At this time of year, it seems like everyone who writes romance is publishing a holiday novella. Romance readers are spoiled for choice, especially if they subscribe to Kindle Unlimited. While some Christmas novellas rush the romance or feature forgettable characters, Felicity Niven’s Duke the Halls does neither of those things. It’s long enough to develop a believable romance arc but short enough to easily read in a single day.

Both the lead characters of Duke the Halls are memorable. Kit (the Duke of Kittredge) believes himself to be an “arsehole” because he frequently says the wrong thing, has unpredictable fits of bad temper, and all of his interactions with women end in disaster. (Today, Kit would be considered autistic, but in his own time that diagnosis did not exist.) Though he promised his mother he would try to find a bride, Kit’s anxiety about social interactions leads him to run away from a holiday house party at which he would have been the prime matrimonial catch. On the stage coach back to London, he meets Franny (aka Francesca Cranwell), an orphaned young woman who remains good-humored and optimistic despite a particularly cruel twist of fate that deprived her of her expected social position and inheritance.

Kit and Franny have immediate chemistry, so it’s not really a surprise that when Franny offers to teach Kit the social graces necessary to court a woman, he accepts. Their lessons include not just conversation, compliments, and dancing, but also kissing under the mistletoe that eventually leads to more than kissing . . . but their differing social positions seem to prevent their encounter from being any more than a fling. Can Kit face his greatest fear (i.e. a formal social event) to win the love of his life?

This novella contains good autism rep, leads with chemistry, mistletoe and holiday cheer, plus a couple of great steamy scenes. Recommended.

The ebook releases December 4 and will be available on Kindle Unlimited.

Disclaimer: I received a free digital ARC from the author, but this is my honest review.