Review: Catered All the Way by Annabeth Albert
SYNOPSIS:
Tis the season for a hopeless crush on my older brother’s best friend…
This year will be different. I’m all grown up, my gaming channel is a huge success, and I finally have the confidence to make my move on Atlas Orion, the hottest chief in the navy.
However, I don’t intend for my smooth move to be covering Atlas in cranberry sauce. Not at all how I want to reintroduce myself to my new roomie and coworker. Atlas is in town to help save Seasons, my family’s historic holiday gift shop and event space. Seasons is booked solid with catered parties, so we need to avoid any more disasters.
Like my malfunctioning air mattress. We’re down to one bed, two dudes, and a whole lot of holiday-fling temptation. Atlas has never been with a guy, but I don’t have to do much persuading. And what better way to explore than a secret romp? No strings, and no one has to know.
The problem? With every passing week, I fall harder for Atlas, who’s far more than his drool-worthy muscles and heroic job. He’s kind, funny, makes me breakfast in bed, and each midnight snowball fight brings us that much closer to heartbreak.
Atlas can’t stay in Kringle’s Crossing forever, and I can’t imagine leaving the only place I’ve called home. Our feelings run deep, but is it a holiday illusion? Can we find our way to a lasting future?
REVIEW:
I liked this story but I didn’t love it. It was both the definition of slow burn and insta-love? I am not sure how it can be both but it is. I think that this combination and the pacing of the story felt like it took me the entire month of December to finish.
So lets start with the romance, Zeb has had a crush on Atlas for a literal decade. Atlas who is luke-warm on intimacy/relationships in general and has only been with women has a bi-awakening. But this felt so sudden and rushed. He just wakes up one morning, decides Zeb has pretty eyes and an endearing lil tummy and he needs to kiss him. So he acts on it. Then everything after that was sunshine, hand jobs, and frotting.
The issue comes to the pacing, after this they spend the month of December getting off and avoiding serious conversations. Which was disappointing because I always associate Annabeth Albert with mature characters who can communicate. While they are hooking up, it takes so long for them to actually have sex, I wasn’t even sure if it was going to happen. The last 40% of the story seemed to drag out into a will they or won’t they, both on the sex front and on the love confession front.
The last two chapters were sticky sweet and exactly what I was hoping for but there were roughly 10 chapters in between that probably could have been condensed into 1-2 chapters. It was a lot of fillers, fluff, and didn’t contribute much to the story or their relationship. Needless to say, this was not my favorite Annabeth Albert read.
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