Book Review: THIS CHRISTMAS

Thank you to NetGalley and Bold Stroke Books, Inc. for providing me with a copy of This Christmas in exchange for an honest review.

Summary of This Christmas by Georgia Beers

It’s Christmastime and everyone is in the holiday spirit at no-kill animal shelter Junebug Farms.

When Junebug sponsors the annual Christmas parade to raise money and awareness for their shelter, the staff have a plan: the king and queen of the parade will spend the holidays filming adorable Christmas vignettes to bring in donations and find forever homes for lovable pups before Santa comes.

What they don’t know is that Mia Sorenson, volunteer dog walker and superior matchmaker, is about to rig the voting so that her granddaughter, Samantha, and Sam’s friend Keegan, win queen and queen of the parade.

Sam and Keegan have been dancing around each other for years, and if Mia doesn’t do something, they might never realize they’re meant to be together. But can Sam and Keegan ever forget the Big Embarrassing Thing that makes romance a nope?

It’ll be all paws on deck to bring them a miracle and make this Christmas one to remember.

Doggone It!

Georgia Beers is a prolific author of sapphic romance — she’s written over 30 books. While I’ve not read her other work, I wonder if that epic library contributed to why This Christmas feels so paint-by-numbers.

Now, when it comes to winter holiday stories, I can’t say that paint-by-numbers is terrible. If it were, Hallmark holiday movies would be intolerable. Perhaps what irked me here is that sapphic holiday romances are few and far between, so I would have appreciated something more original. (Though maybe the mundane is just what equality means?)

Writing a book rather than a Hallmark TV movie allows Beers to veer into PG-13/R-rated territory. However, the sexual content felt out of place in This Christmas. When a book has been very chaste, and then the final quarter starts talking about bodily functions, well, it’s disconcerting. And I’m not at all opposed to sex in books.

Also, sometimes it was difficult to follow the POV. Beers quickly shifted between Keegan and Sammi, and their voices (though This Christmas is in the third person) just weren’t that different.

Let’s talk about the original part of This Christmas — remember, every holiday romance has a different scaffolding. This book is great. Animal adoption and shelters have faced new challenges post-pandemic. These characters volunteering at a no-kill shelter, in particular, offered something interesting to read about. I actually learned some things, but it didn’t lean toward preachy.

Should You Add This Christmas to Your Holiday TBR?

Here’s the thing: I was more interested in how Sammi was going to get together with one of the shelter dogs than how she and Keegan were gonna hook up. Both were obvious givens, but the former had higher stakes. If you’re a dog lover and want to read about a woman falling in love with her first doggo and giving him his forever home, This Christmas is worth a read.

However, if you don’t really care about animals, pass on Georgia Beers’ This Christmas. Outside of the animal-shelter angle, there’s nothing original here.

This Christmas is out now. You can get a copy at bookshop.org 📚🐶

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