Rating: 4🌈
My holiday reading has slowed somewhat but I’m still enjoying the Tentacle holiday series novels from last year.
Amanda Muewissen’s stories have always been so interesting to read. It’s the author’s approach to various popular themes , a Christmas story that carries a strong fondness for a darker fictional component rather than the sleigh bells and holly one normally is used to. In this case, it’s a bloody body found in the snow by a bartender on Christmas Eve. The second one he’s found on this date.
But the person isn’t dead, just wounded. And maybe not even a person. But an Eldritch Horror in mourning. But Brady, a bartender on his way home, knows the person he found and calls Goldy, needs his help. Together they start a relationship that’s oddly sweet, honest, and otherworldly.
It’s elements like these that take It’s a Tenta-ful Life : A Winter Holiday MM Tentacle Romance by Amanda Muewissen and elevate it into something darkly special, a Christmas tale about love, no matter what form or circumstances it may take .
It also has murder, loss, a creature from a void that pines for a different kind of love and life, and an ending that comes about far too quickly.
There were some aspects of the story that weren’t as well developed as they deserved, given how interesting the characters and backgrounds provided.
But as written, there’s still so many sweet, otherworldly moments and, yes, tentacles, that Muewissen delivers a story to satisfy those wanting Christmas cheer with a touch of horror.
This is a definite recommend!
Tinsel and Tentacles (11 books)
◦ Jingle Bells and Elder Gods by Kiernan Kelly
✓ All I Want for Christmas is Tentacles by Chloe Archer ❤️🫶
◦ Tentacles and Other Stocking Stuffers by Delaney Rain
◦ Tentacles Rock by K.C. Carmine
✓ A Sucker for Christmas by J.P. Sayle
✓ Kraken Klaus by Charlotte Brice
✓ Twelve Days of Squidmas by H.L. Hiers
✓ It’s a Tenta-ful Life by Amanda Muewissen
✓ Rebel without a Claus by L Eveland
✓ Cthulhu for Christmas by Meghan Maslow ❤️🫶
◦ Tentacle Wonderland by Reese Morrison
Buy Link
It’s a Tenta-ful Life: A Winter Holiday MM Tentacle Romance
Blurb
If angels get wings, what do monsters get?
Brody Hawkins was living the good life. Unattached, young, attractive, with a great job at the Shangri-La La Land gay bar and bringing men and women back to his bed most nights without ever being tied down.
Until the night he stumbles upon an injured man in the snow.
Wary of the circumstances that might have left someone for dead so near to Christmas, instead of taking the man to a hospital, Brody brings him home. He dubs the man Goldie, having no other name offered to him when Goldie wakes, but his golden hair and eyes are like tinsel on a tree.
Goldie couldn’t have anything to do with the murders or missing person from a few blocks down. He couldn’t. He’s too sweet and soft-spoken and even a little sad. He’s no monster.
But he also might not be human.
It’s a Tenta-ful Life is part of the Tinsel and Tentacles multi-author collaboration and a complete standalone. Expect to find a lifelong bachelor who never planned to fall in love, an eldritch horror in disguise who longs for love, mutual pining, strangers to friends to lovers, dark and deadly secrets, tentacles with hidden talents, and more in this slightly darker take on a holiday MM romance. Want more tantalizingly tentacular winter holiday romances? Grab the whole series!
• Publisher: Amanda Meuwissen Books (December 22, 2023)
• Publication date: December 22, 2023
• Print length: 122 pages
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 