Things start off on the wrong foot, but when Nina and Max end up stuck in Max’s house for several days after Nina’s caught in a snowstorm in the small town Colorado mountains, they both end up turning their lives inside out so Nina’s vacation romance can be something more. Plus: there’s only one sleeping bag! The Gamble by Kristen Ashley It’s so cold in most of this book that it’s literally too dangerous for Ford to remove his penis from his pants lest he risk some serious frostbite, but don’t worry: the sexual tension is off the charts. How about some danger banging…in a shack in the middle of Antarctica. However, it’s not all tropey hijinks (though there is a lot of that), but also a thoughtful story of two deeply sad and lonely people finding love and joy in their lives.

There’s a hot chocolate festival, for goodness sake. Think Hallmark Christmas Special, except with sex and profanity. A Princess for Christmas by Jenny Holiday And Ben and Poppy spend a lot of time talking about what they find sexy (read: dirty talk, but also communicating about boundaries and consent and desire), which makes everything hotter and adds emotional depth to what would otherwise be a simple sexy rumpus. This erotic holiday novella about two librarians getting snowed in at the library is super hot. They have to decide what’s more important – the lives they were so invested in before, or a new one they could build together. But this one gives readers the warm fuzzies because Reed and Erika have a relationship on fire, but it’s a vacation fling. Well, the setting is rural Alaska at Christmastime, so there’s plenty of snow, certainly.

Barbarian lover lib e ruby dixon