Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

My Holiday Tails

Married to Krampus

Rate this book
My husband has horns, hooves, fur, and a tail.
His Krampus-like appearance didn’t scare me away from marrying him. Forever an optimist, I eagerly agreed to be the first bride shipped under the new liaison program to Voran, a country on the newly discovered planet Neron. The Colonel also has two little boys—a huge plus for me since I adore children.

My down-to-earth sister says I live with my head in the clouds. And maybe I naively hoped for an out-of-this-world romance.

What I didn’t expect was an out-of-this-world brute. The scowling, growling, rough-around-the-edges Colonel proves hard to live with and impossible to love. He’s also proud and possessive and is dead set on keeping me as his wife.
Did I mention he has horns? Well, he’s also horny… And our expectations of marriage don’t exactly align.

There is something behind the scowl of this infuriating man, though, that intrigues me. Catching glimpses of his strong, fur-covered body makes my stomach flutter with excitement.

I came to Voran hoping to find my place in its culture and in the Colonel’s heart.
Could there be a way to make this thing between us work?

Start reading the illustrated version on Marina Simcoe's Patreon, chapter 1 is available for free.

_______________________

All books in My Holiday Tails series stand alone, loosely connected by the same world and the fact that all heroes have tails.
This series can be read in any order.
-----------------------------
Contains graphic scenes of intimacy. Intended for mature readers.

240 pages, ebook

Published December 1, 2020

232 people are currently reading
2452 people want to read

About the author

Marina Simcoe

54 books708 followers
Deep, heartfelt romance with a generous sprinkle of spice and a tad of magic.

Newsletter Signup is on www.MarinaSimcoe.com

For illustrations of her books, early access ebooks, bonus stories, and signed paperbacks, please visit the author's Patreon: https://patreon.com/MarinaSimcoe

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
482 (40%)
4 stars
411 (34%)
3 stars
217 (18%)
2 stars
52 (4%)
1 star
19 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 141 reviews
Profile Image for Bex (Beckie Bookworm).
2,528 reviews1,598 followers
January 4, 2021
Untitled design-High-Quality
My Review

This was such a charming fun tale that I enjoyed immensely, It was incredibly sweet with real feel-good holiday warmth.
Daisy is the first human to be paired in marriage with a Voranian, out of thousands of applications she is the one chosen to embark on this groundbreaking experience, Her husband to be is Grevar is a colonel and decorated war hero.
He is also very different to Daisy in his appearance with horns a tail hooves and fur he’s also incredibly grouchy and has a bit of a temper.

After the initial overtures between them go completely sideways Daisy come to the conclusion that she has made a grave mistake and wants to return home can Grevar after a terrible first impression win the heart of the human he has come to admire and adore.

So this was charming and fun and such an easy read I adored Grevar’s two young sons Olvar and Zun and Grevar definitely grew on me despite an initial rocky start.
Daisy is also a likeable individual and this left me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.
A perfect story for the festive season that gives you all the feels.
I voluntary reviewed a copy of Married to Krampus.

Untitled design

Reviewed By Beckie Bookworm
https://www.facebook.com/beckiebookworm/
www.beckiebookworm.com
Profile Image for Inna.
1,680 reviews372 followers
October 21, 2023
2 stars. Wtf is even the point of a story that is set on a planet with almost no women (10:1 ratio here) and yet there’s still bitchy OW drama and the hero isn’t a virgin?

What a total let down!!

The OW is his baby mama on a planet where there are almost no women!! MOST men without partners still do have children, but with a surrogate who has been artificially inseminated. And yet, we have a hero who did it the old fashioned way and now has twins with this horrible OW. He wanted to marry this OW, but she chose to marry another guy, thinking the hero probably wouldn’t make it back from war. It’s clear that she still pines for the hero, and wants to be with him, and she is a complete bitch to the heroine.

The rest of the plot is BORING AF… the heroine basically tries to bake cupcakes but can’t figure out the alien equivalent of flour or other baking ingredients for most of the book. 😴😴😴😴

I don’t understand anyone saying this book is funny? I haven’t even smiled once.

Also, why would the hero get to be the one to choose his partner? It would make a lot more sense for the earth women to come and choose from the available men.

SWE because everything regarding the hero’s past made me extremely disappointed while reading.
No virgins
Hero has two sons
OW drama where OW alludes to her and hero having lots of wild sex and tells the heroine that she’s useless since her and the hero can’t have a baby
No OM drama
No scenes with OM/OW
No cheating

This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Leigh.
1,398 reviews325 followers
December 7, 2020
Married to Krampus started out really cute. Daisy is excepted into a Mail Order Bride program for the planet Neron where woman are limited. I thought it was really sweet how excited Daisy was to meet her new husband but unfortunately things didn't go as planned. I liked the Colonel, I'm always partial to grumpy, growling characters. So why the 2 stars? Overall it was boring absolutely nothing happened, there wasn't even intimate times until the end of the story. Most of the time Daisy was trying to figure out how to bake with the ingredients on her new planet. The best thing about the entire story were the twins, they were so adorable and entertaining. I don't plan to continue this series.
Profile Image for Amanda.
804 reviews184 followers
January 24, 2021
Warning: rant ahead.

