Review: Walking on Thin Ice by Jocelynn Drake

Title: Walking on Thin Ice

Author: Jocelynn Drake

Publisher: Self-Published

Length: 127 Pages (Kindle)

Category: Holiday Romance

At a Glance: This short novel is the epitome of the holiday romance genre: sweet, heartwarming, swoon-worthy and will make you believe in love and the magic of the season.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: It’s not easy for Spenser Roland to admit it, but he needs help. Christmas is just a few days away, and he can’t face the idea of showing up to his family’s gathering alone … again. They want to see him happily settled, but Spenser doesn’t date. He can’t risk it if he wants to protect his family. But one unexpected night with Evan Scott has him thinking that maybe he can strike a deal that will make his family happy and give him a little holiday cheer as well.

Evan never should have accepted a ride home from the sexy-as-hell corporate executive, but he’s proud that he stuck to his guns. He’s done with the one-night stand game. He wants something real. Something that lasts. But when Spenser returns, asking him to pose as his boyfriend over the weekend at a Christmas celebration, Evan is sure he’s lost his mind.

But he can’t say no.

Maybe it’s the shadow of loneliness in Spenser’s bright blue eyes that’s too much like his own. Or maybe it’s his heart-stopping smile.

Either way, Evan knows he’s on thin ice with Spenser, risking his own rules and heart, but Spenser is worth the risk.

Review: Spenser Roland has it all: smoldering good looks, a position in the C-suite at his family’s billion dollar corporation (not to mention the privileges that wealth brings with it), and parents and siblings who love and support him in every way. The only things Spenser doesn’t have are his freedom and the happiness he deserves. He’s spent a lot of years keeping a secret and avoiding personal connections for the sake of his family and their legacy, sacrificing any chance of ever building a life with someone because he refuses to risk bringing scandal and ruin to the Rolands. The one issue with that, however, is that his family has never asked him to do it. Spenser has taken that sacrifice upon himself, and has erected all sorts of defense mechanisms in the process.

Enter Evan Scott—beautiful, out and proud, and the man Spenser decides he’ll seduce, sex up for a few hours, and then forget. The only problem with Spenser’s plan? That would be that Evan says No. It’s taken him a while to get there, but Evan believes he’s worth more than one night—a fact he ends up proving by being every single thing that’s wonderful.

And then comes The Plan. The BIG one where Spenser asks Evan to pretend to be his boyfriend over the holidays because he needs a buffer between himself and his family, which then leads to such a sigh-worthy Christmas story about two men—one of whom begins to learn the value of tomorrow. Jocelynn Drake pulls out all the romantic stops in Walking on Thin Ice, and gives her readers a lot to smile about in the process. I both wanted and needed this book in my life right now, and I love that the author has taken some familiar tropes and pulled them all together into a believable romance that builds between these utterly charming men. There’s not a single thing wrong with a feel-good comfort read, especially one wrapped up in the holidays, and this is such a lovely one.

Evan is beyond loveable and it was so easy on the feels to watch him melt Spenser’s deeply held resolve to deflect anything that resembles connecting on a personal level, while Spenser’s sacrifice for the good of his family was admirable but more than a little bit heartbreaking. And that family? I absolutely adored them. Their love and concern for their son and brother is obvious in every single scene, and in the way they welcomed Evan into their fold simply because they could see that he made Spenser into someone other than his usual detached and cold self. It was so, so touching and uplifting.

Walking on Thin Ice is the epitome of the holiday romance genre: sweet, heartwarming, swoon-worthy and will make you believe in love and the magic of the season. It’s low on the angst scale and high on the romance meter, so do yourself a favor: be your own Santa this year and deliver it to your e-reader as an early gift to yourself.

You can buy Walking on Thin Ice here:
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