” at first sight, followed by 300+ pages of psychological dodgeball.
Lily is the sheltered, rejected nerd, wrapped in bubble wrap by her firmly middle-class parents who gave up their dreams because she was a whoopsie baby. That accidental-baby guilt coats everything she does. It hangs over the story like full-fat ice cream that leaves a waxy film on your tongue. You don’t forget it, and after a while, it’s less flavor and more… residue.
Her dream is simple: get as far away as possible, go to university on the opposite coast, and finally live a life that feels like hers instead of a repayment plan. That craving for independence is one of the most compelling parts of the book, even when the plot is doing the most.
Cayden is the textbook broken bad boy from the bad part of town. Trauma, abuse, cruelty, all wrapped in one broody, ragey package. Underneath it all, he just wants to be loved, of course, but he expresses that obsession with Lily in wildly unhealthy ways. When his past comes for her, his response is violent, dangerous, and exactly what you’d expect from a “dark” high school bully romance.
And that’s the thing. This is a high school hockey bully dark romance that stuffs in every single cringe cliché it can find, then goes back for seconds. Secret pain, cruel pranks, miscommunication, self-sacrifice, martyrdom, the whole buffet.
Which leaves me with the question I always circle back to with bully romance: was it worth it? Are 350-ish pages of humiliation, angst, and emotional gut-punches really balanced by maybe 100 pages of healing and happiness?
When you see that ratio in print, it hits different, doesn’t it? Because no. And no one in their right mind should tolerate that. Yet so many people do, on and off the page.
Stephen Chbosky wrote in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, “We accept the love we think we deserve.” Filter this book through that lens and it stops being just “dark romance fun” and starts feeling a lot more disturbing. Bully romances like this don’t just flirt with that idea, they roll around in it.
So: ✅ Compulsively readable ✅ Emotional depth, especially around guilt and trauma ✅ Spice that serves the story instead of replacing it
But also: ❌ Heavy on cliché ❌ A lot of suffering for a relatively small window of joy ❌ A relationship that, in real life, would be a walking red flag parade
3.75 chili peppers for the spice, 4 stars for the execution… and a lingering unease that might stick with you longer than the happily ever after.
Fake marriages are such a flawless idea, right? No consequences, no emotional chaos, nobody catching feelings or getting caught in the lie. It’s practically an HR-approved life hack. 🙃
This one is classic spicy Hallmark:
Grumpy billionaire MMC + sunshine FMC
Fake marriage to appease the family
Single bed, forced proximity, big city girl in a small town Christmas terrarium.
Is it original? Not remotely. Is it comforting? Absolutely. You can practically set your watch by the third-act breakup and the “if we just had one honest conversation this book would be 200 pages shorter” miscommunication. If people in romance novels went to therapy and used “I” statements, half the genre would collapse overnight.
Sebastien Cartwright is your standard cold, hyper-structured billionaire with four failed engagements and the emotional range of a colorless spreadsheet. Daddy has decreed that if he doesn’t show up at the family ranch for December, big bro gets the CEO crown. Rich people succession crises are truly the silliest of high stakes.
Enter Georgia Peach. Yes, that is her actual name and yes, she is exactly what you think. She is weaponized sunshine with a mixing bowl, baking cupcakes that practically come with healing crystals baked in. Sebastien allegedly can’t stand her, except for the part where he definitely wants to rail her six ways from Sunday.
So he offers her a deal: pretend to be his wife for the month of December at the family ranch for a casual one million dollars. She says yes, after negotiating up from a mere $100k with the hot emotionally constipated billionaire. (tension foreshadowing? Yes, yes it is)
From there, everything unfolds exactly how you think it will. Feelings. Longing. Spice. Family chaos. The inevitable third-act breakup that feels less like drama and more like the author pulling the emergency brake because “we need conflict here.” I am so tired of third-act breakups that exist purely because no one can say, “Hey, can we talk about this like grown adults?”
The banter is… fine. Not scream-laugh funny, but there were several moments that made me smile. The characters lean hard into stereotype territory, which makes them easy to consume but hard to truly believe. It’s candy, not a meal.
Could this have been a novella? Yes. Did it need 408 pages? Absolutely not. But if you’re in the mood for a predictable, cozy, spicy holiday comfort read where you know exactly what you’re getting and you’re not asking for great literature, this will scratch that “spicy Hallmark” itch nicely.
This is not a reverse harem, it’s “all five brothers are in their feelings about the same girl” energy.
And yes, she is eighteen. Legally an adult, emotionally a feral kitten with a philosopher’s brain and a trauma file thicker than the book itself.
