Ramona sees herself as a problem solver. When her friend Greta Russakoff told her that her family is making her life in Maine difficult and she wants to get away for the holidays, Ramona starts thinking. And when her friend Truman Belvedere calls her from his home in New Orleans, upset that his boyfriend turned out to have a secret family and wanting to get away, Ramona puts two and two together. Or rather, she helps swap out one for the other.
Greta heads to New Orleans, leaving her house filled with plants to Truman to care for. He follows her directions as best he can, but despite all her heaters and humidifiers, he sees one turning a bit brown. He feels bad that one of her plants is already dying while he had been spending the night with a bottle of wine. He takes it to the florist he saw in the small town, woefully unprepared for the coldness of a Maine winter, and that’s where he meets Ash.
Ash is the local florist. He helps Truman with the plant (it’s just gone dormant). He helps Truman learn to dress better for the weather. And he steals Truman’s heart from him in mere minutes.
Meanwhile, Greta is in New Orleans, taking care of Truman’s dog and marveling at the warm weather and the climate that is perfect for those tropical plants she has to work so hard to keep alive in Maine. She wanders through the neighborhood, taking in the sights and the smells, and then she comes across a miniature horse. The horse is with Carys, who is smart and outspoken and decides to take Greta under her wings and introduce her to the city.
The swap is for a month, and then Greta and Truman are supposed to head back to their real lives. But for both of them, the more time they spend in each other’s homes, the more they feel at home. Truman’s finds hints of his favorite author in the small town of Maine, and his business ideas help Ash get excited about new income streams.
Meanwhile in New Orleans, Greta meets other gardeners and finds out about some of their community service. Carys introduces her to her roommates, who have a side hustle making King Cakes. One of them is a beekeeper, and she introduces Greta to the hive and shows her the community garden. Greta finds herself falling in love, both with the city and with Carys.
But as the weeks go by and the end of the experiment closes in on them, both Greta and Truman find that they are reluctant to go back to their own lives. Swapping lives for a month is one thing, but are they both really considering leaving their homes and starting over in a new city for good?
The Holiday Trap is a steamy LGBTQ IA+ rom com with lots of holiday charm. Greta’s family is Jewish, so Hanukah is represented along with a the more traditional Christmas ideas. Author Roan Parrish has crafted these interconnected stories to show that there is a place for everyone, which is a lovely theme.
I listened to the audio book of The Holiday Trap, which is narrated by Natalie Duke, Pete Cross, and Hillary Huber. I thought that all of them did an excellent job with their role, bringing these characters to life and expressing their emotional lives beautifully. I liked that there were separate narrators for Greta and Truman. It helped keep the details of the stories separate and helped me stay engaged with the two different love stories.
I really liked The Holiday Trap, but I wanted to love it. I love the premise, and I thought most of the storytelling was strong. I thought that the romance between Truman and Ash worked pretty well, but I struggled more with the storyline of Greta and Carys. I felt like Greta was the character who ended up growing the most to find her new life, but she didn’t have the space in this book to show her whole journey. And much of Carys’s journey happens before she meets Greta, so there is a lot of her backstory that we don’t find out about, making it more difficult to connect with her. I think Greta’s story would have been better if she’d had a whole book to herself, or if her challenges weren’t quite so big to overcome.
That being said, there is still a lot to like in this book. There is humor and romance and several very hot sex scenes. There are parties and gardeners and bullet journaling and superfans of a favorite writer. There are tough conversations and tough choices and a chance for latke eaters to choose between applesauce and sour cream (or ketchup, if that’s what they prefer). And there is the idea that you can be anything you want, which is a great theme for any holiday.
A copy of the audio book for The Holiday Trap was provided by Dreamscape Media through NetGalley, with many thanks.
