Due to the post calvin’s arbitrary but understandable aging-out system, this is the last December where I will be reviewing erotic holiday ebooks courtesy of Hoopla, one of my library’s digital lending platforms. (A great relief to my mother, as—I have it on good authority—this is the only tpc article of mine each year that she does not read.)

I could use this intro to muse about the inevitability of the passage of time, but I’d rather spend my ink thanking the authors whose work I’ve plumbed for laughs for the last five years. There’s been a lot of talk recently about AI and its ability to flood the internet with infinite slop, and as a connoisseur of bad media, I am firmly of the opinion that slop created by humans will always be more interesting, more worthwhile, and more fun than anything a machine could create.

Because while I’ve had a good time hahaing at the absurdity of these books, they are works that someone sat down and wrote out, earnestly or not, for the purpose of my enjoyment, whether I approach them in good faith or bad. And that’s something to be celebrated, especially in this most celebratory of seasons.

As a special Christmas treat (and since this is the last time I’ll be dripping my toes into these fraught waters), I’ll be reviewing a bonus title this year. ‘Tis the giving season, after all.

A Baby for Christmas: A Christmas Romance by Michelle Love

Plot: ★★☆☆
Steaminess: ★★☆☆
Festive cheer: ★☆☆☆
Best Line: “Did you conspire with a doctor to manipulate me into thinking you were taking some kind of testicle-based revenge?”
Superlative: Least Ethical

Blurb: You might think Amelie LaBelle has it all; as Louisiana’s only female billionaire, she’s got all the material comforts money can buy. But this Christmas, Amelie wants more. Searching to create the family she never had, Amelie decides that she wants a baby… and she wants to get it the old-fashioned way. Enter Daniel, a sexy single dad who plans on using the money Amelie will pay him for his services to cover his disabled daughter’s medical costs. And if Daniel’s not being completely honest with his motives, that’s okay; after all, this is just a business arrangement, right?

Verdict: Billionaire romances are a dime a dozen in the smutty ebook world; Baby for Christmas stands apart by making the questionably-ethical-fantasy-rich-person-lover a woman (which is, unironically, extremely rare in this trope). Of course, Love cranks it up to eleven almost immediately by implying that Amelie’s business concerns have an annual revenue equivalent to the GDP of France—a little over $3 trillion per year, which would make her approximately 20x more profitable than the next most wealthy company on the planet—and also that at least some of that wealth is the product of blood diamond mining. But she is covering Daniel’s daughter’s medical costs, so the ethical equation is pretty much balanced.

Speaking of Daniel, it turns out that his motives for relentlessly sexing his billionaire boss aren’t all pure either; he figures that if he can string her along long enough without getting her pregnant, he’ll be able to build a nice enough nest egg to keep him and his daughter comfortable until she’s able to get her robot legs (and maybe seduce Amelie into making him a long-term trophy husband). In service of this goal, Daniel bribes a sketchy doctor to give him a sci-fi vasectomy (easily, quickly, and cheaply reversible, you see) so that he can continue to, ahem, milk Amelie without fulfilling the terms of their agreement. And they say romance is dead.

Amelie does wise up to his tricks, but by that time she’s fallen in love with him and his daughter and so have they with her, so after some light medical terrorism Amelie takes Daniel home to be her baby daddy for real.

I’ve read a Michelle Love book for my holiday erotica review every year for the last five, so at this point I know what to expect. And what to expect is not very much Christmas in a book labelled a fucking “Christmas Romance,” Michelle (my mom’s not reading this; I can swear). What I didn’t expect was the exclusion of the Michelle Love classic phrase, “diamond-hard genitalia,” but I suppose that would have been insensitive in a book where blood diamonds also feature.

Stocking Stuffer: A Bad Boy Christmas Romance by Ali Piedmont

Plot: ★★☆☆
Steaminess: ★★★☆
Festive cheer: ★★★☆
Best Line: “Did Santa just grab my ass?”
Superlative: Most Conflicted Dual Employment

Blurb: Elementary school librarian Holly Sweet is in a pickle; she needs to find a last-minute replacement to play Santa Claus at the community Winter Festival, but the only person she can think to ask is her boss, school principal Ethan Stone. Ethan has always acted like he hates Holly, so she knows this is going to be a disaster… unless it turns out that Ethan’s hatred has been a mask for a deeper, darker passion.

Verdict: I need you to understand how many women in these books are named Holly. Every year I do this, I read titles more than I review, so it doesn’t really come across in these pieces, but so many women in holiday erotica are named Holly (Noelle is second, but Holly takes the figgy pudding).

Anyway, Ethan’s dark secret is that he co-owns a BDSM club where he Doms under the extremely direct and sexy nom de plume “Sir.” He does this while being gainfully employed as an elementary school principal. To which we can only ask… why? This is one of those situations where you cannot have your cake and eat it too, Sir. You MUST choose one or the other.

