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Verdict: A breezy New Year’s Eve novella with a genuinely fun search-for-the-girl premise and a scene-stealing kilted brother-in-law, let down by a second half that goes flat once the chase is over.
Best for: Readers who want a one-sitting sapphic holiday read with real heat and low angst, and who can shrug off a thin back half and a harassment subplot played lighter than it should be.
Heat level: ★★★★☆ (4/5 — explicit open door, from reader reports; romance.io has no steam rating)
Rating: ★★★★☆ (3.8/5 — a 4.29 Goodreads average from only 175 ratings, padded by a release-week wave of short five-star reviews)
Tropes: One magical night, New Year’s Eve kiss, the search, missed connection, dual POV, a little magic, meddling family, workplace drama, the ex who won’t go away, HEA.
Year of the Kiss by Giselle Fox is a self-published, standalone sapphic novella of about 133 pages, a contemporary lesbian romance set across Boston in the first days of 2019 — where Sasha, an artist whose year has just ended badly, and Naomi, a PhD student whose holidays went worse, share a kiss at midnight and then lose each other before either one has the information she needs to find the other.
It holds a 4.29 average across 175 Goodreads ratings, 4.6 stars from 212 ratings on Amazon, and a Kindle Unlimited listing that keeps it in circulation every December. The written reviews are less uniform, warm about the first half and split on the second. Both halves of that split are worth understanding before you start.
What Is Year of the Kiss About?
Year of the Kiss is a holiday romance in the short, steamy register — a novella built around one night and the week that follows it, with a light dusting of magic over an otherwise ordinary contemporary Boston. That format sets the terms: one central set piece, a fast courtship, a small cast, and an explicit payoff once the leads finally get a room.
Sasha has a creative life and a day job that turns on her at the worst possible moment. Naomi is a doctoral student who walks into New Year’s Eve still reeling from a private betrayal and without anyone to kiss at midnight. What each lacks is luck, and what each assumes is that the year is already lost. Fox alternates third-person chapters between them, labelled by name, so you see both halves of the hunt — which is the whole engine of the book.
What Makes This Sapphic New Year’s Eve Romance Work
- Rob: Sasha’s kilt-wearing, whisky-drinking Scottish brother-in-law, who dabbles in witchcraft, is the most consistently praised thing in the book. Eight separate reviewers single him out, including the three least impressed with everything else.
- The search: The back-and-forth chase across Boston after the midnight kiss is the part readers enjoyed most. Even the reviewer who called the book merely okay says she loved this stretch.
- Low angst: “Sweet,” “cute” and “light” are the recurring words. This is a palate-cleanser, not an emotional workout, and readers who came for that got it.
- The heat: Readers repeatedly call it very hot, and LezReviewBooks describes the main love scene as long and graphic enough to sit near erotica, while still fitting the story.
- The cupcakes: A baker’s-dozen cupcake scene comes up in reviews on both Goodreads and Amazon as the book’s most memorable bit of playfulness.
Book Synopsis
Sasha should be celebrating. It is the last night of 2018, she is single and fine with it, and then her day job delivers a blow in the final hours of the year. Her brother-in-law Rob — a big, cheerful Scot in a kilt, with a whisky glass in one hand and an unexpected interest in spellcraft — has a suggestion. Write down three wishes for the new year. What could it hurt?
Across town, Naomi is having a worse holiday. A discovery over Christmas has upended her personal life, her academic world is about to get more complicated than she knows, and instead of celebrating with someone she loves she is tagging along with her parents to a family friend’s New Year’s party. Then, in the least romantic room of the house, she runs into a stranger.
What happens next takes minutes: a conversation that goes better than either expected, and a kiss when the clock runs out that feels like the answer to something. Then the night pulls them apart before they have swapped surnames or numbers, and January arrives with two women in the same city, each convinced she has found someone, neither with any obvious way to find her again. Sasha has a few clues and a brother-in-law who believes in wishes. Naomi has her doubts. The question is whether a perfect kiss is enough to build a year on — and whether either of them will get the chance to find out.
My Review
The premise is the best thing here, and it is good enough to carry a novella. A midnight kiss between strangers, then a city-sized game of hide-and-seek, is a clean romantic engine: it gives you instant chemistry without demanding instalove, because the leads have to work to find each other before anything can happen. Alternating chapters let you watch both women circle the same clues, and that dramatic irony makes the first half move.
The second real strength is Rob. He is the book’s comic engine and its touch of magic in one body — the brother-in-law who gets Sasha writing wishes, pours the whisky, and turns every scene he is in into a better scene. He gives Sasha a warm, teasing family relationship that most short romances never bother to build. When readers who disliked the book still name him as the highlight, that tells you how well he lands.
Where it struggles is the back half, and that is not my private gripe — it is the most repeated complaint in the reviews. Three readers say it outright: once Sasha and Naomi are actually together, the momentum drains away, the chemistry thins, and the plot stalls. A fourth skipped to the end, and a fifth, a longtime reader of the author, says it falls below her usual standard. Around that sit the smaller problems: an ex-and-other-woman subplot that two readers found confusing or unnecessary, alternating viewpoints that a couple of readers say interrupt the flow, and at least two reviewers flagging typos, including a character called by the wrong name. Three readers also found the sex scenes mechanical or bolted on — a minority, against a much larger group who loved them.
