Review: How the Hitman Stole Christmas by Katie Reus

How the Hitman Stole Christmas (Holiday With a Hitman #1) by Katie Reus

Published by Self Published on October 24, 2023
Genres: Contemporary
Pages: 166
Format: eBook
Source: Amazon

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A Grumpy-Sunshine Romance
'Tis the season for a grumpy-sunshine romance with a side of murder and mayhem!
She hates Christmas and everything that goes with it…
Explosives expert Elliana hates Christmas—and the only good thing about this holiday season is that her gorgeous neighbor seems allergic to shirts and clothes in general. She knows because she’s been watching him for months with her drone. She’s never stalked anyone before, but he not only doesn’t seem to mind, he puts on nightly strip shows just for her. When she finally works up the courage to talk to him, she stumbles right into a murder—that he’s committed.
But this holiday is one she’ll never forget…
According to him, the whole murder thing is no big deal—the dead guy needed killing. And while her hot neighbor wants her, protecting her is his main priority. So when she’s targeted, this cinnamon roll hitman kidnaps her for her own good. With a deadly threat hunting them and a hot hitman who keeps handcuffing her to him “for her own protection”, Elliana is starting to reconsider her grinchy stance on the holidays. And when everything finally comes to a head, the results are bound to be…explosive.

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This was a fun and exciting short story.

Elliana Reed has been spying on her neighbor for the past year with her drone. He obviously doesn’t mind since has has given her more than one strip show. While Elliana isn’t a fan of Christmas, she doesn’t mind using the excuse of bringing him a gift basket as an excuse to introduce herself to him and finally get a name to go with the show.

When she knocks on Theo Contos’s door, he answers a little out of breath and she wonders if maybe she interrupted something intimate since a man as gorgeous as her neighbor might not be alone but when she hears a crash, she rushes into his house to help only to find a badly beaten man crawling on the floor. Elliana got the hell out of there and any sane woman would have called the police, but Elliana recognized the man beneath the blood from the news as he is accused of assaulting his daughter’s teenage friend and being acquitted at trial, only to find more damning evidence. She might not want to turn him in to the police for beating up a horrible person, but she does feel it is best to avoid her neighbor for the future.

It’s a great plan except the next things she knows, literally, is that she has regained consciousness on a boat in the middle of the ocean with only her and Theo on board. Theo explains that he is a hitman and that a contract came to his attention for Elliana and that someone has taken the hit. Theo has kidnapped Elliana to keep her safe and he won’t let her go until he can determine who set out a hit on Elliana and to eliminate the threat. If that doesn’t sound freakin’ crazy…and sweet, damn it!

THOUGHTS:
This story was a lot of fun. Elliana is a retire marine/explosives expert. This is important since being in the war zones and seeing death up close, she lives more in a moral grey zone. She gets over the shock of what Theo does pretty quickly, especially once she understands that he only takes contracts on people who do bad things and say, circumvented legal punishment.

Elliana has more of a dilemma over the fact that she wants to jump Theo and he kidnapped her, enough that she has to keep reminding them both that he kidnapped her instead of explaining that he was trying to protect her and let her make her own decisions.

Theo’s parents are retired hitmen and his Mom wants to meet Elliana to discuss explosives and bomb making.

This is a Christmas-themed story, but it isn’t a Hallmark channel classic with hot chocolate and snowball fights. The only thing that makes it Christmas is that Elliana hates Christmas and Theo keeps trying to decorate her house to help her get in the Christmas spirit and make her enjoy Christmas again. This was mostly a story of keeping Elliana alive and trying to figure out who wants her dead. But we can still put it on our holiday reading lists.

There is a second short story just released featuring Theo’s sister, who we meet at the end. I am definitely picking up a copy of that for more fun holiday reading.

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