Merry Ever After by Tessa Bailey is Pretty Silly

I decided that I wanted to film a Christmas reading vlog for my youtube channel last month, and I carefully curated a list of holiday reads. I picked some full length novels, novellas, and even a short story. The short story was Merry Ever After by Tessa Bailey.

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. So here are some of my thoughts about why Merry Ever After by Tessa Bailey just did not work for me.

What is Merry Ever After by Tessa Bailey About?

A single mother working in a thrift store. A gentle giant farmer who can’t find jeans that fit. When opposites attract, they find themselves making alterations in more ways than one in this smoking-hot short story by #1 New York Times bestselling author Tessa Bailey.

Evie Crowe is starting over in a strange town with her newborn, and men are the furthest thing from her mind. If only the quiet, hulking farmer, Luke Ward, would stop coming into the thrift shop and piquing her reluctant interest. Evie wants to stay single all the way—she can’t trust anything more than friends-with-holiday-benefits. But Luke is in it for the long haul. He’s fixed on making this a Christmas Evie will remember forever. If she gives him a chance.

Tessa Bailey’s Merry Ever After is part of Under the Mistletoe, a collection of sexy December romances to warm the cold winter nights. They can be read or listened to in one swoony sitting. (from Amazon.com)

My Initial Thoughts

I read Window Shopping by Tessa Bailey last year and enjoyed it. It was definitely a spicy read and so I figured that Merry Ever After would be the same. But I wound up being distracted by the premise of Merry Ever After because it just seemed silly. And the writing did not help! Some of the dialogue was so cringe.

I was like, am I the only person who doesn’t like this? But no. I went to goodreads afterwards and saw that a lot of readers felt the same way. So that was comforting I guess.

Questions that I Had While Reading Merry Ever After

Is Luke tall? Or overweight? Because she keeps talking about how big he is and how he can’t fit into a regular pair of pants and it’s very confusing.
Why did he have to make his own chair for this house? Is he Paul Bunyan? I mean, how big is this guy?
Evie is sweet. I hope her upcycling business does well. I watch a lot of seamstress content on instagram (this account is my favorite) so I’m very impressed by people who can sew.
Insta-love always makes me cringe.
But to be fair, this is a short story. So I guess they have to fall in love quickly?
The scene at the end with the bike was very cute. That made up for all of the cringy dialogue and silliness of this whole plot line.

In Conclusion

Would I recommend this short story? Probably not. I mean, it was cute in the end. But it was so silly too. I don’t know. I just couldn’t get behind it. I probably won’t check out the rest of the short stories in the series either.

Thanks for checking out this blog post! I hope you enjoyed my honest thoughts on Merry Ever After by Tessa Bailey.