What happens when two holiday princes collide? An incredibly charming and fun enemies to lovers romance, of course. Sara Raasch’s The Nightmare Before Kissmas brings together the Prince of Christmas and the Prince of Halloween in a story described as Red, White, & Royal Blue meets The Nightmare Before Christmas. Nicholas “Coal” Claus is reckoning with his future as the reigning Santa, and Hex is ready to take on Halloween. But not all is as it seems. There is drama between the different holidays, and the tabloids are ready to leap on every bit of news. A romance between Coal and Hex would be a circus. But do they care? Can they stop themselves?
I cannot emphasize enough how delightful The Nightmare Before Kissmas is. We’re fully in spooky season, and this book is a perfect way to mark the occasion. I’m excited to share an exclusive excerpt.
But first, read the synopsis:
Nicholas “Coal” Claus used to love Christmas. Until his father, the reigning Santa, turned the holiday into a PR façade. Coal will do anything to escape the spectacle, including getting tangled in a drunken, supremely hot make-out session with a beautiful man behind a seedy bar one night.
But the heir to Christmas is soon commanded to do his duty: he will marry his best friend, Iris, the Easter Princess and his brother’s not-so-secret crush. A situation that has disaster written all over it.
Things go from bad to worse when a rival arrives to challenge Coal for the princess’s hand…and Coal comes face-to-face with his mysterious behind-the-bar hottie: Hex, the Prince of Halloween.
It’s a fake competition between two holiday princes who can’t keep their hands off each other over a marriage of convenience that no one wants. And it all leads to one of the sweetest, sexiest, messiest, most delightfully unforgettable love stories of the year.
And now, please enjoy chapter five.
Headline: Christmas Prince falls into minor coma at sight of guy he kissed one and a half years ago who had the audacity to get even hotter in the interim.
Too wordy. Not sure I care. There’s nothing but a rolling air-raid siren in my head as Dad goes through all the pomp of having a royal family visiting. So glad you’re here, yadda yadda. The Halloween family comes up on stage and they pose with Dad, Iris, and her father, and I think Kris and I should join in, but no one pushes us to, so we step down into the shadows beside the stage and I have a silent panic attack.
Kris chuckles. “You’re pale. And sweating. You feel like an ass for mocking my jumpiness over their Halloween woo-woo spooky shit now, don’t you?”
“I—what? No, I’m not—that’s him.”
He gives me a puzzled look. “Him? The Halloween Prince? You—”
“No. No.” I pinch the skin over my nose. “That’s him. The guy I kissed in the alley. At the bar. After the New Koah screwup. That guy.”
Kris swings in front of me, trying to block me from any stray pictures. “Woah, woah—wait, really?”
“Yes. Yes. Holy shit—”
“Look, I love you, Coal, don’t take this the wrong way—but I was on Iris’s side in the whole is this guy real camp. It was dark, you were hammered and stressed. Maybe the Halloween prince sort of looks like the guy you thought—”
“That’s the guy!” I hiss, thank god, but I want to shout. “The guy I thought was someone normal and he’s—he’s the fucking Prince of Halloween.”
Kris lifts his hands like he can contain my freak-out. “Breathe. You’re hyperventilating.”
“How is this possible? Why was he even at that bar? Christmas and Halloween don’t interact.”
“Clearly.”
“Shut up. This is serious. Did he target me? No. No, that’s insane, right?”
Did Hex know who I was? I couldn’t pick him or his family out of a lineup, so why would he have recognized me? What would have been the point? Nothing negative came of it, no leaked stories to the
press or repercussions at all, so much so that Iris and Kris don’t believe it happened.
But it did. Fuck, did it, because I’ve thought about that guy and that kiss way more than I’d ever admit to anyone. Even myself.
. . . foundations aren’t ever one thing, they’re many little things interlocked together.
In all the moments since then when I’ve asked myself what I should do instead of acting on impulse, that conversation would flash through my mind. The stranger—Hex—had known so easily what I don’t let myself admit I want. Foundation, solidity, happiness. And he was a stranger, the longer time went on and nothing popped up and I couldn’t find him afterwards, so I let the fantasy of him roil to embarrassing proportions because what did it matter, I’d never see him again.
Until now, apparently, because fuck my life.
“It was like years ago,” Kris says. “Nothing bad came of it, not from Halloween, at least. I’ll give you hat it’s weird, but I think you might be overreacting. Just a tad.”
Oh great. “Cover for me.”
I ease away and race to the bathroom where I consider dunking my head under the faucet but decide against it and pat my cheeks with cold water. The iciness washes a spurt of calm through me, and I rock forward, forehead hitting the mirror.
Kris is right. I am overreacting. It was a weird coincidence almost two years ago that didn’t result in any fallout so I have no reason to be losing my ever-loving mind.
I will not mess this up. My dad has done a fine enough job of that himself, and I’m firmly on Iris’s side—when this blows up, it will not be because of anything I do. Not again. I am a changed person, goddamn it, no matter what wayward fantasies I’ve been reliving like some lovestruck schoolboy.
Fantasies that have been, apparently, about the heir of Halloween.
I shove back and glare at my reflection.
“You will go back out there and be a perfect Christmas Prince,” I hiss at myself. “You will pull yourself together, you pathetic asshole. He’s just a guy.” My intensity wanes. “Just a guy in a corset vest.” I deflate
more. “Why did it have to be a corset vest.”
By the time I get back into the ballroom, everyone is mingling. I spot Iris and Hex across the room, Iris talking politely with someone from House Caroler while Hex stares down into a mug like he’s trying to will it to transform into something less Christmassy. Maybe he’s using Halloween’s magic to do that; cocoa into . . . what’s a Halloween drink? Apple cider? Goat blood?
Kris sidles up next to me. “You all right now? Freak-out over?”
I take a glass of eggnog from a passing server. “Of course. What could I possibly have to freak out about?”
“Oh, let me count the reasons.” Kris’s gaze trails to Iris and his levity dips.
“Are you all right?” I push back at him.
For a second, he shows me how not all right he is, but then a camera
flashes, and he forces a smile.
“Shit.” I take a gulp of the eggnog. It’s not spiked. I can’t win tonight.
Kris and I rotate around the room, expertly ducking any attempts at small talk until we haul up at a high-top table that gives a perfect view of where Iris and Hex hold court with rotating members of the
Christmas noble houses. Dad, Neo, and the Halloween King and Queen stay with them for a bit, eventually getting pulled into other groups and conversations, but it gives me a chance to study Hex’s
parents. He definitely takes after his dad, a taller, older, and somehow paler and leaner version of Hex, with less adornments and a sullen expression befitting someone who might’ve just levitated out
of a coffin. His mom is a little taller than Hex is, with intense dark eyes that mirror his initial stifled anger. She’s got a wide necklace of small pearly skulls across her collarbone, and they catch the light in
sharp flashes.
Kris grabs a handful of appetizers from a passing waiter and dumps them between us. Bacon-wrapped
dates. Score.
I pop one into my mouth and definitely do not stare at the side of Hex’s face. The way his jaw is bundled in tension.
It’s not a big deal that he’s here. That he’s that guy. It’s totally normal to know what your best friend’s fake new potential fiancé tastes like.
See? I’m fine.
The Nightmare Before Kissmas arrives on shelves on October 8. Get your pre-order in now!