One expectation to reset: the cover and the blurb promise a sweet, magical holiday trifle, and the tone mostly delivers that. But the plot leans on a thesis advisor making unwanted advances, played partly for comedy, and on Sasha tracking down Naomi’s home address from a work badge. One reader stopped at 59% over exactly that combination. If “sweet” is what drew you, know that it carries a workplace harassment thread; if “magical” is what drew you, calibrate — the magic is a whisper, not a system.
My honest note: A four-star first half and a three-star second, held together by Rob and a premise that earns its smile. If you want a fast, hot New Year’s Eve read and can forgive a thin finish, it does the job in an evening. If a harassment subplot played for laughs will sour you, skip it.
| Element | In Year of the Kiss |
|---|---|
| Central relationship | Sasha & Naomi — an artist with a bad day job and a PhD student fresh from a betrayal, strangers after one midnight kiss |
| Core tropes | New Year’s Eve kiss, the search, missed connection, dual POV, a little magic, meddling family |
| Setting | Boston, New Year’s Eve 2018 into the first weeks of 2019 |
| Heat level | 4/5 — explicit open door (reader reports; no romance.io steam rating) |
| Series | Standalone novella, about 133 pages — complete arc and an HEA |
| Content notes | Explicit sexual content, sexual harassment by an academic advisor, stalking-adjacent pursuit, recounted cheating, alcohol use, death of a grandmother |
How Spicy Is Year of the Kiss?
A 4/5, and I have to show my working, because the usual source is silent. romance.io has an entry for the book but no steam rating — the steam field sits at a question mark, with only five ratings behind it — and I Heart Sapphfic lists no heat label either. The number comes from readers instead, and they are consistent: explicit, open door, and hot enough that LezReviewBooks describes the main love scene as close to erotica. It is concentrated rather than plentiful, though — most of the heat arrives once the leads are together, late in a short book.
The one thing worth knowing in advance is that the explicit chapters divide people more than the rest of the book does. One reader praised a multi-position scene as clever and cute rather than eye-rolling; two others found the head-hopping in it confusing or felt it was pasted in from elsewhere. No reviewer flags specific kink content. For the same heat in the same season, Mangos and Mistletoe and The Christmas Catch both sit at 4/5.
Who Should Read This Book?
You’ll likely love it if: you want a sapphic romance you can finish on New Year’s Day, you love a missed-connection chase more than a slow build, you want explicit heat without much angst, and a scene-stealing comic sidekick makes a book for you.
You may want to skip it if: you need a novella to stick its landing as well as its opening, workplace harassment played for laughs will sour the whole thing, you want the leads to get to know each other on the page before the sex, or typos pull you out of a story.
In short: a charming premise and a great supporting character, attached to a romance that peaks at the kiss.
What Readers Are Actually Saying (October 2026)
This is a quiet book, and the quiet is the finding. There is no viral moment and no BookTok footprint that I could find, no Reddit discussion surfaced in search (I could not load Reddit directly to confirm), no trade reviews, and no audiobook in any format. Its only blog review is a 4.5-star write-up at LezReviewBooks from January 2019. Nearly half of its 37 Goodreads reviews were written in the three weeks after its Christmas Day 2018 release, many of them a line or two long, and two of the early five-star reviews on Amazon carry no verified-purchase badge. That is a launch wave. What keeps it alive now is Kindle Unlimited and the calendar: it is a 133-page book with a date in the title, and it gets picked up every December by readers looking for exactly that.
Why readers love it (according to the discourse): Rob, first and by a distance — eight reviewers name him, and one says outright that he “stole the show” (The_Book_Queen, Goodreads). Then the chase: the back-and-forth search after the kiss is what readers describe as fun, exciting and the reason to read it. “Sweet,” “cute” and “light” recur constantly, and one reader joked that you “need a microscope to find the angst” (Netgyrl, romance.io). The heat gets named as a feature by around ten reviewers, the cupcake scene has its own small fan club, and one reader sizes up the magic as “possibly a wee bit of magic” (Doug Elliott, Goodreads), which is about right. LezReviewBooks summed it up as “an entertaining, sweet and erotic novella.”
What readers argue about and complain about: The second half, above everything. Three reviewers say explicitly that the book loses its spark once the search ends — the chemistry fades, the romance turns abrupt, the plot stalls — a fourth admits skipping to the end, and a longtime reader of the author says it falls below her usual standard. The content is the second theme: two readers object to a thesis advisor’s unwanted advances being played partly as comedy, and one stopped reading because Sasha’s hunt for Naomi — finding her surname and home address from a work badge and turning up unannounced — reads as stalking rather than romance. StoryGraph lists no content warnings at all; a Trigger Warning Database entry on Goodreads fills the gap. Third: craft. Two readers flag typos and a wrong character name, two find the viewpoint switching disruptive, and two found the ex-and-other-woman subplot confusing or surplus. The sex scenes are the genuine split — most readers loved them, three found them mechanical or disconnected.
