The Holly Dates

By: Brittainy Cherry

Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo, Aaron Shedlock

All she wanted for Christmas was a boyfriend for the holidays. All he wanted was for her to take her crappy first dates elsewhere.

Quirky Holly Jackson was unlucky in love, yet her romantic heart refused to give up her search for companionship—even after her fiancé left her at the altar on Christmas Eve.

Grumpy restaurant owner Kai Kane wanted nothing to do with love. Unfortunately for him, when an eccentric Holly kept entering his restaurant nightly with a different first date, his annoyance grew.

When Kai volunteered to help Holly find a suitor, it was for one reason only: to get her out of his restaurant and on to a second date with someone at a different location.

It was all going great until Kai became increasingly jealous of the connection Holly developed with another man. The more Holly fell for Kai's pick for her, the more overprotective he became.

Kai quickly realized that all wasn't fair when it came to love and the holidays. He was going to have to step up his game if he wanted a shot at the ultimate prize—being Holly's favorite date.

©2022 Brittainy Cherry (P)2023 Podium Audio

This is how you write romance

Where do I begin? Everything about this book was perfect and very realistic. Not just a collection of tropes. I fell in love with the way Kai and Holly loved. I even cried for them because they were such amazing people who were discarded by the one they loved. So happy they found each other. Holly was a sweet FMC but she had a backbone and a sense of humor. I cackled every 50 pages. This is a top 10 read for my 2024 list. And I read/listened to 300 books this year. I even forgive Adenrele Ojo for her past performances in other books. She improved her male voice and luckily there were no accents to butcher in this book.

My Thoughts on The Holly Dates

I loved this grumpy/sunshine romance with a meet cute gone wrong. I loved their phrase for it. I also loved the way Holly connected with her family and how supportive they were. I loved how Kai took care of his little brother despite his family baggage. This book has so much humor as well as heart. The way these two main characters helped heal each other was so awesome to listen to. The narration was pretty good as well. The male narrator is a regular for me and he did a great job on this story. The female narrator was new to me and while I liked her voice for the female lead, her male voice wasn’t my favorite for the male lead. I loved this first experience with this author’s work though and would happily listen to her books again.

Slow burn

I really liked the story once it got going, it was slow to start but picked up speed!
The love scenes made me blush but the love story was great, very nice message about real love!

Christmas Classic

I first read/listened to this story last year. Reading it again this year was just as fun. It is a laugh out loud slow burn love story. The narrators were great.

The storyline and character descriptions.

Great book!
Great storyline.
Interesting characters.
Easy to read and very interesting. It took less than a week to finish.

Great story!

I so enjoyed this story. The h and H both experienced great betrayal from people close to them. Though one was keeping up a positive front, their trust in love was tarnished in a big way. Thankfully they had good people in their lives who were willing to be there for them and interfere with the best of intentions. Love the chemistry and the end is satisfying.

Great Storytelling!

This book was absolutely amazing! The author did an amazing job adding twist that you would not expect. It’s more than just your traditional love story.

Sweet

Absolutely love and kindness. This book helps you believe in second chances. Love is not dead

Best Holiday Story

This was such a cute story! I loved the characters and the story was funny and entertaining!

Love her books, the message and the swoon!

I love all of her books. They get me out of reading slumps and are so immersive. The only thing that I didn’t like was when the female narration did her rendition of Kai’s (or any man’s) voice.