Despite
what his co-workers say Belling, Montana paramedic Dylan Hollie does not hate
Christmas.
It’s just that as an ex-foster kid he learned early on that Christmas just
didn’t have much relevance to his life. He’s seen no evidence since then that
he’s wrong.
That said, if Santa ever delivered a six-foot plus wall of hot muscle under his
tree he’d be willing to reconsider. He’s even sourced an available one locally
in the taciturn Somerset North and his impossibly blue eyes.
So really, at this point the ball is in Santa’s court.
There’s just one problem. Well, just one to start with anyhow. The battered,
dying man someone dumped from a height onto Dylan’s car outside the
Just-as-High, Somerset’s bar. He gave Dylan an old, well-worn watch and begged
him to keep it safe.
Now Christmas is relevant to Dylan’s life in the worst way. The Winter Court
has loosed their Wolves on the world and Dylan is on the run with Somerset
North. A man who seems to know a lot more about what is going on than a Montana
bar owner with exceptional shoulders should.
It turns out that Santa is missing, presumed dead. And the key to the hotly
disputed succession crisis is a foster kid who never celebrated the season.
Book
1
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Twenty years since Somerset had tried to tap the power of his old position. Now he had done it twice in one night. He would never admit it, but as the wind blew up into his armpits, he wasn’t sure the magic he’d set aside would answer.
Apparently though, there were no hard feelings.
Cold filled his chest and soaked out into his body. It spilled out of his mouth on white fog and turned his marrow into frost. The only heat in him came from the prickle of pain as a dozen tiny fractures crazed along the bones of his arms and legs. The threads of the North Wind surged up around him and thickened under his feet. His boots skidded on the slick, snow-vapor surface at first. It was solid, but not still. The wind blew and eddied under his weight. It made for unsteady footing.
The weight of Dylan as he swung awkwardly from Somerset’s grip didn’t help. Somerset briefly indulged the thought of letting him drop. He was not a sentimental man at the best of times, that wasn’t what his kind had been made to be, and the chill of Winter magic in his bones reduced the idea of logic and odds.
Mostly.
Dylan didn’t scream or thrash. He gripped Somerset’s wrist with white-knuckled fingers and kept his eyes closed so he didn’t give in and look down. Somerset had always liked that quality about the wiry paramedic. No matter what happened around him, Dylan was always the calm at the heart of the storm. It made him… pleasant… to be around.
Something in Somerset’s chest, buried down deep under permafrosted meat and organs, felt warm. The rest of him was too Winter-numb to put his finger on what the feeling was. Guilt maybe. Or something stupider.
Either way, as he remembered the knack to riding the storm, he dragged Dylan into his arms. The other man resisted at first—Somerset didn’t take it personally—but the only other option was to fall. It wasn’t a hard choice to make. Dylan pressed against Somerset’s chest, arms wrapped around him so tightly that Somerset could feel knuckly fists dug into the small of his back.
Somerset enjoyed the feeling of the warm, lean body pressed against him for a moment, then he had to focus on what he was doing.
“You can fly?” Dylan asked, his voice ragged and his breath warm against Somerset as it seeped through the cotton T-shirt. When Dylan laughed, it was a thin, nervous sound. “Explains what happened to my car.”
Somerset hesitated as he narrowed his eyes. He could see the snow caught in his lashes. Dylan was right; that probably had been what happened.
As many questions as that answered, though, it raised more. Wolves couldn’t walk the storm, so who’d brought Gull down? Had he already been injured?
The wind took advantage of Somerset’s distraction and tried to drop from under him. He stumbled, caught himself, and did his best to ignore the way Dylan’s arms tightened around him.
Reviews by the
Wicked Reads Review Team
Ruthie – ☆☆☆☆
3.5 stars rounded up
This is the first in a new series and mindful of that, I expected some world building; however, I did feel that we were expected to have some understanding of things which didn't really ever get fully developed – it will be interesting to see if future installments fill in the details. I particularly would have liked a little more on the main characters before they were pitched into the crazy.
Some elements were telegraphed loudly though, and that was both confusing and intriguing! What I did feel was missing was any softness whatsoever. Whilst I hadn't expected a sweet and cosy Christmas love story from the blurb, I did expect more emotion or romance. There was much merit in showing the darker underbelly of the Santa story, the violence and power play at times overrode the message of the book.
I am very curious to read the next installment!
T.A. MOORE is a Northern Irish
writer of romantic suspense, urban fantasy, and contemporary romance novels. A
childhood in a rural, seaside town fostered in her a suspicious nature, a love
of mystery, and a streak of black humour a mile wide.
Coffee, Doc Marten boots, and good friends are the essential things in life.
Spiders, mayo, and heels are to be avoided.
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Moore!
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Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided
a free copy of True North (Yule Lads #1) by T.A. Moore to read and review.
