Book Review: Naughty And Nice

Author: Megan Hart, Shannon Stacey, Jaci Burton, Lauren Dane
Title: Naughty And Nice
Publisher: Carina Press
Publish Date: Dec 6, 2010
Rating:  2 stars
Book Blurb: A famous singer reunites with an old flame. A couple explores their desire to be truly bound together. Newlyweds heat things up when they're trapped indoors. And sparks fly when the lights go out. Whether you are naughty or nice, you can still get what you really want for Christmas in this collection of four seasonal shorts.

Anthology includes nice novellas:

Holiday Sparks by Shannon Stacey

All She Wants for Christmas by Jaci Burton

And naughty novellas:

Unwrapped by Megan Hart


Believe by Lauren Dane

Review:  Four very short stories that have Christmas as a backdrop. Of the 4, only Jaci Burton's All I Want For Christmas really stood out as an excellent story. That story was one of the "Nice" stories, meaning that Riley and Ethan didn't spend the whole 60 pages in bed. In fact, Jaci really gave them a nice backstory and she brought closure to Riley's past without making the story. Plus the story was really focused on the holiday. The holiday wasn't just there. It was part of the story.

Holiday Sparks was super cute and super spicy. It was kind of midway between the nice and naughty. Chloe meets up with Scott Quinn, who isn't like the boy he was in high school, and she is still kinda like she was in high school. (You know, super gorgeous etc) Well they hook up but don't want anyone to find out to avoid matchmaking. (sigh) This story was a bit predictable, but Chloe and Scott were fun characters to spend some time with.

Now onto the "Naughty" stories. Megan Hart gives us Unwrapped and Lauren Dane gives us "Believe".  Both felt more like "sex stories" than erotica to me. I was really let down by both for many of the same reasons. There was more focus on kinky sex than plot. Oh and both seemed to have similar plots. Each couple went on vacation for the holiday so they could shag 24/7.

Brandon from Unwrapped was the only character that I remotely liked. He seemed to have a bit of personality outside of liking to be a submissive little boy.

These two stories are also continuations of other stories, though if you haven't read them, you won't notice. Though I felt that perhaps if I had read the other books, I might have felt more of a connection with the characters in the "naughty" stories. Since I haven't, they left me feeling a bit, meh, about them both.

All in all, I was more than a little disappointed in this one.

~ Review copy provided by NetGalley & Carina Press