A Merry Little Meet Cute by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone was a cute, steamy Christmas-themed, fat-positive and sex-positive, M-F romance.
Bee Hobbes is a twentysomething fat adult film star who is cast in a squeaky-clean holiday movie (think the Hallmark Channel) opposite her teenage boy band crush, Nolan Shaw, who has taken the role as a way to rehabilitate his bad-boy image. They are on-location in Christmas Notch, Vermont, for a week to shoot the film. Bee doesn’t know that Nolan is one of Bianca Von Honey’s biggest ClosedDoors (think OnlyFans) fans. Neither of them can afford for the rest of the cast or crew to find out that she’s an adult film star. He’s the breadwinner for his mother and sister back home, and has had a difficult time getting work since the scandal where it seems he led America’s favorite ice skating Olympian into an orgy with German speed skaters.
Of course, they are undeniably attracted to one another and have great on-screen chemistry. In an attempt to “get it out of their systems,” they spend one night together, but both are left wanting more. Will they be able to keep their secrets after the reporter that broke Nolan’s scandal shows up in Christmas Notch? Both Bee and Nolan are self-described “bisexual disasters” and the fact that Bee is fat doesn’t play a huge part in the plot, which I loved. Fat women should be the protagonists of erotic romance novels more often.
There are several ridiculous scenes, and I often laughed out loud. It was a perfect Christmas novel, with the right blend of funny, sexy, and cute. Also, Bee has two moms, and Nolan’s mom has bipolar disorder. I loved that queerness, fat positivity, and dealing with mental illness were all just a normal part of the story, while the novel was overall light and funny. Highly recommend!
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Reading While Fat 