The Christmas Leap by Keira Andrews

Narrated by Greg Boudreaux

I can take or leave Christmas-themed romances but I do pick up a few each year, especially if they’re by favourite authors. Keira Andrews’ The Christmas Deal from 2019 is a sweet, sexy fake-relationship story with engaging characters, lots of warm fuzzies and a well-deserved HEA; I enjoyed it very much and was quick to pick it up in audio the following year. I was really pleased when I learned the author would be returning to that world – now entitled Festive Fakes – for a follow-up story, also a romance that starts out with a fake relationship, although this time the leads are two long-time friends who have drifted apart.

At the beginning of The Christmas Leap, Michael Davis returns home with what he thinks is the perfect Christmas tree for the home he shares with his boyfriend Jared, only to overhear a phone conversation between Jared and his sister in which he says he’s been planning to break up with Michael for months – that he should never have let their relationship go on for as long as it has, in fact – but that he’s not going to do it until after Christmas because he knows how much Michael is looking forward to it. Deeply hurt, angry and confused, Michael walks; he gets into his car with nothing but the clothes on his back and drives without any destination in mind. All he knows is he has to get away. And as if life hasn’t thrown enough crap at him, his car breaks down on a snowy, deserted road and it’s going to be hours before the breakdown service can get there. Cold, lonely and miserable, there’s only one person Michael wants to call – his former best friend Will, the man he’s crushed on since college – and who, in a desperate attempt to get over him, Michael has ghosted for two years.

Will is on his way to the Berkshires for a work… thing. He’s not especially looking forward to it, but his boss, Angela Barker (we met her in The Christmas Deal) is very family oriented and arranges a paid-for family event every year for her employees, and he can’t really duck out. Will isn’t too far from his destination when his phone rings, and to his immense surprise it’s Michael’s name on the display. They used to be really close and then Michael just disappeared from Will’s life with no explanation and Will has never really got over it. Their first conversation in two years starts a bit awkwardly, but as soon as Will hears that Michael is stranded, he insists on riding to the rescue; fortunately, he’s not far away and it’s only a short detour for Will to go and pick him up. When Michael tries to tell Will to just drop him at an hotel, Will refuses and invites him to accompany him to the retreat; Michael can be Will’s “plus one”.

Of course, Will’s colleagues immediately assume he and Michael are a couple (to the obvious disappointment of a couple of Will’s female co-workers) and before either of them can set the record straight, the rumour-mill has sprung into action, the fact that Will has arrived with his boyfriend has reached Angela’s ears and she’s there, greeting them both effusively and not letting them get a word in edgeways. With encouragement from some of Will’s colleagues – including Seth and Logan from The Christmas Deal (now happily married) – Michael and Will decide to just go with the flow. It’s only a weekend after all – they can fake being boyfriends for that long.

Except that for Will it’s not quite that simple. For a while now, he’s been re-thinking his sexuality, wondering if he might not be as straight as he’s always believed. He’s realised he’s attracted to men as well as women, getting off to gay porn has become a regular thing but he’s never really wanted to do anything more… until Michael comes back into his life. Maybe pretending to be “bisexual for the weekend” is just the thing he needs to cement his growing belief that he’s bisexual for real – and perhaps for him to work out how he feels about being perceived as queer.

Spoiler: it doesn’t bother him as much as he thought it might.

The Christmas Leap is a low-drama, sweet and sexy fake-boyfriend/bi-awakening story (and yes, there IS only one bed!); but the thing with tropes is that they’re so well-worn that getting them to work well hinges on the strength of the characterisation, and sadly, Will and Michael are not particularly well fleshed-out. Will is basically a saint, forgiving Michael instantly for ghosting him without even having a conversation about it, and as for Michael, we never find out who he is beyond how he feels about Will. We don’t know what he does for a living, he doesn’t seem to have any friends, and his relationship with Jared is seriously dysfunctional. He was so desperate to get over Will, he compromised on EVERYTHING, burying his own wants and needs and going along with whatever Jared wanted – which Jared did not ask him to do. Michael never even told him he doesn’t like to be called “Mike” – and they were together for Two Years! Actually, I found myself sympathising with Jared when he was talking about breaking up with Michael; at least he was trying to be kind and was honest and willing to communicate about their relationship. It’s hard not to compare Michael and Will with Seth and Logan, who, in The Christmas Deal, are fully three-dimensional characters with well-developed backstories – both of those things helping to make the rather convenient set up work and their relationship an emotionally satisfying one. The one moment in The Christmas Leap that hit me in the feels was when Will takes Michael back to get some of his stuff, and he sees the Christmas tree Michael was so excited about dumped carelessly in the back garden and covered in snow. It’s a clever emotional allusion, but apart from that, I wasn’t really stirred by anything in what is a perfectly pleasant story that doesn’t have anything new to offer. I also wondered why the author chose to switch the location from the US to Australia for the part of the story that takes place over Christmas. I didn’t mind the change of setting – obviously Christmas happens in Australia, too (!) – but if you’re looking for what, in the Northern Hemisphere, is considered a typical Christmassy setting, you may be disappointed, when, instead of snow, thick winter coats and turkey you get the beach, prawns on the barbie and board shorts!

And I’m afraid my Debbie Downer-ness continues. If you read my reviews regularly, you’re probably wondering if a) I’ve suddenly been taken over by the pod-people or b) the narration grade is a typo. Well, it’s neither. All the things that make Greg Boudreaux’s narrations such a pleasure to listen to – his emotional intelligence, his exceptionally good vocal acting, his gift for finding just the right characterisations – are very much in evidence here. His portrayal of Michael is terrific, Angela is a hoot and all the secondary characters are superbly realised and expertly differentiated. But Will’s Scottish accent is… not great and I found it difficult to focus on what was being said because it’s so distracting and kept pulling me out of the story. At a few points in the text, the author tells us that Will thinks he doesn’t have much of an accent, whereas Michael thinks he sounds like he’s just stepped off the set of Outlander, but I’m afraid neither of those things is true. Mr. Boudreaux may have been aiming to make Will sound like he only has a faint accent, but I’m afraid he isn’t successful; it’s very difficult to explain it in words, but instead of Will’s speech sounding less accented, it’s an odd half-and-half of accent/no accent with some strange vowel sounds thrown in. In the end I decided I had to entirely forget that Will was Scottish if I was going to be able to get through the listen.

I suppose everyone is entitled to an off-day, and it guts me to say that it’s true for both author and narrator this time around. I enjoy Keira Andrews’ books, and I love Greg Boudreaux’s work – but unfortunately, neither of them is at their best in The Christmas Leap.

Caz

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Buy The Christmas Leap by Keira Andrews on Amazon