Boss Employee MM Romance: His Boss for Christmas Review
His Boss for Christmas by Alessandra Hazard | Goodreads | Amazon | Bookbub | My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Urban Fantasy Romance
In this Christmas short story, Alessandra Hazard paints the backdrop of a fascinating world of juxtapositions: a magical urban fantasy complete with witch covens casting spells that go awry, affecting Europe and the Eastern seaboard of the US. Add to that a modern urban center, and a cutthroat law firm eager to provide legal counsel to these covens.
The love interests in this boss employee mm romance short story are lawyers, a junior associate at the mercy of his boss, and the managing partner of the law firm, someone who is just as arrogant and uptight as any managing partner is in our mundane, non-magical reality.
Blurb
Peter Hayes has everything a man can wish for: a successful career as a lawyer, wealth, good looks, people falling at his feet—and Justin, to do all the grunt work for him. Justin is (“Not your slave!”) his personal associate. Until the day he suddenly isn’t, and Peter’s perfect life stops making sense. His associate wants a personal life? He wants to find his soulmate? Unacceptable. Peter can’t believe Justin believes in that nonsense. Soulmates don’t exist.
Or do they?
A short MM romance novella. ~13,500 words.
Boss Employee MM Romance
Follow Peter and Justin as they traverse the fallout from a magical soulmate spell affecting everyone in their office and a Christmas schedule that, as per usual and much to Peter’s displeasure, involves time away from the office. Cheer them on as they realize they love each other along the way.
The Premise
Peter and Justin are lawyers in the country’s most prestigious law firm. Justin, a junior associate and assistant to managing partner Peter, is an overworked underling. He’s overextended at work mostly because of Peter, who is every inch the demanding boss. Peter doesn’t realize, possibly because he’s got his head up his own ass, that his incessant need to keep Justin around him at every moment is probably because he’s freaking obsessed with Justin.
The Magic
A coven of witches casts a soulmate spell and inadvertently makes the spell cast a much wider net than planned. Instead of being localized, the spell affects huge regions of the world and sends everyone into a frenzy. They feel antsy—like they have to move—like they need to find their soulmate. Everyone starts fucking off to seek them out, wherever they might be. Everyone requests time off, much to Peter’s dismay. He has no time for this sort of bullshit. But it’s not just low-level employees. Senior-level partners ask for time off left and right to find their soulmate. The two people unaffected by this strange turn of events? Peter and Justin.
Until the Weekend
That is, though, until Justin begs for a day off so he can pick his brother up from the airport. Sundays are usually days off anyway, Justin argues. Peter disagrees but Justin sasses back and gives Peter attitude until Peter agrees to let him have a day off.
But then Peter starts to feel off. He’s still in denial, but it’s pretty clear that the way he’s feeling is pretty similar to the effects of the spell. He’s antsy, he’s not interested in random hookups, and he’s driven to call Justin and wake him up just to hear his voice. He’s oblivious and convinced he’s somehow immune to the soulmate spell. But, he only starts feeling better when Justin returns to the office. Hmm, strange that.
They Hook Up
It’s not advisable to fuck your boss, Justin knows this. Peter knows this. Everyone knows this. But the draw is undeniable and they give into temptation and have sex. Subtle soulmate magic, or just something they’ve both repressed since forever? We don’t get Justin’s POV and Peter is determined to disavow belief in soulmate magic, so we’re left to decide.
The Sex
It’s way, way better than they expect it to be. Peter thinks he’s going to get over his feelings after they are together one time. He’s wrong. Twice, then. Wrong again. So they hook up a lot. It only makes things worse.
They know they have a problem. If people find out, they’ll think Justin’s position wasn’t given to him based on merit. It would be ruinous. They know they need to stop hooking up to save Justin’s career. But, they’re two crafty lawyers. Surely they can do better. Peter has the offhand thought to say that they’re soulmates. Justin leads him into the understanding that, perhaps, what if they actually are soulmates?
As an aside, they are soulmates, of course. I don’t consider that to be a huge spoiler either because the whole premise of the story points to them being soulmates.
Overall
I enjoyed this quick read from Alessandra Hazard. I’ll be honest when I say it’s not her best, and I rate it only 3 out of 5. I am a fan of her other work, especially the Wrong Alpha and the Calluvia Royalty series. This one needs some more something.
One of the drawbacks is that this story is super short. Because of its brevity, world-building is limited, making the whole thing feel sparser. I’d be very interested in a full series set in this world. It has potential.
But at times it seems like the concept is still two disparate tropes sort of stuck together. Boss Employee MM Romance is a good trope. Urban fantasy lawyers who represent magical folks is a fun trope too. Together? I think it works. But just barely. More development would make it work better. It’s full of covens and legal counsel representing them and that’s an intriguing mix of ideas.
I still recommend reading this one. I like Hazard’s style a lot and want to support authors I enjoy.
MM Romance Reviews
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