Geneva Vand, $0.99, ISBN 979-8201365189
Fantasy Romance, 2020

Noah has magical abilities and he has just bought the magic curio shop Charming, a place that he has developed an affinity to since he was a kid.

Well, he’s now wondering whether buying the store is the right thing to do, because the paperwork he has to deal with while running the business is giving him a headache.

Still, his store assistant Robin is so cute, and it isn’t improper to have some nookie in the workplace when you’re hot.

The Mistletoe Problem refers to this mistletoe that, when hung over the door of Charming, causes people that walk in at the same time to kiss and dry hump one another. At least everyone in the story is hot and the mistletoe doesn’t do inter-species nookie so no one ends up molesting a pet, so luckily for Noah, nobody is going to file a lawsuit against the store anytime soon.

Predictably, it also causes Noah and Robin to kiss, and the rest of the story sees Noah overthink, over-analyze, and generally over-everything about the kiss, the two of them, and more. Robin gets mad at him and continues to get mad until the last few pages of this thing.

The whole thing is banal to a fault, as it’s just a guy whining and moaning about kissing a hot guy like it’s the end of the fault. Don’t these people have anything better to whinge about? Doesn’t the author has more interesting ideas to spice up this story?

So yes, the story feels like an overlong tale of a guy making huge mountains out of molehills, and the “conflict” feels drawn out for no good reason aside from padding the pages. It’s not an even interesting “conflict”, hence me feeling bored and yawning as I turn the pages.

Shortening this to one-third of its current length may have worked wonders. Maybe then the tedious and boring drama won’t feel so interminable to read!