Nothing says I love you like trespassing, public humiliation, and a town-wide Christmas spectacle to win your crush back.
Atlas “Max” Maxheimer did not sign up for this. One minute, he’s anxiously trying to keep his family’s Christmas tree farm from imploding. The next? He’s passed out in the snow after getting clocked by a suspiciously strong bottle of soda.
Enter Betty: new in town, full of holiday cheer, and helping her uncle open a rival tree farm next door. Max is convinced she’s out to destroy everything Evergreen Farm stands for. Betty thinks Max might be one sleigh short of a winter parade.
Cue the holiday chaos.
Between blizzards, blown reputations, wildly misguided romantic plots, and one stolen ornament with a seriously tragic backstory, this small-town war turns into something far messier―and much more delicious―than either of them expected.
This is a slightly dark, teensy bit twisted version of a Hallmark movie and I was there for every minute. Atlas is the naïve, idealistic Christmas tree farmer in Kringle, the Christmas-All-Year town we met in Storee and Cole’s story. His drama queen tendencies and lots of big feelings made him the perfect foil for stoic, stone-faced Cole, but where Atlas truly excelled was as the holly jolly sidekick in the Christmas competition. After all, it takes a true friend to don booty shorts and dog ears but he did what had to be done for his bestie.
Atlas has always worked on the family farm but finally has a chance to prove himself invaluable when his parents take an extended vacation. This is a big moment for him but he’s not sweating it because he can run the farm with his eyes closed and one hand tied to a tree. He’ll make it look easy and his parents will be impressed when they return. Except Atlas knows that something is off, that a threat lurks in the shadows, so he can’t rest easy. He’s tense, coiled, ready to strike when the enemy finally reveals itself but he wasn’t prepared for that enemy to be the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen, with disarming blue eyes and a quirky sense of humor identical to his own.
Betty thought she was helping her uncle open his dream business, so it was slightly unsettling to learn he’s starting his company specifically to crush Atlas and his tree farm. Uncle Dwight assures her that Atlas is a monster who deserves far worse than just seeing his family business go under, but nobody else shares that sentiment. Atlas is loved by the town, a town where Dwight isn’t very popular, so Betty doesn’t know what to believe.
Their story is a laugh out loud funny slow burn, enemies to lovers with great banter and plenty of drama, courtesy of Atlas. Betty is the unintentional villain in his story and after the briefest introduction, they quickly devolve into a fiery love/hate relationship, completely at odds with each other. I loved every minute of it. I’d like to thank the author for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
