The Billionaire’s Email-Order Date (A Christmas Romance)

Billionaire Chris Everett is lost in grief after tragically losing his wife and unborn child years ago — Christmas. Now he is going home to Montana for the holidays and needs a pretend girlfriend to keep his well-intending family at bay. Kate Grant is a starving artist who moonlights by delivering singing-grams. When she shows up at Chris’s house to deliver a song, he assumes she’s the date he hired from the online email-dating service. Without so much as a customary greeting, he barks an order for her to get in the car. After his reminder of how much he’s paying her for this trip, Kate quickly decides to go along with it. Her ulterior motive is that she recently learned about her birth mother, conveniently in the same Montana town. Opportune? Yes. Hefty chunk of money to just pretend she’s the girlfriend to this snarling, impatient, rich, sexy hunk? Bonus, right?  

The story begins with a unique premise and Kate is instantly likeable, perhaps to overshadow Chris’s negativity. His family is the kind that everyone dreams of having. The action tends to drag in places, particularly the middle, weighed down with too much detail. At times Chris seems almost too distant. It’s clear he’s hurting, but in his pain, he sometimes comes across as overbearing and rude. Kate gets to meet the birth mother as she always wanted. Finally, just when Kate and Chris work past their issues and it seems love will prevail, a surprising twist comes along. Readers are sure to enjoy this exciting and fresh take on email dating. 

Emerson Matthews