Note: Portions of this post first appeared in the Roswell Daily Record…
It’s that fun time of the year when scifi romance and paranormal romance authors combine their otherworldly tales with the holidays we observe here on Earth.
First out of the gate was Unwrapping the Alien, an anthology by various SFR authors and the blurb promises: “Hearts are made to sparkle again, aliens get naughty (or nice) with their mates, relationships from beyond the stars are perfectly wrapped and finished with a bow. So curl up, get cozy and get ready to unwrap your very own alien for Christmas!”
Next seven of the best known SFR authors including Honey Phillips, Tana Stone and Alana Khan got together to create the Stranded With an Alien collection which is “a collaboration of authors telling holiday tales with a science fiction romance twist. Each book is a standalone, containing its own Happily Ever After, and they can be read in any order.” There’s Vixin by Tana Stone, where a human woman leaves her job on a space station to go home for the holidays and ends up crash landed on another planet, with the requisite alien hottie, and is hailed as a goddess by the local population. In Sinta by Honey Phillips a crashlanded alien has to team up with a human woman on Earth to survive…but the freezing cold temperatures keep setting off his beast mode and the situation gets complicated. Not to worry – romance rules! In Alana Khan’s Taliz the heroine has gone to another world to research their winter holiday customs but she gets more than she bargained for.
Baki by Ella Maven, Sakar by Ella Blake, Zearn by Rena Marks and Frost by Ava Ross round out the collection, each with a unique, winter or winter-holiday centered plot full of romance.
Unyielding by R. L. Olvitt invokes the ‘holiday magic’ to help the uptight alien captain and the human woman seeking her lost sister on a faraway planet unlock their Happy Ever After. As the author says in the blurb: “a flower laden treehouse in the middle of a secluded forest village, a convenient lie about how Kayla might be his mate, and Christmas on the horizon, and they just might have the recipe for a real romance.”
An Alien for Christmas by Matt Bradley takes one human housesitting in a remote area of the terrestrial desert while he recovers from a bad breakup and a lost alien botanist trying desperately to fix his ship and go home, and mixes them together for the holidays.
Alien Orc for Christmas (Holiday Romances of Elora Station Book 2) from Ursa Dax finds a busy human running a store on a space station getting ready for her Christmas rush, but distracted by the owner of the bar next door, who is the alien orc in question. Chimera for Christmas, which is book one in the series, also occurs on the same space station and features a woman falling in love with her very grumpy and completely alien co-worker. Although the latter book was released in late 2021, it’s a fine holiday read in this genre.
The always enjoyable Mina Carter has a holiday release in mid-December – An Alien Berserker for Christmas (Warriors of the Lathar Book 17), which matches up an escaped alien prisoner and a genetically modified human animal keeper, assigned to be a deer herder at a Christmas-themed resort on a far off world. The tale of how these two disparate souls come together is bound to lead to a satisfying HEA.
Michele Mills inviteds you to The Fire Lord Holiday which is book 8 in her Monsters LoveCurvy Girls series. As the blurb states in part: “This is a surprise “original planet” holiday recreation for all the humans and half-human offspring on Tarvos. Branches of the Earth plant “Mistletoe” will be provided to all males present for their females!”
Faking it with the Hybrid: Kindred Tales 47 by Evangeline Anderson shows the difficulties of fake dating at the holidays, especially in a town on Earth named Christmasville.
The Grumpy Alien Santa from Liz Paffel has a hardened alien warrior trying to win the heart of a human woman during the holiday season on a colony world. As the blurb says, in part: “Even when she commands him to wear red garments and a pale beard made of flower silks to cheer up the human children in the colony. Even when she demands he stuff cloth beneath his shirt to appear round and out of shape, unheard of for a warrior! And when she asks him to use his terrifying warrior’s voice to make music… he almost throws her in the lake and calls the whole thing off. He will say, “ho, ho, ho” and hand out gifts to the humans if it makes her happy.”
K. W. Hether-Patterson provides A Cozy Queer Christmas: 3 MM Romance Christmas Tales…as the blurb says “grab your cocoa and coziest sweater” for these stories.
