NetGalley November - Snowbound At The Manor

I can already hear you going “OMG! Andrew, are you feeling well? You’re reading a straight-up romance novel. And not only that, it’s a Mills And Boon!”. And yes, it is. I have several that I requested from NetGalley (a mix of Mills and Boon Modern, Medical & True Love) as well as a bunch of other romances (both straight and gay), but after 2020 being what it has been, I think we all needed something fun, silly and us just knowing things are going to end happily (so, yeah, you are going to see a lot of romance stories over the next few weeks. Sorry/not sorry in advance)

Title And Author: Snowbound At The Manor by Ellie Darkins
Publisher: Mills and Boon
Physical, eBook or Audiobook: eBook
Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Gifted by publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review/write-up
Length: 192 Pages
Buy From (Affiliate): Bookshop UK

Jess doesn’t do Christmas. So, her escape before spending an awkward and tense Christmas with her parents is to spend a long weekend with her influencer friend in a Yorkshire Dales stately home. But heavy snowstorms have other plans. Jess turns up to the manor with roads behind her getting blocked by snow, her friend Lara is stuck in an airport and can’t get to the UK and, just when she thinks things can’t get worse, the power goes out and she discovers a man - the owner, Rufus - lying almost unconscious on the front doorstep with hypothermia… Looks like they’re going to be spending Christmas together… Let the snow fall and the sparks fly…

GoodRead - Last Groom Standing

Oh yes. Yes, I went there. I read... a Mills and Boon novel! Are you all shocked?! Are you all going "Wait! Are you feeling well?" at your computer screen and baffled over how/why one became into my hands as... well... I am not the type to read this type of novel. And you are all right. This isn't my normal read. But I won it randomly on Goodreads and, seeing as I joked that I would read one of these one day, I decided to dive in!

So, this is the last book in the Wedding Season quartet and, with all the drama of her past and watching all her friends getting married, Marnie decides to do something reckless. She sleeps with Dylan Brookes, a man who makes the wedding tux sexy. And is sexier without it. And Dylan always doing the sensible thing, a night with Marnie is as far from sensible as he could get. But in the cold light of day, where does this leave them?

This isn't my cup of tea. I am going to admit that right out. I like reading YA and when I read stories that have romantic feels to them, there is always something that is my main focus: fantasy, action, thriller. So this is pure romance and, so, because of that, I always feel indifferent to it. But that's a me thing. I admit this. I am not a romance reader.

So, why did I read it? Because I wanted to read something new. Something outside of my comfort zone. I feel that, sometimes, we readers pigeonhole ourselves with what we read. You know what I mean? "I only read the classics", "I prefer reading crime", "I read exclusively YA". We do this to ourselves without realising and, sometimes, we need to brave and try new things. We do this with new authors, why not new genres? So, I decide to try and read something new.

It was a fast read. If I had more time on my hands, I would have read this within one day. And this is what Mills and Boon are good at. Romance that you can read quickly, easier and have a happy feeling at the end. And as this is the last book in the Wedding Season, this is for those who have read the series as there is a lot of names and back story.

But this wasn't for me. But at least I tried.