Holly, meanwhile, is his school’s resident librarian, and she spends much of the book dressed in sexy sweaters and sweater dresses, when she’s not dressed as a sexy elf or her (Jesus’) birthday suit. This one does get points for being more Christmassy than most holiday romances out there, including both G-rated and X-rated Santa’s grottos. I was, however, disappointed by the lack of festive-themed dirty talk present in the latter; for a smutty book called “stocking stuffer,” it feels like a missed opportunity. 

Jingle Bear by T. K. Lawyer

Plot: ★☆☆☆
Steaminess: ★★☆☆
Festive cheer: ★★★☆
Best Line: “Reaching out to him, she pulled and tugged, gently, at his hair slipping out from beneath the hat as he showered her with the most amazing, sensual experience he had ever had in her life. Jingle-jangle-jingle-jangle.”
Superlative: Most Committed to the Bit

Blurb: Gabe and Arabella have been besties since they were children, but even though they’re perpetually drawn into each other’s orbits, they’ve never been able to take that final step. Will this Christmas season be the one where they finally figure out that they’re meant to be more than just best friends?

Verdict: If you thought that blurb seemed vague, welcome to the experience of reading Jingle Bear, the most confusing and entertaining of 2025’s sexy Christmas novellas. Our two main characters spend the whole thing hanging out in Gabe’s pizza shop, playing sexy Twister, and dating people who are not each other. Also, Gabe can shapeshift into a sentient black bear. This does not affect the plot in any way.

As far as festive cheer goes, Jingle Bear’s main gesture towards the holiday season is the Santa hat that Gabe wears every time he and Arabella have sex. At one point, he attempts to dramatically throw off the hat while he is, uh… bearing down on her, but Arabella’s no grinch: “Put that back on,” she demands. “I want to hear it jingle.” Honestly, I respect the dedication.

Unfortunately, Jingle Bear’s romance is hampered by how much of a garbage boyfriend Gabe is; this man breaks up with his girlfriend, kisses Arabella multiple times during a sensual game of Twister (while Arabella’s situationship is in the room, but that’s another story), gets a text from his ex, heads over to said ex’s apartment, and then calls Arabella the next day with the opening line “I have to let you know we had sex.” Excuse me? You have to let me know that you’re back together with your ex the day after giving me the best kiss of my life while simultaneously doing left foot on yellow? Be so for real, Gabe.

My (unironic) favorite part of Jingle Bear is the dedication, where Lawyer gives a shout out to her husband Jim, her “own Jingle Bear.” I don’t know what that means and nor do I care to, but any heterosexual man who supports his wife writing festive shapeshifter smut is okay in my book. Merry Christmas, Jim, and many happy returns.

Bonus: Knot Christmas Without You: An MPreg Romance by Briton Frost

Plot: ★☆☆☆
Steaminess: ★★☆☆
Festive cheer: ★★★☆
Best Line: “And when he pumps the last of his seed into me, I pull his head to my chest and hold him there, under the lights of our Christmas tree.”
Superlative: Most Are-You-Sure-You-Want-To-Talk-About-This-You-Know-the-Internet-Is-Forever

Blurb: In 1984, Octavia Butler’s “Bloodchild” won the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards for best novelette. It told the harrowing story of Gan, who lives in a protected reservation for humans on a planet ruled by an alien species called the Tilc. As humans are the ideal hosts for Tilc eggs, each human family must sacrifice one of its members to carry Tilc young until they are able to live independently. Through Gan, one such vessel, Butler explores a masculine fear of pregnancy, in addition to the conflicted parental feelings of a person who carries “parasitic” young inside of them, among other themes. Knot Christmas Without You ain’t about any of that shit.

Verdict: I have been doing this for five years. I’ve reviewed secret baby romances. Alien romances. Monster romances. I cannot, in good conscience, leave this series without doing an omegaverse one. (If you don’t know what that means, you’re just going to have to google it. I’m sorry.)

Darren (our omega) and his family live in Knot Valley, which in an omegaverse world is a little like living in a place called Clitoris Cove, and so again we are forced to ask… why? Why would they name it that? We will not learn the answer to this question.

Our alpha, Jameson, is Darren’s twin brother’s sergeant from his army days, and both of them have come to Knot Valley to spend Christmas with the fam. Darren and Jameson are instantly attracted to each other, but both have some traumatic backstory to work out before things can get hot and heavy, so they spend most of the book bopping around town doing holiday stuff and having #deep conversations in the kitchen at midnight. (There’s also a subplot where Darren’s ex-boyfriend is trying to own up to treating Darren badly in the past because he (the ex-boyfriend) was struggling to reconcile his homosexuality with his Christianity and Darren made an amateur porn video after they got into a fight, which caused them to break up. Then Jameson punches ex-boyfriend in the face.)

In the end, Darren and his mom both get pregnant and have twins on the same day, which I guess is cute but does mean that Darren and Jameson will not be able to rely on the grandparents for free childcare. In this economy? That’s knot very festive.