Cruel Winter with You by 
I was so excited to see Cruel Winter with You by Ali Hazelwood as one of the books available to those with Amazon Prime. While it definitely proved to be the best of the Under the Mistletoe Collection, it still felt a little off. If you can get it for free with prime, I say grab it. If you can’t, then you aren’t missing much by skipping.
This felt like barely a romance, which was so disappointing. Jamie visits her bff’s brother Marc before Christmas on behalf of her dad. Things are awkward. We don’t find out why until right before the end. The majority of this story is Jamie’s memories of her life with Marc. What makes this weird is how she remembers holding him as a newborn and telling him he’d always have her, but then falling in love with him? She grew up with him tagging along and her thinking of him as her little brother but then suddenly puberty and Jamie thinks wow he’s hot. I mean, that I get. But why start the romance with holding him as an infant? Then there’s Marc who is intense. He seems better suited for a dark/grey romance with his obsession over Jamie. I didn’t mind it, but you see the kinds of romances I read. The connection between the two seemed tenuous at best. Marc is fiercely into her. Jamie is just kinda there. They then hook up on what I’m assuming to be his twin bed in his childhood bedroom.
Cruel Winter with You by Ali Hazelwood is simply lackluster. It’s wildly short (77 pages but somehow 2 hours long as an audiobook? Girl, speak faster) so the romance is rushed. We don’t get to enjoy the friends to lovers trope, nor do we ever get the best friend’s brother romance. Most of the story is told to us instead of being shown to us. Still, as far as free holiday romances goes, it definitely could’ve been worse. Read it to up your yearly reading goal.
