by Mason Deaver
Part of I Wish You All the Best
First published 2020
Ben has a plan. He is going to deliver the perfect Christmas gift to his boyfriend Nathan, and it involves transporting a large golden retriever from one coast to the other. It is the kind of romantic, slightly chaotic scheme that sounds manageable until a snowstorm hits the east coast ahead of schedule and shuts down the airport. Now Ben is stranded. The dog is with him. Nathan is not. Everything Ben arranged for their first Christmas together is falling apart in real time, gate by gate, delayed flight by delayed flight. Mason Deaver's 2020 holiday novella keeps its world small: one guy, one very large dog, one storm, one ticking clock. The stakes are personal rather than dramatic. Ben is not trying to save anything except a moment he wanted Nathan to have. That specificity is what gives the story its warmth. Readers who want a queer Christmas romance with genuine sweetness, a concrete sense of place, and a dog who earns his page time will find exactly that here.
Genres: fiction, romance, contemporary, contemporary-romance, holiday
Vibes: cozy, heartfelt, intimate, sweet, warm
Tropes: forced-proximity, found-family, grand-romantic-gesture
Setting: East Coast
Period: Christmas
60 pages · Paperback · Independently published