I feel cheated.

Grumpy Loves Sunshine is my favorite romance trope. I get so excited; I know I'm in for a treat when one comes up.

What was presented as a Grumpy Loves Sunshine story is, in fact, a Grumpy Goes Round After Round with Toxic White Woman story.

The let-down was epic.

Sunshine is Sunshine because she sees the best in everyone, doesn't take pot shots, and doesn't assume bad intentions (even when they're obviously clear). She definitely doesn't give up after a single blip that would have been easily surmounted if she had eaten a snack and taken a nap to get her blood sugar back up. Sunshine picks herself up and keeps throwing herself at an Impossible Task. It's why she works so well with Grumpy, who nobody else gives a chance to shine and show what they're worth. And Grumpy adores Sunshine for it. Sunshine is Grumpy's precious, and Grumpy usually does not want to share their treasure.

Other than her hair and dress choices? Daisy ain't Sunshine. She jumps to the worst possible conclusion every single time and is cringingly vile in her interactions the first 35% of this book: .

Naive, Sweet Optimist, in name only. This was a bait and switch.

C h e a t e d.

I'm glad I read the second book in this series, My Tiny Giant, first, because had it been this one, I never would have tried the second. And that would have been a shame, because that book is a fun read full of Feelings. So if you didn't care for this book either, go give the other one a try.

So.

A lot about this one rubbed me the wrong way, obvs. The multiple forced willful misunderstandings on Daisy's part.... It made it hard to empathize with her. But the one where despite the fact that she signed a legally binding marriage contract but then kept insisting she was the nanny in employ?



And she doesn't mention it to Grevar once. Only in her head. And the whole time Grevar is thinking of her as his wife and how to make her love him.

There's zero actual Krampus in this story. Just a male who has some too on-the-nose Beast throwing a tantrum moments who spends the rest of the story quietly smitten and waiting for Daisy to come around, because he was so worried she'd threaten to leave again if he did the wrong thing?



Yeah. Some Big Bad Krampus. Grevar is a pretty typical Marshmallow Alpha.

So. Things I liked about this story?

Um.

The twins are sweet.

Grevar's cousin is pretty awesome, including dealing with the "OW" shenanigans.

Really, his whole family is a lot of the saving grace in this story. Without them, it was a story about two people fighting while one is obsessed with trying to make cupcakes when she isn't sulking and hiding and the other was trying to figure out how not to piss her off, since they couldn't seem to figure out how to actually talk. And they do this for MONTHS.

The sex once it happens was steamy, and the epilogue is pretty cute. The final 20% of this read is where most of the good stuff is.

Honestly, this could have been the exact same story at half the length with a lot less aggravation, since it definitely wasn't utilized for character growth.

Profile Image for •Mrs Pizza•.
506 reviews139 followers
November 4, 2022
This started off fun. Then wasn’t anymore pretty quickly.
Mostly it was boring.
Daisy(fmc) is supposed to be super likable sunshine, but instead came across as judgy and was the reason for a lot of the miscommunications.
The Colonel(mmc) is supposed to be a grump with a gooey center but instead felt like he had a personality transplant after their tumultuous first night together.
There was ow drama that weird and I didn’t like how it was resolved.
But mostly I was bored.

Profile Image for Lori R..
1,411 reviews71 followers
February 6, 2023
I was already a big fan of Marina Simcoe before I started this book, so I wasn’t surprised by how much I enjoyed this.

Daisy is a human and she’s headed to Voran, which is on the planet Neron. She is the first human to be taken as a wife by someone from there and she plans to take her job seriously.

Daisy is a strong and sassy heroine who’s not afraid to stand up for herself and put the Colonel in his place when necessary. Because he’s quite gruff and grumpy when the first meet, she realizes she needs to toughen up and stand her ground. And because Colonel Grevar Kyradus is really a big ol’ softie inside, he allows her to do so.

Watching their relationship grow from arranged marriage between two strangers, to enemies to friends, to nanny/employer, to both-of-them-wanting-so-much-more, was all sorts of cute and fun and sweet.

The Colonel’s twin boys were adorable and they sometimes stole the show.

