The Mistletoe Motive

The Mistletoe Motive (2021) Chloe Liese

There is a lot I love about this story: the ace rep, the female lead with ASD, the single point-of-view.

Jonathan glances up and meets my eyes, his gaze speaking some cryptic language that I don’t.

I hate that feeling. It’s old and familiar, and it never fails to scrape open the scab of my social struggles. I’m a neurodivergent girl in a neurotypical world, and my autistic brain doesn’t read people the way Jonathan Tactical-Mastermind Frost’s does. It’s one of the very first things that made me dislike him: I can feel his cunning, his cold, calculating mind. He has what I don’t, he sees what I can’t, and he wields those weapons ruthlessly. It’s exactly why the Baileys hired him.

Because he’s everything I’m not.

And in my worst moments, that makes me feel like I’m not enough.

Especially the single point-of-view; you the reader and figure out what is going on, but Natalie doesn’t, and you know why, and that makes the story.

But, there is a a lot of sex in this book, and it’s a short book. Yes, I skimmed/skipped those parts, but since the boinking was much of the last parts of the book it left me feeling dissatisfied.

Characters: Miss Gabriella Di Natale, Mr. Jonathan Frost, Mr. and Mrs. Bailey, Trey Potter, June Li, Elijah Goldberg, Gingerbread, Nicholas Sokolov

Publisher: Kobo Originals

Rating: 7.5/10

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