Party Favors Review: Is It Worth Reading?

Verdict: A fast, funny and very explicit New Year’s novella about two online best friends finally sharing a bed, held back by a romance that gets less page time than the sex does.

Best for: Readers who want an erotic sapphic holiday read built on a real friendship, and who don’t mind if the relationship talk happens mostly between the sex scenes.

Heat level: ★★★★★ (5/5: explicit and plentiful)

Rating: ★★★★☆ (3.6/5: a 3.67 Goodreads average where the heat is loved almost unanimously and the relationship development is the recurring complaint)

Tropes: Online friends meet in person, friends to lovers, only one bed, holiday fling, New Year’s Eve, forced proximity, bisexual heroines, found family, dual POV.

Party Favors is Erin McLellan’s self-published 2020 novella and the fourth book in her So Over the Holidays series, a short contemporary lesbian romance set over New Year’s at a snowy forest resort, where Amanda Ellis, the buttoned-up heiress to her family’s disco ball business, finally meets Wren Rebello, the impulsive lingerie designer she’s been best friends with online for five years, and finds out there’s only one bed in the cottage.

On Goodreads it sits at a 3.67 average across 1,732 ratings, StoryGraph lands almost exactly on top of that at 3.68 from 791 ratings, and Amazon is friendlier at 4.1 from 416. That’s a modest number for a book whose fans call it the hottest sapphic romance they’ve read. The gap isn’t about quality so much as about what people came for, and that’s worth knowing before you start.

What Is Party Favors About?

It’s a holiday novella, but the holiday is New Year’s rather than Christmas, and the story runs over just a few days, from December 29 to January 1. It’s also closer to erotic romance than to a cozy holiday rom-com. Dear Author’s reviewer files it under erotic romance outright, and LezReviewBooks calls it an erotica novella. The series is linked by a sex toy and lingerie company, Lady Robin’s Intimate Implements, so the frankness is the point rather than an accident.

Amanda is 28 and stuck in a sales job at her parents’ company, quietly dreaming of a vintage clothing shop and dreading her mother’s New Year’s Eve ball and the date picked out for her. Wren is the loud, fun one in every room, which is exactly why nobody takes her seriously. The book alternates between their points of view, so you get both sides of the same panic: each of them is sure the other only wants a holiday fling.

What Makes This Spicy Sapphic Holiday Romance Work

A friendship that already exists: Reviewers keep coming back to the five years of online friendship as the reason the fast pace works. One Amazon reviewer says it meant she never felt she’d missed the start of their relationship.
The heat: “Hottest sapphic” comes up again and again on Goodreads, and the praise is specific: toys, lingerie, dirty talk and a balcony scene that two separate reviewers single out.
Sex-positivity and consent: Several readers point out that the leads talk about what they want and check in during sex, and that Wren doesn’t magically stop needing a vibrator once Amanda shows up.
Bisexual representation: Both heroines are bi, and reviewers like that the book treats it as part of who they are rather than a label stuck on. That’s a friends-to-lovers story where neither woman has to be talked into anything.
The humor: Their first meeting gets called laugh-out-loud funny by more than one reader, and StoryGraph users tag the book lighthearted (90%) and funny (45%).

Book Synopsis

Amanda Ellis has spent most of her adult life being the good daughter. She works for the family company even though she hates it, she dresses in vintage clothes as her one quiet rebellion, and she lets her mother set her up with suitable men. This year she says no. Instead of the family’s New Year’s Eve ball, she gets on a plane to spend the holiday with Wren, the friend she met in Twitter DMs years ago and has never seen in person.

Wren has planned a last-minute getaway with her friends at a forest resort deep in the snow. She designs lingerie for a living, plays roller derby and has a reputation as the wild one, and she’s thrilled to finally hug the woman she texts every day. What she isn’t ready for is how much she wants Amanda the second she sees her. The cottage they’re sharing has two bedrooms on paper and one usable bed in practice, and the friend group around them is made up of happily paired-off couples who aren’t shy about anything.

To make the trip count, the two of them come up with a list of resolutions to finish before the year runs out, and the list quickly gets more daring. Amanda wants to try everything she’s been too careful to try. Wren wants to give her all of it. Both of them agree it’s just a few days of fun between friends. The trouble is that neither of them actually believes that, and each is too scared of losing the friendship to say so. When midnight comes and the vacation ends, they’ll have to decide whether what happened at the resort was a party favor or the start of something real.

