The Nightmare Before Kissmas

Snappy and heavy on the banter, The Nightmare Before Kissmas is a good, though definitely not great, little holiday romance that combines the spooky with the jolly in a delightfully easy-to-consume package. But there’s a big problem with this one, and it’s that the fantasy worldbuilding consumes way too much of the plot, to the point where I felt like I was reading a YA fantasy court drama. The political jockeying takes up too much of the book, but otherwise, it’s very easy to sink into and enjoy.

Prince Nicholas Claus — nicknamed Coal — is the heir-to-be of Santa Claus’ kingdom and the Prince of Christmas. He’s also a rebellious prankster until one joke he pulls finally goes too far. He sends everything into sudden chaos when thousands of presents are sent off to children, labeled as being from Santa Claus. He also floods the bank accounts of poverty-stricken strangers, causing riots in their magical world as the economy tries to readjust. His father – who has long tried to convince Coal to get proper training to become his heir – is aghast and sets about settling Coal down into a more staid, less party-hearty lifestyle. He places his son on the same career track that he took, which is exactly what Nicholas doesn’t want to do.

In the wake of this, Coal tries to buckle down. One day, Nicholas comes home to Claus Palace from grad school to discover that the Lentora family — members of the Easter court– will be spending time with the Claus clan for the holidays. This will culminate in the annual Yule Ball, where the official engagement of Nicholas to Iris, the Lentora’s daughter, will be announced.

Nicholas has multiple problems with that scheme:

• Nicholas and Iris, who have known each other for years, just see each other as friends.
• Neither of them wants to be forced into a political marriage.
• And Coal is already attracted to another person. As a matter of fact, he can’t stop thinking about the drunken makeout session he had with a handsome guy in a bar a year-plus ago after a bad break-up.

While Iris and Coal grapple with their discomfort and horror over their arranged marriage, delegates from Halloween arrive to protest the engagement, seeing it as the power coup that it is. Enter Hex, the Prince of Halloween, there to challenge Coal for Iris’ hand to prevent Christmas from taking over even more holidays.

Coal realizes two things at once — Hex is the guy he made out with at the bar, and the two of them are still into each other, in spite of all of this political saber rattling.

Will Iris, Coal and Hex be saved from their arranged marriages?

Will Coal’s dad ever let him do the holidays in his own way and stop trying to conglomerate his holdings?

Can Coal and Hex admit their feelings for one another? Or are all of them doomed to lockstep conformity forever?

This is a book that could’ve used a little more Halloween than Christmas – or, perhaps, less Court of Thorns and Roses-style political machinations and more time spent with our central couple. Coal and Hex pretty much instantly fall in love, and the conflict comes from Santa Claus being a bad dad who keeps ruining the true meaning of the season by looking at his bottom line due to his own issues.

Hex has different issues of his own to get over:

I rooted for Hex a little more than I did for Coal — who I liked, this much I can say, but who was so whiny, and thanks to emotional abuse, reluctant to stand up to his dad.

And I love that Hex is Latino, that the book’s characters aren’t all lily white.

I have to give The Nightmare Before Kissmas credit for giving us some mainly likable characters and doing some interesting things with them. I especially enjoyed mischievous but caring anarchic layabout Coal, but he’s less likable when he’s obsessed with Hex, and more likable when he’s bantering with Iris. Aside from the instalove, the quirkiness and sweetness between Hex and Coal did work for me, especially the way they try to understand each other’s traditions, the way they try to listen to one another. I enjoyed watching them doing Christmas-based tasks like caroling. I hope the sequel will see them doing some Halloween-centered activities because man, I wanted more Halloween in this book!

I have mixed feelings on the worldbuilding here, too. I liked a lot of what I got, but too much of it felt like pressing the capitalism-is-bad-button over and over. We all know it can be, but it seems to be the message of every single Christmas story in the world. And a lot of the inter-holiday violence felt like it was ripped out of a mob romance, only with magic thrown in. My kingdom for a unique angle!

And the way the narrative dodges the question of how the religious context of some of these holidays work was a too facile and easy narrative device. Saying that this magical society has nothing to do with the liturgical traditions felt like a missed opportunity for even deeper conflict between the secular and religious elements of occasions like Easter and Christmas, but I understand not wanting to include such heavier topics due to the additional weight they’d add to the plot.

The fact that I’m dwelling so much on the worldbuilding and less on the romance shows what nonfactor the romance is in big chunks of this book, and yet I was charmed enough by the idea, and by the characters, and by what I DID like of the magic system and the Coal/Hex interaction, that I’m looking forward to the next volume in the series.

I liked Iris and I saw the potential in her novel; unfortunately fans will have to wait longer, as the next one, Go Luck Yourself ( A | BN | K | AB ) is poised to hook up Coal’s younger brother, Kris, with the Prince of Saint Patrick’s Day. Hopefully there’ll be more of a holiday balance here and it won’t be all snowflakes and hot cocoa in the midst of the shamrocks.