A Jingle Bell Mingle

So . . . I was able to attend one of the book tour events for A Jingle Bell Mingle (2024) with the authors, Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone. I’ve been a Julie Murphy fan since Dumplin’ (excellent book and Netflix movie).

They are hilarious, as expected, and my funniest experience had to be talking to two “little old (rural midwestern) ladies” at my table, who attended because it was an event sponsored by their local independent bookstore, but who had never read anything by these authors or had any idea about the Christmas Notch Series (see my reviews for A Merry Little Meet Cute and A Holly Jolly Ever After). I highly enjoyed telling them that the series follows porn stars who fall in love with the former members of a boy band, and that many of the characters are also queer. Their eyes got real big, and they didn’t stay to have their books signed! It’s their loss.

The third in the series, A Jingle Bell Mingle centers on Sunny, best friend to Bee from the first book, and widower Isaac, the third member of INK, who has kept himself away from society, grieving the loss of his young wife for several years.

Sunny and Isaac had a one-nighter threesome a while back, but they meet up again at Bee and Nolan’s wedding, and Isaac ends up inviting Sunny to stay at his mansion since her hotel room is a disaster. She has accidentally sold a movie script that she hadn’t yet written, so she needs someplace to work. And sad, recluse Isaac is in need of a muse, since he can’t write any music since his wife died.

Sunny doesn’t do anything serious, so she tries to set Isaac up with a muse while they are roommates. Just roommates! That sometimes bone. She can’t be his muse, though, she’s got to figure out this story of how Christmas Notch became Christmas Notch. And Isaac has realized he wants Sunny to be his muse…he’s actually working with Sunny in his house, when he’s not still lost in grief over his dead Brooklyn. As they uncover the story of how the packages magically got delivered one snowy Christmas, grumpy Isaac and sunshiny Sunny realize that their connection is more than just sex.

And we get to see the happily ever after for Teddy Ray Fletcher, porn/ holiday movie producer and Steph D’Arezzo, talent agent! Characters from the earlier two books are sprinkled throughout, so it would make more sense to have read the earlier two books in the series, and it was enjoyable to spend more time with them.

As usual, A Jingle Bell Mingle is fat positive, as Sunny is described as not a small woman, but it is so much more than that–it is truly sex positive, as there is much discussion of threesomes and various persons having hooked up with each other in the past. I highly recommend it, and look forward to their next series, which they were able to announce at the event.