Title: The Christmas Snoop
Author: Jean Wolfe
Length: 22 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Genre: m/m contemporary romance
Rating: C
Blurb:
After going on a present hunt while his boyfriend, Matt, is in the office, James finds several things he didn’t expect, including photos of Matt in a Christmas jumper, an old teddy bear, and several letters to Santa Claus—one of which states that Matt doesn’t need anything for Christmas because he has James. It seems Matt has been a very good boy this year….
Review:
James decides to have a hunt around his boyfriend’s stuff to see if he can find any Christmas presents. Instead he discovers some things about his boyfriend which he never knew before and it makes him love Matt that little bit more.
In some ways this was a bit of a cute and lighthearted idea for a story. I liked the first bit where James is looking about in his boyfriend’s wardrobe and study for presents and discovering something a lot more precious. In particular, I liked how the found objects tell us something of Matt as James sees him, and how things change slightly because of his discoveries. It was a clever way of showing character.
When Matt arrives home, the story stopped working quite as well, possibly because we go straight into a sex scene. I was more interested in meeting the mysterious Matt of whom we had been given glimpses of earlier in the book, than I was about the size and shape of his dick and so because we get straight into the physical, the story lost something for me and I began to switch off. I barely knew these guys so I wasn’t interested in sex, but I was interested in getting to know them as a couple and that didn’t really happen.
So whilst I really liked the way that character is shown in the first half of the story, the second half didn’t work so well. It’s still a story that may appeal to readers though, especially those who may not feel the same way about the sex scene as I did.