My Review

The best thing about Party Favors is the premise, and it’s a smarter one than it looks. Online friends meeting for the first time gives you the comfort of friends to lovers and the nerves of a first date at the same time. These two already know each other’s worst habits, family drama and insecurities, so when they get physical fast it doesn’t read as instalove. It reads as two people catching up to something they’d been circling for years.

The second thing that works is how kind it is. McLellan writes sex scenes where people actually talk, and the talking is part of what makes them hot. Amanda asks for things she’s never asked for. Wren is vulnerable about being seen as just the fun girl. A couple of reviewers praise how the book handles Amanda’s breast implants as simply part of her body, and others like that Wren’s need for a toy isn’t treated as a problem to fix. I liked that a lot. It’s a sex-positive book that never lectures.

Where it struggles is balance, and this isn’t just my gripe. It’s the most repeated criticism in the reviews. Dear Author’s reviewer gave it a B and said there was too much sex and not enough relationship once the first three days were done, admitting she skimmed some of the later scenes. A Goodreads reviewer called it lackluster and said it needed more time on the relationship. Another gave it two stars because the chemistry built “in the background.” One reader stopped about halfway because the steam level was just too high for him. Kaetrin at Dear Author also felt Amanda’s breakthrough with her family came too easily, and at 168 pages on Kindle (208 in print) there isn’t much room to slow that down.

The expectation to reset is the packaging. The blurb reads like a holiday rom-com about turning an online friendship into love, with a cheeky line about popping corks. What you actually get is an erotic novella with a sweet romance running through it. If the spice is what drew you, you’ll be happy. If you wanted a cozy New Year’s love story with a scene or two, this is far more explicit than that, so plan accordingly.

My honest note: A warm, very hot novella with a strong friendship at its core and a romance that could have used another chapter or two. If you want explicit sapphic heat with real affection, it delivers, but if you need the relationship work on the page, it’ll feel thin.

Element	In Party Favors
Central relationship	Amanda Ellis and Wren Rebello: online best friends of five years who meet in person for the first time
Core tropes	Friends to lovers, online friends meet, only one bed, holiday fling, New Year’s resolutions, found family
Setting	A snowy forest resort over New Year’s, December 29 to January 1
Heat level	5/5: explicit and plentiful
Series	So Over the Holidays book 4, works as a standalone, HEA with an epilogue
Content notes	Explicit sexual content, alcohol, a past toxic relationship, sexual harassment (moderate), minor homophobia and misogyny

How Spicy Is Party Favors?

Very. romance.io puts it in its top steam band, 5 of 5, “explicit and plentiful,” and reader reviews back that up without much argument. The sex starts early, and reviewers say each scene builds on the last as the feelings get more serious. Toys, lingerie, dirty talk, praise and a balcony scene all get mentioned by name, and the series as a whole is tagged with BDSM on romance.io. For most of the people who loved it, the heat is the main draw, not a distraction from the plot.

The one thing worth flagging is kink range. At least one reader mentions a degradation and praise dynamic, and another tags BDSM elements, so it isn’t all vanilla. Nobody I found flags anything beyond that, and several reviewers single out the consent check-ins as a strength. If you liked the kinky warmth of The Night Off or the 5/5 holiday heat of Make the Season Bright, you’re in the same territory here.

Who Should Read This Book?

You’ll likely love it if: you want explicit and frequent sapphic sex, you like friends to lovers where the friendship is already solid, you’d rather have a New Year’s story than another Christmas one, and you want something you can finish in an evening.

You may want to skip it if: lots of on-page sex makes you skim, you need the relationship conflict worked through slowly and in detail, you’re looking for a cozy closed-door holiday read, or texting-style dialogue makes you wince.

In short: it’s a hot, happy friends-to-lovers novella that trades depth for heat.

What Readers Are Actually Saying (October 2026)

There’s no viral moment here. I couldn’t find any TikTok content about it, no Reddit discussion turned up, and as a self-published novella it has no trade reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus or the library journals. What it does have is a steady trail of reader reviews (364 written ones on Goodreads alone), a B from Dear Author and a 4.5 from LezReviewBooks, which also put it on its December 2020 recommended list. A fair share of the early reviews came from advance readers, so I’ve discounted the launch-week enthusiasm a little. Five years on, it mostly finds readers the quiet way: holiday searches on Amazon, where it sits in the Christmas romance and lesbian romance charts, and readers working through McLellan’s backlist. I couldn’t find an audiobook edition.

Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The heat comes first, and “hottest” is the word that keeps showing up, with more than one reader calling it the hottest sapphic book they’ve read. Close behind is the friendship. Reviewers say the years of online closeness make the fast physical relationship believable, and StoryGraph users agree: 91% say the characters are loveable and 80% call it character-driven. Readers also praise the sex-positivity and the consent talk, the bisexual representation, and the comedy of the first meeting. Small details get love too: Wren’s roller derby, the “old year’s resolutions” twist on the usual list, and cameos from couples in earlier books, including Benji and William from Candy Hearts.

What readers argue about and complain about: First and loudest, the balance between sex and story. Dear Author, a two-star Goodreads review, a “lackluster” review, a reader who quit at the halfway mark and a three-star reader who called it “just fun” all land on some version of the same point: the relationship development happens around the edges. That’s the core of the 31% three-star share on Goodreads. Second, and from single voices only: one reviewer mocks the dialogue, especially the text-speak, and Dear Author felt Amanda’s family breakthrough was too easy. A UK Amazon reviewer gave three stars because the story “lacked something” without saying what. The real split is over the amount of sex, which some readers count as the best part and others as the reason they skimmed. That one comes down to taste more than craft.

The standalone question worth asking first: Yes, it stands alone. It’s book 4 of 5 in So Over the Holidays, and reviewers say reading in order isn’t necessary, though the friend group includes couples from earlier books. It’s the first F/F entry in a series that’s otherwise mostly M/M and M/F. The story resolves fully with an HEA and an epilogue, so there’s nothing to wait for. The series averages 3.82 on romance.io, a touch below this book’s 3.85 there, so if you enjoyed the vibe the earlier books are worth a look, just know they aren’t sapphic.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Party Favors a lesbian romance?

Yes. The romance is between two women, Amanda Ellis and Wren Rebello, and both are bisexual. It’s the first F/F book in Erin McLellan’s So Over the Holidays series.

How spicy is Party Favors?

A 5/5. romance.io rates it explicit and plentiful, and reviewers mention toys, lingerie, dirty talk and some light kink. Several call it the hottest sapphic romance they’ve read.

Does Party Favors have a happy ending?

Yes. Amanda and Wren admit their feelings and work out how to be together, and an epilogue ties it off. There’s no cliffhanger.

Do I need to read the So Over the Holidays series in order?

No. Party Favors is book 4 but works as a standalone. Couples from earlier books appear as Wren’s friends, but reviewers say you don’t need their backstory.

How long is Party Favors?

It’s a novella. Goodreads lists the Kindle edition at 168 pages and Amazon lists the print edition at 208 pages, so most readers finish it in one or two sittings.

Is there a Party Favors audiobook?

Not that I could find. The Party Favors audiobook on Audible is a different book by another author, and Libro.fm doesn’t stock an Erin McLellan edition.

If You Loved Party Favors, Read These Next

For another short, explicit holiday novella with two Dominican heroines and a real argument about heritage at its center, try Mangos and Mistletoe. If it’s the New Year’s setting you want more of, Year of the Kiss is a breezy NYE novella with open-door heat. And if the kink and the tenderness were your favorite part, The Night Off goes further on both. For more like this, browse our spicy Christmas romance books, the winter and New Year books, and the rest of our book reviews.

The Bottom Line

Party Favors sets out to turn a long online friendship into a New Year’s romance in under 200 pages, and it mostly pulls it off. The friendship is believable, the heat is generous and the tone is warm and funny. The relationship development is thin, the family subplot wraps up too neatly, and the sheer amount of sex will lose some readers. If you want a hot, happy sapphic novella to read between Christmas and New Year’s, it’s an easy pick. Check Party Favors on Amazon →

The Eikna Overall Ranking

On the Eikna scale, Party Favors ranks as a short, very explicit sapphic holiday novella. It’s carried by a real friendship and generous, sex-positive heat, held back by thin relationship work. Read it for the spice and the warmth rather than for a slow emotional build.