QR: Eight Nights in December – Keira Andrews

“Head swimming, Lucas kissed Nate back, his body alive in a way it had never been while kissing a girl.”

 

In a word: Read the thing.

 

The Summary: (from Goodreads) A geek. A virgin. One sexy holiday.

Orphaned Lucas figures spending the holidays with his obnoxious roommate’s family in New York City is better than staying alone on campus upstate. He ends up sharing a room again, this time with his roommate’s brother, Nate. Geeky photographer Nate isn’t at all what Lucas expects. In fact, he’s incredibly sexy—especially when he invites Lucas into his darkroom…

They hide their attraction during Hanukkah celebrations, but behind closed doors, Lucas and Nate can’t keep their hands (or mouths) off each other. Nate’s only looking for a bit of holiday fun, and amazing sex with a hot virgin definitely fits the bill. Yet as the candles burn, Nate and Lucas begin to realize eight nights will never be enough.

This gay holiday romance from Keira Andrews features secret trysts, new adult angst, spinning the dreidel, and of course a happy ending. 25,000 words.

Note: Originally published as Eight Nights by Loose Id in 2007. New edition significantly revised and expanded.

 

[available for purchase at Amazon.ca and Chapters. Also available in the Gay Holiday Romance Collection x x]

 

THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS

 

• This was a great holiday story full of warmth, love, and family togetherness. I loved the overall tone of the whole thing. (This was previously published as a shorter story and the version I read has been revised and added to. I never read the original story so I don’t know how they compare to each other.)

 

• Lucas and Nate as leads were fun. The whole story is told in Lucas’ third-person POV so we don’t get a whole lot of insight into Nate, but I did like both characters. Maybe Nate’s sudden turnaround from ‘no boyfriends ever’ to ‘I wanna only be with you’ was a bit off, but we can’t really know for sure without seeing his thought process.

 

• Nate is described as a geek but he didn’t totally come off that way. He’s into photography and he mentions a computer game once (one that Lucas is also apparently into), but nothing much beyond that. He does tend to keep to himself a bit though, not really joining in with his family for major group activities (like watching sports games on TV).

 

• Lucas was a sweetheart. This is his first Christmas without either of his parents, his father having just died a few months prior, and he’s basically alone in the world. He doesn’t have any friends either, and he seems to be too anxious to actually get close to anyone. I put that down mostly to him being afraid of what people will say if they find out he’s gay. Luckily that particular subplot has a happy ending.

 

• I definitely wasn’t expecting Lucas’ roommate Sam. He doesn’t really come off in a good light when he’s first introduced; what with being inconsiderate enough to throw a major party in his and Lucas’ shared room without asking first. He honestly comes off as an entitled jock for a lot of the story, although we don’t see a whole lot of him since Lucas spends most of his time in the story with Nate. But we actually come to find out that Sam is a pretty decent guy. A bit crass at times, and probably not the most sensitive, but a good guy. He and Lucas aren’t particularly close, but by the end I mostly realized that that had more to do with their differing personalities and nothing at all to do with Sam being any sort of a bully.

 

• Nate’s parents were also pretty delightful. His mother could come off a bit pushy at times, but she was really sweet. She basically invited a perfect stranger to spend the holidays with her family just because he had nowhere else to go. Nate’s father doesn’t have as big a presence, but he was pretty cool too. Also both their reactions to Nate’s coming out: A-1 parenting there.

 

• I’m not Jewish and I’ve never celebrated Hanukkah so I can’t speak to the accuracy of the celebrations described in the story. I can say that the general atmosphere of the celebrations and how everyone was happy to be together made for a great warm tone throughout most of the story. Very much holiday family togetherness, which is always fun.

 

• That one sex scene in the gay club: why?

 

• I really liked that Nate and Lucas’ relationship didn’t have overly much angst in it. No break up even. The start of it was maybe a bit abrupt, but whatever. Really, it just started out as a casual sex arrangement; Nate wasn’t out to his family and Lucas had never been with a man before. They had fun, and then of course feelings snuck in the more time they spent together out of bed. They were cute together. There were a few more downer moments as they were learning about each other – especially as Lucas started realizing that he wanted more with Nate but might not get it – but overall the whole tone of the relationship was upbeat and positive.

 

• The epilogue was adorable and I loved it. It takes place a year after the main story ends and was just so great. Showing where everyone was a year later and how they were doing. And they’re all doing good and it was a very satisfying ending with some extra family love and holiday feels.

 

[Eight Nights in December was published December 7, 2017, by the author; it is available in ebook format, or in ebook and paperback format as part of Gay Holiday Romance Collection.]