Let's Talk About . . . Holidays!

Santa’s Naughty List by Shiran K. @Mehasels
The Pact by Lovessuperstarr @Lovessuperstarr
See the Real Me by Arina Herman
Then There Was You: Under the Northern Lights by Fran on Episode
Crime on Heels by GC.
Tatum & Beck by andriana.writes
Just Between Us by Amanda Traver
Holidays Collection by Author Vivian M
Loving Santa’s Daughter by Chida @Chida

Have you read any of these?
Do you think any of these don’t fit the shelf theme?
Does the summary misrepresent the story? How about the cover?
Who do you think the target audience is for? Would you reread?

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I’ve read Santa’s Naughty List & I’m In Santa’s Naughty List
It does fit the shelf,
Summary : ‘Will they change their ways?’ WELL, I’m sure the answer is yes, but I really like to do cruelness of the MC and I’m going to keep her that way.
The Audience is def comedy lovers (not like all romance with a hint of comedy but an actual comedy). I think I’ll reread the story when it’s complete :slight_smile:

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So I have read Santa’s Naughty List. Three words: LOL. Good fit for the shelf. Duh! You know what? The cover kinda makes Santa look like a sleaze. Does anyone else get those vibes? Which is like half representing the story but also it’s much more than that. Target audience? Amberose.

Also read See the Real Me. I’m kinda far behind though because every time author updated I had to reread. Better fit for the disabilities shelf, in my opinion. But I believe that even though this shelf is for the holidays it’s supposed to include stories that give you the warm fuzzy feelings, which tbh is not a feeling I can say I experience in life… Ever. But I understand what Episode meant by it, so I’d say based on that it fits the shelf. Target audience? People who like cute romance stories.

Haven’t read any others, but a few were on my list and a lot look promising so I think I might go back to doing that thing that I was doing where I was reading an episode of them all and giving my thoughts… Yeah, I think I’ll do that.

Also preee sure they were all under 50k reads (or most were), so props to episode for actually using the shelves for their purpose: to show stories most people haven’t seen before

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Well, don’t do that! Cry, I mean. You can still be shocked if you want to :woman_shrugging:

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I’m currently reading the Pact, it’s funny and very well written, i’m really loving it so far :purple_heart:

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This shelf makes my :heart: so warm because it’s filled with 9 amazing stories that were mostly hidden gems :star_struck::yellow_heart::sparkles:
I really hope Episode keeps this up :pray:t5::two_hearts::green_heart:

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Crime on Heels

I don’t know about this one… I don’t see it as a fit for the shelf, sorry.
The story line sounded interesting and it was a nice concept, I feel like it’s goal is to promote girl power, but in saying that, I’m sure there will be some love story with their rival gang at some point (I hope I am wrong though, because defeats the purpose).
I definitely think the type of audience could be people who like action stories, but also people who like comedy, because it’s kind of on the border of both.

Tatum & Beck

I’m so sad. This was on my list so I was excited to finally start it, but not only does it start with an author’s note, but we’re told that it’s CC only and a bit of a prologue because CC makes the script look messy or whatever… Then we’re told that it’s limited CC… Then we’re told that we shouldn’t change anything anyway. Like, come on… Don’t do CC then. You don’t want it to mess up your script, you don’t want readers to change their looks, so like… Just leave it out. If people are sad they can’t CC, just tell them to F off. It’s not worth sacrificing an episode just to include it when you don’t even want to.
For the record, skin and hair colour is what you can’t change… Also, you can change hair style, but it must be mid length for Tatum and must be either classic short styles for Beck or hip styles. Also, Beck starts out with facial hair, but when you CC face shape, the only options are non-facial hair… Oooh, also you get to customise “YOU”, but no special features for “YOU” as the CC is done through the character avatar.
“YOU” also gets a love interest. Also CC through character avatar.

So the actually story confused me for a bit. The prologue was a bit of a montage of how Tatum and Beck became friends and I kept reading on and so in Episode 2 it felt like they were already dating but I was wrong… I just thought if you call someone your “better half” that means you must be dating because no way I’d say that to my best guy friend if he was dating someone else, but Tatum was dating someone else… Anyway… I read three episodes and didn’t get any holiday vibes from it, so I guess this is going for the “warm, fuzzy feelings” aspect of the shelf theme, which I could see how it would fit. I’m kinda sad that I didn’t really like this one since I was looking forward to it. I normally like best-friend’s-to-“lovers” romance stories but I just couldn’t get invested in this. Cover represents the story pretty well, since with limited CC, the cover characters look like Tatum and Beck regardless. And all the splashes match the colour scheme of the cover, so that’s cute.

