Santa’s Naughty Boy is the story of Angel, a waiter at a bar in Alaska, and Santa Claus. This is told in present tense through both Angel and Santa’s eyes.



I honestly thought I’d written a review of this book after I read it, but I clearly forgot. I had to go back and skim the story because I couldn’t remember much about it, which is telling in its own way. If it was terrific, I’d have remembered it.

I’ll start with the cover. I like it, it’s quite pretty and I can see the cover model as being Angel because he’s pretty.

The blurb does a good job of telling what the plot is about, but I’ll go over it a bit. Angel works at a remote bar in Alaska. One day a man walks in, who sits alone and isn’t very chatty. He seems lonely. The man is Santa Claus aka Nic. He usually keeps to himself but once in a while has the urge to visit a town or bar before Christmas and there he finds Angel. Surprising himself, he leaves his number for Angel and they hook up and slide into a BDSM Daddy/boy relationship that both of them crave. They get together until it’s time for Santa to leave. Nic believes that Angel will never accept who he really is. But Angel is rather perceptive in unusual ways.

I didn’t care for the present tense in this story, it made the characters, their emotions, and environment feel distant and hazy. I couldn’t identify with Angel or Nic. Pretty much the story was about them meeting and having lots of sex, which for me isn’t what I’m looking for in a Santa meets human story. So, I was disappointed that I couldn’t connect with this book.

Like I mentioned, the present tense kept me distant from the characters, like there was a hazy screen between them and myself. Nic is an immortal, he is a type of elf who fled his world with the other elves and reindeer. I believe he’s the last of his kind. Both characters are lonely and looking for the right person to be theirs forever. It was strange having Nic slide into Daddy mode, it didn’t seem to fit him. Also, we didn’t get enough background on Angel so that when he shows his boy side I found it hard to believe. We’re told those are the roles they wish to play, and us readers just have to accept it. It felt contrived.

I did read comments from other reviewers that mentioned that there is no magic used to make Angel immortal at the end. I thought I had read there was, but I checked over the story again and it must have been in another book I read, because there is no mention of any sort of magic that prolongs Angel’s mortal life. Nic is immortal. If he’s been alone for so long and finally finds his mate in Angel, he might have, if he’s lucky, seventy more years with him and then Angel will die. How will Nic feel then? Will he choose to die or transform like the rest of his people did when it came time? I think leaving out a way for turning Angel immortal was a badly missed detail in the plot. It gives the story a depressed feeling knowing they don’t have long together in terms of Nic’s lifetime. Why would the author do that? Did they just not think about this detail? Or did they want to leave a bittersweet sorrow to this book? For that reason, I wouldn’t recommend this story if you want a HEA when this story does not have a HEA. It’s a HFN.

Overall, I didn’t like the present tense narration in Santa’s Naughty Boy. It left me feeling distant from the characters and their emotions. I couldn’t connect with them or empathize with them. There wasn’t much background to the characters other than just telling readers about them, so again there’s no feeling, just telling. I wanted to read a book that was fun and cute for Christmas, instead this is a little depressing. I do like the cover though, it is pretty. I give this book 3 Stars. It’s not bad, but there’s nothing memorable about it either.


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