Let’s talk tone first. I was not ready for how deep this story dives into mental health, depression, and suicidal ideation. It is heavy. If you’ve lived with any of that, parts of this will land in your body, not just your brain. They did for me. The depiction is vivid and it absolutely strengthens the emotional stakes and character connection, but it also left me mopey and wrung out. Consider this your content warning and emotional prep.
The spice is present and accounted for, but it is not mindless “plot, what plot?” territory. It is stitched into the story in a way that makes sense for the characters and their mess of feelings. Think “low to medium heat with flavor” rather than “five-alarm smut.”
Now. The FMC.
This eighteen-year-old is quite possibly the most emotionally literate, insight-drenched heroine I have ever seen on a page. She is wise, compassionate, relentlessly self-aware, and has the interpersonal skills of a seasoned therapist who has survived three lifetimes. While actively navigating her own trauma.
Is it compelling? Yes. Is it believable? Not even a little.
Her depth of understanding about people is so advanced it snapped my suspension of disbelief more than once. And it raised a bigger question for me: did she really need to be eighteen? Was that crucial to the story? In my opinion, no. Beyond some angst about age gaps with the brothers, her being a teenager feels unnecessary and, honestly, a little exhausting. The trend of dropping teenage girls into extremely adult emotional and sexual dynamics like this is starting to feel… icky.
Craft-wise, the book is solid. The plot is dense, the emotional connections are intense, and the dynamics within the family are rich and layered. When the spice shows up, it works, and it fits the emotional tone instead of hijacking it.
Page count, though.
Five Brothers clocks in at about 560 pages. Could this story have been told beautifully in 350? Absolutely. There are stretches that feel indulgent and unnecessary; an attempt to pack more drama and build more tension, which was not needed.
Final vibe: A well-written, emotionally heavy, occasionally brilliant exploration of trauma, love, and obsession that also made me side-eye the age choices and wish someone had taken a red pen to about 200 pages.
Worth reading if you want:
Intense mental health themes
Messy, layered family dynamics
Low-to-medium spice woven into a real plot
Approach with care if:
Your attention span is not here for a 560-page emotional marathon
Age-gap plus teenage FMC makes you uncomfortable
You are sensitive to depictions of depression and suicidal ideation
Writing prompt: A door of living obsidian appears at midnight in the center of your city, and only you can hear it breathing.
My eyes sprang open the vision of a black door searing into my mind. My heart began to race and a sense of unease, or fear, or impending threat nearly overwhelmed me. Just a dream It’s just a dream. My body doesn’t understand that, so I close my eyes and focus on taking deep, calming breaths. Just a dream.
The vision in my mind became more clear – a door, taller and wider than any door I had ever seen, shining like it was made of polished obsidian stood right next to the historic water fountain in the little downtown of our city. Part of me can’t seem to shake this, can’t seem to relax enough to abolish the image from my mind.
Looking at my watch, seeing that it just passed midnight, maybe I should just throw on some slippers and drive downtown to confirm it’s just a dream. No, that’s ridiculous. Insane. Logical people don’t go on a little joy ride to make sure they’re sane before falling back asleep. No. Sane people just go to sleep.
Maybe you’re not sane
My internal dialogue is not helping. Maybe I’m not the sanest person. I’m certainly not conventional, not accepted by the banal society of my smallish town. Conforming to their preferences is what I’d consider insane. So what if I’m quirky? So what if I’m going to fling back my covers, put on my slippers, and drive the scant few miles downtown to check on an obsidian door that is 100% not going to be there? It’s after midnight, it’s not like anyone is going to see me.
My mind made up, I did just that, flinging back my duvet and sliding my feet into slippers. This doesn’t demand dressing or normal shoes, I’m not even getting out of the car. Looking down I notice I’m wearing the moth-eaten nightgown that’s for comfort and definitely not for looks. Sighing, I grab a robe, touch the bun of hair on the top of my head, grab my glasses, and head out the front door.
This is insane. This phrase feels like it’s being tattooed on every bend and fold of my brain. Because on many fronts this was, in fact, insane.
And yet, I could feel something tugging at me from my heart, some weird preternatural pull towards downtown.
“Maybe I am insane” I mumble to myself. And maybe I am, but I have to know, and I’m not sure if I prefer for there to be nothing there, or for some mythological black door to be waiting.
There are too many cars as I get within two blocks of the fountain. This place is a ghost town after ten PM, so why are there so many cars? My heart rate picks up the pace. Could it be because others are drawn to a giant black door? It’s starting to feel like an alien abduction movie and an ominous feeling of foreboding nearly overtook the persistent warmth pulling me towards this city center. Maybe this is some mass hallucination? Some toxin in our water supply?
