Baby It's Cold Outside: An Alaskan Nights Novel [Mass Market Paperback]

This is a well written start to the Alaskan trilogy, albeit a trite and somewhat over written/done idea. Unfortunately there is so much going on and with so many couples that the author at times, shortchanges Sloan and Walker. Their story took short shrift and I found that to be annoying as well as distracting from what a trilogy could have been.

I read a lot about Alaska and was thrilled to see a romance centered there, yet the nature of the area barely played into the story.

Sloan and Walker were ultra sweet sometimes to the point of giving me a diabetic coma. And although it seems that there will be some animosity amongst the next 2 sets of couples, the underlying "sweetness" is there.

My Review:

This isn't a holiday book per se, but it does take place in snowy Alaska during the holiday season, so I snuck it into my holiday read pile. This book was a really good contemporary romance. It is the first book in a trilogy and you get to see glimpses and see the beginnings of all three romances that the series is going to follow. This book is about Sloan & Walker. Sloan is a NYC girl who has come to Alaska to give moral support to her friend Grier (her book is the second in the series, Come Fly With Me, and will be out Nov, 2012.) Walker is the hometown boy who is the lawyer representing Grier in the battle over her father's will.

There were certain things that I really loved about this book. Sloan is a freelance travel writer and her trip just happens to coincide with the town's annual bachelor/bachelorette competition. As a result, Sloan both enters and is writing on the competition as a journalist. This allows her to observe a lot of the relationships in the town and those that are having issues. She dispenses some wonderful no-nonsense, tough-love advice pretty much throughout the entire book that I loved. She ruffles more than a few feathers this way too, but I loved the honesty that came through the book because of it. Romances tend to follow a lot of games, especially in romance novels, but Sloan's character kept everything real and in perspective. I really loved that about her character.

She's an awesome, self-assured chick, but even she realizes that is not her in real life in NYC. She is a better person in Alaska. It was wonderful to watch her growth as a character because the book starts out at her mother's over Thanksgiving when the pressures to get married are dragging her down and her self-esteem down. As a former ugly duckling, she has a hard time standing up for herself in her real life where everyone always expects more.

I think that personal growth is going to be the main theme in all these books. It certainly was the case for Walker too as he adjusts his attitude toward commitment and what he wants out of life.

There are two other couples to come...Grier & Mick, and Avery & Roman. Both couples already have serious issues and I can't wait to read their stories. The little bits that you already get to see through this book and definitely tantalizing! I definitely have found another new author that I am excited about. This was a fun one. I recommend picking it up for a sit-by-the-fire-and-read kind of day!

The book is a cute reading, but there are four plots going on at the same time - clearly so that the heroines could discuss their sex lives Sexinthecitystyle, and so that the readers would want to follow the coming stories. A very nondescript Alaskan town is such a loving paradise full of hardworking honest people that, if not for the cold, we should all move there tomorrow. Even the stupid bachelorette competition is cute, not to mention three even cuter grandmothers... Hopefully the next stories will cut the cuteness and girly sex talk for some more realistic relationship development. Love in two weeks, ok, it's romance fiction; but friendship in two weeks? That's too much fiction even for the genre.