Of course the world of paranormal romance authors is all over the winter holiday theme. Earth’s Elf by Eve Langlais pairs an elf hunting the evil Krampus who has broken out of prison with a human Christmas shop owner. The unlikely duo get dropped into danger and adventure as Krampus proves to be a difficult foe to outwit but I think we can all rest assured the HEA (and Christmas) will happen right on schedule.
Lorelai Hart and Colbie Dunbar team up to tell the story of Love at Frost Bite: Nick (Mated to His Reindeer) involving a reindeer shifter who gets caught in a blizzard, the man who gives him shelter and the romance which inevitably ensues. There’s an entire MM series of Love at Frost Bite by various authors and Davy, Donny, Jingle and Benji have had their stories told as well.
The Noel Before Christmas by Harper B. Cole, Trisha Linde and Colbie Dunbar puts together a grumpy Alpha wolf named Noel who hates Christmas and an Omega Fae who loves the holiday so much he always volunteers for Santa’s Workshop duty. Sparks fly and romance burgeons and the happy holiday ending surprises no one, right?
Monsters and Mistletoe: A Christmas Monster Romance Anthology explains itself in the title pretty much and in the blurb offers the readers “Hot chocolate, snowflakes, jingling bells, and… monsters? That’s what Christmas has in store for you this year! Add a little spice to your holiday festivities by diving into this collection of monster-loving heroines who find love in the most unusual of places.”
The Perfectly Paranormal Christmas anthology asks if the reader has been naughty or nice and provides four novellas to “jingle your bells and add a dash of spice to your egg nog”, as the blurb says. “Gods, Goddesses, witches, Fae and all sorts of magical creatures are gathering to celebrate the spirit of Christmas with a spot of tinsel-strewn mayhem.” Why not get some egg nog and cookies and join them for a few hours of holiday reading?
How the Bigfoot Won Christmas by Catherine Lievense offers Riordan and Emanual and this mix of holiday story ingredients: “…a grumpy-sunshine, stuck in a snowstorm, there’s only one bed (and a couch), shifter Christmas romance that will warm your heart and make you smile. Expect a lost puppy, a naughty reindeer, plenty of Christmas lights and love.”
Bear’s Midlife Christmas (Shifter Nation Fated Over Forty) by Meg Ripley gives a divorced woman who just inherited a family winery a second chance romance with the her first love from high school. Only now she learns he’s a bear shifter under a curse and things get complicated…
Shifter Christmas Howlidays, a new anthology with twelve authors, delivers up “steamy Shifter Christmas stories just for you. Lions, Tigers, Dragons, Bears, Wolves, and more await you in this collection of holiday paranormal romance and urban fantasy tales. Naughty or nice, escape between the pages and get swept away with the new book boyfriends waiting under the tree. Stories guaranteed to jingle your bells.”
A Very Meowy Christmas (Virtue Shifters Book 6) by Zoe Chant pairs a single Dad bobcat shifter with an adorable bobcat shifter daughter and the town’s veternarian as his holiday romantic interest.
More shifters face romantic challenges during holiday moments in the following books:
Holiday Hunting by Heather McCorkle…werewolves
A Wildlands Yuletide: Holiday MM MPreg Romance by Maggie Hemlock…tiger
Snow Leopard for Christmas by Lisa Daniels and Scarlett Stone
Three Shifters for Christmas by Lisa Cullen…lion, leopard, wolf all get the girl…or she gets them!
A Solstice Sundering (Tilthos Pack) by Emily Carrington…wolf
In A Holiday to Sustain Us (The Magi Accounts Companion Series), author Michele Notaro sets her lion shifter up with a kiss under the mistletoe and now all he can think about is how to spend more time with the guy…this story is meant to be read after other books in the series.
Kristen Painter provides Wrapped Up in Christmas: A Frost & Crowe Mystery, which requires Santa’s daughter to investigate mysterious break-ins at Nocturne Falls in a cozy outing…
A Time Travel Christmas from Karen McQuestion, while not listed as a romance sounds like a heart warming holiday tale of family love (I one clicked it) and I couldn’t resist it.
And finally there’s Midnight Repeated (Movie Magic Novellas) by Dani McLean, which is a fun time loop romance taking place on New Year’s Eve. The heroine is full of good resolutions but keeps waking up on the morning of December 31st. She hopes finding and then kissing the ‘right man’ at midnight will set her free.
Wishing you a merry and peaceful holiday season!