Cruel Winter With You
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Synopsis
Absolutely cruising through my first few books of the year, I decided to sneak in this short winter read! I have yet to read anything by Ali Hazelwood so I was excited to finally give one a try. I had seen this particular book so many times amongst my Christmas shopping trips, so it felt right to pick it up before winter is over!
Jamie, a particularly emotional pediatrician, is sent on a seemingly simple errand down the street to a neighbor to retrieve a roasting pan. Get the pan, make Christmas dinner. Easy! Maybe not when this entails her to speak with her best-friend’s younger brother, the one that got away. That’s right; her bestie’s kid brother, Marc, is now an ingenious billionaire who’s heart she ripped to pieces and vowed to never see again. As if fate was against her, or perhaps WITH her, a large storm rolls in and traps the two alone in his childhood home. Sparks certainly fly between Marc and Jamie - could it be the fire keeping them warm or the flicker linking them that never quite burnt out?
“I deserve you least of all. But I want you the most. And I won’t give up. The lengths I’m willing to go to . . . One day, I’ll show you.”
Favorites
I absolutely eat up a forced-proximity trope and this one was done so well with the sudden winter snowstorm. Marc is a MAN through and through and I am so in love with him. The way he so instinctively protects Jamie from the cold, the storm, the dark - I need me one of him. The way he BEGS for her to give in and allow him to PROVE himself worthy of her is just so captivating I could have screamed. Please, if you are in need of a fictional man who is head-over-heels, pick up this book immediately!
“But somehow, when I really needed him, he was always around. It took me a long, long while to realize that it wasn’t by accident.”
ICKS
I typically don’t love a best-friend’s brother romance, though I felt this was one of the best I have read. Perhaps I feel this way due to the fast-pace and minimal details of their childhood. I’ve never been fond of the “best friends, nearly siblings as kids” turned “it was love all along” storylines. This particular book was so quick that a large portion of that was skimmed over.
The most unbearable part of this book, in my opinion, was Jamie. This girl had the confidence of a grain of salt and made sure it was WELL known. It felt like within every monologue, every conversation between her and Marc, everything would lead to the fact that she’s insecure and terrified of people abandoning her. The self-degradation comments and the INSISTENCY of them were killing me. I give Marc a lot of credit for continuously talking her off the ledge and proving that he actually liked her (even though she was supposed to have known it all along?)
“He pressed a firm kiss against my lips. “I want to give you the world, Jamie. Let me. Just let me, please.””
Final Thoughts
I definitely thought this was a great holiday read and would recommend giving it a try. There was a bit of a “slow burn” feel in that the build of their relationship is told from childhood to adulthood with a decent bit of spice found in the very end. Jamie’s character wasn’t enough for me to hate the book and Marc’s character certainly will be in my brain for a while. Even out of season, I think this is a great romance book for those in favor of best-friend’s brother and forced-proximity tropes!