I decide to park a block and a half away from the fountain and go the rest of the way on foot. No, I did not dress for this, nor am I wearing appropriate footwear, and yet that pull feels tighter, more insistent. And then there’s the breathing. I could hear it slightly from within the car – it sounded like a steady rhythm, normal breathing. At first I thought it was my own, but realized I was breathing far faster. When I got out of the car, I could almost hear a hitch in the breathing, like whoever it was gasped, or stopped breathing for a beat. When it resumed, it felt faster. As the pace of the breathing slowly increased my footsteps matched the pace, my heart pounding in double time.
Turning the corner, the breathing sounded more like the exhalation of a sigh, a sound so full of relief and the barest hint of a smile. My heart didn’t slow, my breathing increased. Looking up, about a football field away was the fountain, lit up and beautiful, with a crowd of people surrounding a midnight black, gleaming door that towered over everything. It was twenty feet high and maybe fifteen feet wide. The door from my dream.
And it was humming. I could feel the vibrations of the hum – not a tune that I was familiar with, but a tune that my body seemed to understand. My feet propelled me forward towards the door. As I got closer the humming became more upbeat, a feeling of joy and anticipation in it.
Who was humming? Did someone have a microphone and speaker? As I got closer, the crowd was chattering as they looked at the door.
“What the heck is that?” an older gentleman said. He, too, was in his pajamas and slippers. So I wasn’t the only one awoken by this. Had we done some sort of shared dreaming? Did that manifest this door? Was this some sort of witchcraft and our dreams were hacked? That would be a really cool trick if it hadn’t been done on me!
All of the chatter made it difficult to make out full conversations. I got as close to the front of the crowd as possible to see the door. Some sort of mentally agreed-upon barrier was in place, because only one person was closer to the door, while everyone else kept about six feet back in a circle surrounding it.
There it was, the door, as beautiful and alluring as it was in my dream. No, it was even more appealing. The pull from my center mass felt gravitational, unavoidable, and the humming was now smooth and melodic, feeling almost like a lullaby.
“That tune is beautiful,” I said to no one in particular. No one responded. Everyone was so enthralled by this behemoth of a door that magically appeared.
“I think it’s Banksy.” a woman with a full face of make-up and silk nightgown with a robe with feathers – like a caricature of Blanche Dubois, perfectly put-together. Though, her logic is sound. Maybe this is some modern art installation. It had all the components of art, and it got a bunch of homebodies out of their houses after midnight, so maybe it’s just that.
Even the shared dream might be explained. Perhaps we’d all been slowly being fed images or ideas of this subliminally so when it appeared it just seemed supernatural, when it’s really just marketing. That seemed reasonable.
Feeling disappointed and jaded, I turned from the door to return home. The humming stopped with a squeak. It was definitely a male voice, further confirming the idea that it’s Banksy.
“No, please don’t leave me.” the voice was smooth, deep, but soft and warm, an edge of panic in his voice. It felt like warm apple cider, filling and warming my very core. Instinctively, I turned back to see what had happened to spark this reply, only to find that no one had moved. I stood on tip-toes trying to see the man that was near the door, only to see it empty.
“I don’t think it will let anyone get close to it. Did you see how he was trying to walk closer? It was like the ground was moving the opposite direction.” a woman diagonally to me said to someone.
What? I pushed my way a little closer, still feeling a pull, but not wanting to follow it. I don’t want to be anywhere near this door. It calls to me, but it scares me.
I stepped out of the circle, closer to the massive black thing. I could feel it vibrating, hear its own other-wordly music humming through my body. The sound was filling my brain, flooding it with harmonies, feeling the paints of each note caressing my mind, touching each part of it, of me, it was feeling for something. The tendrils of the melody stroked the borders of my memories, kissed at the recollections of joy, sorrow, anger, disappointment, and converted them into sounds and colors. My mind exploding with rainbows of light and spirals of vibrancy – tints and tones I don’t know if I’ve ever recognized before. Each caress felt solid and welcoming, like a lure.
My eyes popped open – I hadn’t even known I closed them. The sounds of people yelling crashed into my ears.
“What are you doing?!”
“How did you get that close?”
At that I looked up and noticed that I was directly in front of the door – the spot that I assumed was a handle almost too high for me to reach. What was I doing? All of this is more than suspicious. Random black, possibly murder doors don’t just wake people up and then give them candy – it was most definitely not a pinata. And yet, I could not move; I could not even contemplate turning around and walking away. There was something on the other side of that door that felt like me. Like some part of me that was missing and I didn’t realize it until I heard that humming, felt that voice inside me.
So I did the only logical thing I could do, I reached my arm up to the handle and pushed the door open.
Book Slut 