Reading all 5 ‘Under the Mistletoe’ Christmas romance short stories

Every few months, Amazon release a series of five short stories or novellas linked by a genre, a theme, or an idea. In November, their latest collection hit Kindle Unlimited with five Christmas romances under the ‘Under the Mistletoe Collection’ name featuring five huge romance authors: Ali Hazelwood, Tessa Bailey, Olivia Dade, Alexandria Bellefleur, and Alexis Daria.

I love romance and I love Christmas, and I adore Ali Hazelwood, so not reading this series wasn’t even a consideration - it was happening and I had the tab open and ready to download as soon as they were available.

‘Cruel Winter with You’ by Ali Hazelwood

The reason that these stories even hit my radar was because of this title and the fact that Ali wrote it.

‘Cruel Winter with You’ is about two estranged childhood friends who get trapped together in a storm as adults visiting their home town for Christmas. We all know that Hazelwood has a fairly standard structure and dynamic in the romance (big, tall, dark haired man and a small, delicate, sassy woman) but it just works for me.

Jamie is a top tier Ali Hazelwood hero and he delivers. Marc is an intense tech billionaire obsessed with the one who got away, unable to commit to anyone because he can’t get his mind off of Jamie. Marc is Jamie’s the one who got away, and with a dose of commitment issues, sparks fly between them when they’re trapped together. So many of my favourite tropes, an intense cinnamon roll guy to fall in love with and some top tier spice - I loved this!

‘Merry Ever After’ by Tessa Bailey

I’ve not had much luck with Tessa Bailey in the past as I’ve DNFed the only two of her books that I’ve tried - her writing style just isn’t for me - but for the sake of completion I wanted to give this a go.

Well. Oh dear. That didn’t go too well.

I didn’t end up finishing this one, I just couldn’t do it. Me and Tessa Bailey just don’t fit together and this is officially my last attempt with her books. The smutty language was gross rather than sexy, the set up was weak and I immediately disliked Evie and Farmer Luke as they worked together to find a pair of jeans that could handle Luke’s impressive thighs. Gross, no thank you.

‘All by My Elf’ by Olivia Dade

This was my first adventure with Olivia Dade and I really, really enjoyed it.

Nina and William are professors working over the winter break to make extra money driving around advertising a weird Americanised version of mince pies when they get stranded in a blizzard…

Nina is a plus size main character I also really loved the commentary on the hardships of a life and career in academia, how impossible it is to make a consistent living without tenure and how impossible it is to get tenure. The undervaluing of professors and the people who keep a university running is a really strong thread through a really short story and I was super impressed that it had something else running alongside the romance.

‘Merriment and Mayhem’ by Alexandria Bellefleur

This was my second to least favourite of this series with this story about a sassy Christmas baker who’s exploits end up in a visit from the fire brigade after clumsiness causes a fire to start in her kitchen, and sparks fly between our heroine and firefighter Griffin.

This one should have worked for me, even with the avalanche of tropes and cliches, but there was nothing to really hold onto in ‘Merriment and Mayhem’. There was very little character depth and I didn’t feel any chemistry between Everleigh and Griffin which made the quick progress to spice uncomfortable and weird. I’m a bit disappointed as I’ve heard great things about this author and now I’m a bit put off.

‘Only Santas in the Building’ by Alexis Daria

I’m not even sure I’d heard of Alexis Daria before I saw this collection, but ‘Only Santas in the Building’ was so cute that her books have gone straight on my TBR.

Evie is a comic book illustrator on a deadline and it’s left Christmas spirit in the dust with a naked Christmas tree the week before Christmas and all of her decorations still in storage. With surprise handmade ornaments being delivered to her door from a mystery gifter, a Santa-themed party in the penthouse of her building and her sinfully sexy upstairs neighbour, there’s still time for Christams to work it’s magic - and it does, with the help of some mistletoe.

This is one of those stories that I actually would have loved to read as a full length novel. There’s chemistry between Theo and Evie, the relationship Evie has with her sister is really interesting, and there’s a lot of backstory with the recent death of her grandmother, family tensions and her career there, as well as life in NYC, that I wanted more from.

This was a super cute story to close out this little mini-series and I really enjoyed my time with Evie and Theo. REading more from Alexis Daria is definitely on my to do list for 2025!

All five novellas are available as part of a Kindle Unlimited subscription to read via ebook and audiobook and they’re such a fun way to get into the Christmas spirit, even if they’re a bit hit and miss. There’s definitely something for every kind of contemporary romance lover in this collection!

(This is of course not sponsored and I pay for Kindle Unlimited myself.)

Written by Sophie