The standalone question worth asking first: it resolves. Readers report a happy ending — one calls it a “cute holiday HEA” — and there is no sequel and nothing left hanging, though it closes early in the relationship. If you want more Giselle Fox, her most-read book is Slow Burn in Tuscany at 4.11 across 636 Goodreads ratings, nearly four times this one’s readership; Sun Catcher: Book One matches this book’s 4.29 from 396 ratings; and the serialised Claire and the Lady Billionaire climbs from 4.16 on part one to 4.51 by part six.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Year of the Kiss a standalone?
Yes. It is a self-contained novella of about 133 pages with no sequel and no series attached. Sasha and Naomi’s story begins and ends in this book.
How spicy is Year of the Kiss?
A 4/5, explicit and open door. romance.io has no steam rating for it, so that figure comes from reader reviews, which describe a long, graphic love scene once the leads get together.
Does Year of the Kiss have a happy ending?
Yes. Readers report a happy ending for Sasha and Naomi, with no cliffhanger. It closes early in their relationship, so it reads as a holiday HEA for a brand-new couple.
Is there an audiobook of Year of the Kiss?
No. As of October 2026 it is available only as a Kindle ebook, with no audiobook or print edition listed on Amazon.
Is Year of the Kiss on Kindle Unlimited?
Yes. The Kindle edition is included with Kindle Unlimited, which is likely how most new readers find it each December.
Does Year of the Kiss need content warnings?
Yes, despite the sweet packaging. Readers flag sexual harassment by an academic advisor, a pursuit some read as stalking, recounted cheating, alcohol use and the death of a grandmother, alongside explicit sexual content.
If You Loved Year of the Kiss, Read These Next
If the length and the heat were the draw, Mangos and Mistletoe is the closest match: another holiday novella of roughly the same size, with the same explicit open-door heat and a fast romance. If Rob’s spellcraft was your favourite part, A Witch for Solstice puts the fantasy front and centre in an even shorter seasonal read, a winter dragon story at the same 4/5 heat. And for a longer holiday romance at the same heat with more room to land its ending, The Christmas Catch trades the citywide search for a British road trip.
For more in this register, browse our sapphic holiday romance favorites or the full Book Reviews collection.
The Bottom Line
Year of the Kiss wants to be a one-night holiday treat, and for its first half it is exactly that. The midnight kiss is a lovely setup, the search across Boston gives the romance a real engine, and Rob is the kind of supporting character readers remember years later. It also runs out of steam once the chase ends, treats a harassment storyline more lightly than many readers can, and needed one more proofread. For a reader after a fast, hot, low-angst read to start the year, it is a pleasant evening for a Kindle Unlimited borrow. Check Year of the Kiss on Amazon →
The Eikna Overall Ranking
On the Eikna scale, Year of the Kiss ranks as a light, steamy indie holiday novella — charming in its premise and its sidekick, held back by a thin second half, and best approached for the New Year’s Eve chase rather than the romance that follows it.
The Evidence Scorecard
Overall ★★★★☆ 3.8/5
- ✓ 4.29 average across 175 Goodreads ratings
- ✓ Only 4 ratings below three stars
- ✓ Amazon 4.6 from 212 ratings
- ✓ Nearly half the reviews from launch weeks
Romance ★★★★☆ 3.8/5
- ✓ Midnight kiss is a strong hook
- ✓ The search is the favourite stretch
- ✓ Instant chemistry without instalove
- ✓ Three readers say it flattens once together
Characters ★★★★☆ 3.7/5
- ✓ Rob praised by eight reviewers
- ✓ Both leads called likeable by several readers
- ✓ Warm, teasing family relationship
- ✓ Ex-and-other-woman subplot confuses some
Writing ★★★★☆ 3.6/5
- ✓ Several readers call it well written
- ✓ Funny banter, per LezReviewBooks
- ✓ Quick but not rushed, one reader notes
- ✓ Typos and a wrong character name
Emotional Impact ★★★☆☆ 3.4/5
- ✓ Low angst by design
- ✓ Both leads start the year bruised
- ✓ The wishes give it a hopeful glow
- ✓ Harassment thread played too lightly
Heat Level ★★★★☆ 4/5
- ✓ Explicit open door, reader-confirmed
- ✓ One long scene near erotica
- ✓ Heat named as a draw repeatedly
- ✓ No romance.io steam rating exists
Ending ★★★★☆ 3.9/5
- ✓ Readers report a holiday HEA
- ✓ No cliffhanger, no sequel needed
- ✓ Standalone novella, fully closed
- ✓ Lands early in the relationship
Re-read Value ★★★★☆ 3.6/5
- ✓ A natural annual December 31 read
- ✓ Rob rewards a second visit
- ✓ One evening at 133 pages
- ✓ Flat second half discourages return
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