Just Between Us

Even though this started with an author’s note (also, in this author note we are told how this will be our only chance to customise, but spoiler alert! We customise in episode 3 again hehehe), I’m quite enjoying it. I hate the parents, I think they’re from another one of the author’s stories, so they have a teen kind of personality which bothers me, but that’s easy enough to look past. I guess I’m just a sucker for fake-dating relationships that turn into real ones… Which I think this will be. I’ve read three episodes so far, it’s a nice slow burn, so the summary might seem a bit off until episode 3… Some of the plot is a bit unrealistic (like a writing contest that requires you to submit photos of you in a relationship), but I don’t mind because it makes for a good story. Now that I think about it, there weren’t that many choices… I can only think of one that seemed important off the top of my head and lol, my outfit choice wasn’t remembered so that’s awkward. In terms of fitting the theme, again I think this was not chosen specifically for the holiday season and rather the “warm fuzzy feelings” side of the theme.

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I read Tatum and Beck once, around a month ago. And I also got confused at the start, cause the author gave the impression that they were dating, but then in the next chapter Tatum was in a relationship with another guy. But…

Spoiler

In a later chapter it is revealed that they were in fact in a relationship with each other at the beginning of the story. From how I remember, apparently due to the two being so close to each other and having a close friendship, all their classmates pressured them into being in a relationship. And so they got together, but they didn’t feel comfortable being in relationship, which led them into breaking up.

Well that’s how I remember it anyway :sweat_smile:

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Welp, your spoiler has me interested in it again hahaha. Is it worth continuing? I trust your judgement

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Well like you said the story doesn’t give out any holiday vibes, but it is definitely cute and heart warming. But it’s your choice if you want to continue it :joy:

I love your profile picture :smile:

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Hmmm. I think I might after I read all the other ones then :thinking:

Thanks :blush:

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Haha ok :smile:

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Holiday Collection

I really really liked this one. The idea is that there’s a short love story added for each holiday, so obvs it fits the theme of the shelf quite perfectly. I cannot fault the directing on this one. I think the summary and cover do a fine job at representing the story, but I don’t understand why it’s in the comedy genre. I found it cute, but not funny. And at the beginning, we’re told it’s short romantic stories with happy endings, so that to me says romance genre. Anyway, definitely read it if you like the occasional short story or if you just want happy endings :blush:

Loving Santa's Daughter

This one is definitely on theme! It’s also nice to see some LGBT on the shelf this week since there’s not one that gives you a sexuality choice. There’s a lot of adorable custom backgrounds and overlays that I find really tie in well with the theme. There’s really only one problem, and that’s that none of the “i’s” are capitals. (eg i’m, i’ll, etc), but if that doesn’t bother you, I’d highly recommend this for the festive season. The cover includes Santa’s daughter btw, “YOU” is completely customizable.

The Pact

The CC really confused me. Actually, this shelf as made me realise this one thing I can’t stand, and that’s having different forms of CC. There was three characters you could CC - one was with a template, one was with character avatar and the last was a CC template that had all the options on one page, so covered the character so I couldn’t see what it looked like (lol).
Anyway… I’d say it’s on theme because it’s around the time of New Years (MC gets dumped and the ex says Happy New Year.). The storyline has pulled me in enough that I think I’ll continue reading this one because, as mentioned before, I really enjoy fake-dating love stories.

Then There Was You: Under The Northern Lights

What a title! I found it rather short, so hard to say whether it fits the theme or not. Another one I’m not sure on genre… I can see why I’d be mystery after reading the first episode, but the summary seems to focus more on romance…


After reading a little bit of each, I want to say that I don’t think this should have been a 9 story shelf. I only found 4 that were “on theme” of holidays, leaving the others to be sort of “feel good” stories, which is fine, but since the shelf name is holidays, yet the majority of stories weren’t about any holidays, it would have probably been better to be a 6 story shelf

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Thank you :hugs:

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@Sydney_H you may close this thread!

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Cool ! This isn’t closed yet (haha)-

I kept this open bc I was reading The Pact but going in and out of wifi alot made it difficult to read in one all sitting—

I didn’t quite understand the summary at first ‘without falling, again?’ my dumb ass couldn’t figure out that meant ‘falling in love, again?’. Yes, it does fit the story, and so does the cover.

I def think the audience would be anyone who likes ‘fake love’ or ‘enemies to lovers’ or ‘the deal / pact’ plots. I would also recommend the story to anyone who likes MC’s to be older than 20. (I believe they are 25).

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Topic closed by OP request. :smiley: