The fact she’s LGBTQIA+, plus sized and neurodivergent makes her even more relatable and it was great to see a main character with such diversity. They are the author of the queer holiday rom-com Make You Mine This Christmas (2022) from Hodder Books, the summer romance Hits Different co-written with Tasha Ghouri (2024) from Hot Key Books, and Vivi Conway and the Sword of Legend (2023) from Knights Of. But Haf doesn’t have better holiday plans and to save her new friend from embarrassment, she agrees to pretend to be Christopher’s girlfriend for Christmas.

There is so much to love about this book - the way that Haf loves everything with her whole heart, to the way she and Kit had such a perfect meet cute. I have not reviewed a book before but felt the need after listening to a book that is absolute perfection. Rep: Haf is white, fat and bisexual and has face blindness, Kit is white and lesbian and is disabled (uses a walking cane), Christopher is white and bisexual, Ambrose is Chinese-British (please forgive me if I got this wrong, I scoured for concrete proof, but all I saw was "Lunar New Year" and their surname is Liew) and non-binary. Even if you're not LGBTQIA+ I feel this book could easily be read by others outside of the community, and that is probably as good an endorsement I can make about it. Natürlich konnte man es sich nicht nehmen lassen, das Cover mit regenbogenfarbenen Kugeln und Zuckerstangen zu verzieren, sonst könnte man ja nicht ahnen, dass die beiden Frauen dort verliebt sind - aber ehrlich gesagt passt es auch ziemlich gut, denn zuckrig-kitschige Szenen, die vor queeren Referenzen nur so strotzten, wurden nicht zögerlich eingesetzt.Make You Mine This Christmas is a warm, funny, enjoyable read with great characters and an original plot. A lot of contemporary romances get described as rom-coms, and in a lot of cases this is just lies, spouted by the publishers to get more people to pick up the books. In reality, they’ve met only once before and shared the worst but funniest drunken kiss of their lives. So when she meets Christopher and a joke kiss under the mistletoe turns into people assuming they’re dating, she agrees to go to his family home for Christmas as his fake girlfriend. A book that will definitely become part of my regular read again pile, particularly once Christmas approaches.

An absolutely delightful fake-dating romantic comedy that sees acquaintances agree to fake-date, only for the woman in the relationship to fall for her fake-boyfriend's sister. in a refreshing change, each character has their own identity beyond this but the importance of the range of inclusivity is never lessened. Die Lovestory war an sich total schön, hätte aber vom Gefühl her gerne noch einen Ticken mehr Tiefe haben können. Let’s get something out of the way: If you go into this thinking you’ll get 300 pages of pure swoon and longing, you might not find what you’re looking for, as this book a) spends a long time setting up the romance and bringing them together and b) comes with a strong focus on friendship, meaning we spend a lot of time with other characters than just protagonist and love interest, such as the Golden Retriever fake-date, the sardonic non-binary bestie, and various other fun and chaotic side characters. Characters that you want to spend time with, shenanigans left right and centre, a fat queer disabled romance where none of the obstacles to the romance are to do with fatness, queerness or disability, and some really lovely friendships as well as the central couple, who are so so cute and so very gay.I truly cannot describe how special and rare it is to be able to tell my sister that not only is the protagonist bi like her, but is also proudly fat, wears big stompy Docs, and is in her 20s without knowing she’s neurodivergent (this last aspect of her identity gets discussed in the author’s note! Forgive some of the cheesiness but truthfully, I pictured a really good Christmas movie where everyone ends up happy and a great song plays over the credits. But I think her motivation isn’t just altruistic an about helping Christopher save face, as it allows her to run away from the problems in her own life which I think is very relatable!

Make You Mine This Christmas has a fresh take on the fake dating trope, that unfortunately ended up being its down fall for me. Haf and her new friend Christopher end up fake dating and spending christmas at his parents house in Oxlea. Other than that - which is awesome obviously - it was full of the usual lovely tropes of this type of story and was enjoyably predictable. The premise of fake dating someone and attending their family Christmas is completely out there and I loved it. The women she found attractive couldn't be more different, though—suited, secretly dorky and possibly about to organize a heist.Christopher is so sweet, and Kit is the perfect wannabe ice queen who can’t help but fall for the chaotic bisexual cinnamon bun. I was so happy I found this lovely, quirky, funny, sometimes serious and always charming audiobook to listen to over the Christmas holidays. It was brought to my attention because of dyspraxia and that part was spot on but I loved everything else too.

We have romance, chemistry and sparks, we have ‘giggles’ with the laugh-out-loud moments, and the characters are all bubbly and fun, and there are also a few teary moments thrown in there too. On top of that, I was really conscious that this was a Christmas book with a fat girl on the cover and so I wanted to kind of reach through the page to my fat readers to say hey, I get it, I’ve been there, I’m still here.Please feel free to follow - I don't tend to add people back as I don't actually use Goodreads myself any more. We only see the characters from the back, yet to the reader, it’s very obvious who each of them is supposed to be.