You know what I’ve been saying for literal years at this point? We need more soft, adorable, cliche Hallmark style queer stories. And, I am so blessed to have been given and ARC this year for just that.
Now, I’m not going to be giving away any spoilers because this is one story that you most definitely need to read for yourself, but I will happily tell you all about it.
Lily Seabrooke gave me the honor this week of reading her upcoming queer Christmas story, The Christmas Ball, which shows both perspectives of Lisette and Alice as they begrudgingly attend a month long family holiday event. Every ten years, the Fowler and Richmond families host a ball in which Alice’s aunt Gina tries to set up the gals and gents up for marriage.
What’s hush hush is that Alice is secretly gay, and can’t come out without risking losing financial support from her rich, but traditional, Christian families.
And to make matters much, much harder on them both, they’ll be spending the entire month reconnecting with one another as rehearsal partners, roommates, and biting back the feelings they had ten years before.
Because, they’re both straight, right?
“The Christmas Ball is a 50k-word f/f romance with family drama, a secret romance, a childhood crush, plenty of mutual pining, and of course, they only have one bed. Content warning for open-door sex scenes, queerphobia, and a really sleazy man.”
I loved every minute of this story. Lily’s witty humor spills over every page. The characters are complicated and real, and I immediately connected so well with them both. I spent most of the book thinking, if my family were rich, this is exactly what they would be like.
It’s such a soft, sweet story about love.
I’m so grateful I had the opportunity to read this story, and I think anyone who has been needing one of these queer f/f Christmas romances like I have, should definitely pre-order The Christmas Ball before December 10th!