I listened to the audiobook and the narrator did an excellent job. She brought this story to life perfectly.
Profile Image for Jennifer.
992 reviews33 followers
November 22, 2020
The writing and editing of the ARC version of the manuscript was clean, with no typos that I found and well constructed sentences. The world building was quite vivid, with the alien world and culture being a character in itself. The characterization was excellent, with both hero and heroine being sympathetic individuals with strengths and weaknesses. The development of the romantic relationship was organic, developing from severe dislike through to devotion in a completely believable fashion. This romance had a heat level of three chili peppers. The plot and pacing were tight and exciting, meaning that I read this novel in one sitting. This novel had low angst and medium stakes, which tends to be one of my preferred narrative structures for a romance novel. This novel used the Enemies to Lovers trope, the Cultural Misunderstandings trope, and the Mail Order Bride trope. The world building, plot, and pacing were all five stars. The characterization and development of the romantic relationship were both also five stars. I therefore gave this novel a combined rating of five stars. This novel ended on a Happy Ever After ending instead of a cliffhanger, so that was a big plus. I recommend this novel to readers who enjoy holiday romances with great world building and well constructed plots. I look forward to reading the next book in this series when it releases. I will probably buy myself a keeper copy of this novel.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
Profile Image for Tuvsilago.
45 reviews11 followers
October 9, 2024
Skrumpnade nästan helt ihop av pinsamhet, men läste ändå ut den, sååå..?
Profile Image for Viv “BookVixen” Gutierrez .
1,598 reviews473 followers
March 11, 2021
It was going great, then crashed.

I was enjoying this story for the most part, except for the excessive and COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY other woman drama. Due to a severe shortage of females, many of the males use artificial insemination and surrogacy to produce children. The story had the hero, for some inexplicable reason, screw the wife of the governor and have his twins INSTEAD of having him go the surrogacy route. Then the heroine has to face the woman her mate not only grunted and heaved and slimed all over, but also bred, forging an unbreakable bond. grossssssss

Still, I was willing to overlook it. And then the ending came and this paragraph attacked me.

“The baby in my belly didn’t have a drop of Voranian blood. She had been conceived by artificial insemination using the human sperm Grevar and I had ordered from Earth, after selecting an anonymous donor together.”

What. The. FUUUCKKK?!!

Not just unnecessary, but grotesquely unnecessary. Have the hero create new life with the heroine or don’t say anything at all! How much more worse is it that the heroine is carrying another man’s seed, but that the bond the hero shared with a nasty skank will forever be denied to the heroine?


Profile Image for Chappy.
2,214 reviews113 followers
March 11, 2021
Not too bad but the conflict between Daisy and Grevor was too intense. You'd think they would have been more understanding with each other. I mean, this was a first attempt at interspecies marriage.

The kids were super cute and I liked Grevor's cousin.

I wanted more about Daisy opening the bakery...we just get a hint of it in the epilogue.
Profile Image for Nevena.
925 reviews27 followers
December 30, 2021
“From the moment you showed up here, my life has been turned upside down. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
~~~
Daisy is such a wonderful woman! I loved how optimistic, feisty and kind she was. And, even more, I loved her courage to face all the challenges on a new planet.

Voran is grumpy, growly, strict, protective and absolutely amazing! I loved how sweet and thoughtful he was with Daisy. And I loved his determination to do everything in order to keep her. He’s such a cinnamon roll and I adored him!

The development of their relationship was absolutely perfect. They had to overcome their cultural differences and their initial expectations. But Daisy and Voran had such great chemistry and were so perfect for each other. And when they finally surrendered to their feelings, the passion they shared was scorching hot!

In addition, I have two words for you - “Dream Spa”.

Overall, the story is a fantastic, sweet and emotional read filled with drama, danger, action, steamy romance and wonderful characters.

I absolutely loved it!
Profile Image for Natalie  H.
3,801 reviews30 followers
April 22, 2022
I didn't like Shula, even after she was made to apologise. Straightforward and sweet on Daisy's side. Not the best first impression and straight into shouting and smashing things. I liked that Daisy put her foot down. The cousin was my favorite saying it how it is. The spa was strange. The boys were adorable and the epilogue cute.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Kayla (onthefritz).
733 reviews121 followers
December 21, 2020
SO GOOOOOOD!

Daisy signed up and was selected to be the first human in this alien bridal exchange program. This alien planet and culture has one female for ever 10 males, and while they have came up with a solution for their population, there are many, many single dads on the planets.

Grevar was recently promoted after being a war hero, and was rewarded the chance to be the first male to get a human wife a mother for his twin sons. He is used to a strict, quiet lifestyle and Daisy in a chatterbox sunshine that comes in and changes up everything.

This book isn't too Christmassy, but Daisy loves Christmas, so she mentions it often and then there is a Christmas scene at the end.

This book had so many of my favorite tropes: grumpy/sunshine, single parents, and few women/ too many men. It was a well written, fully realized story and I want MORE in this world! Will definitely pick up more from this author, loved it so much!
Profile Image for DMCechak.
1,792 reviews24 followers
November 24, 2020
Married to Krampus, by Marina Simcoe, is an otherworldly romance that has a female human, Daisy, as the intriguing alien.

I think I enjoyed this book mostly because it gave a perspective of romance through the eyes of characters from different cultural backgrounds. Daisy is longing for romance, but clearly runs into obstacles as she travels in space to be the first human bride to a planet’s top decorated warrior.

Her fierce warrior doesn’t understand the needs of his chosen human. Each frustrated, they make a ‘deal ‘ that actually ends up helping each to understand the other.

Christmas does have a role in this romance. But showing how much you care is ultimately the theme that makes this story a pleasure to read!
123 reviews
December 3, 2020
LOVED THIS!!!

Oh how I adored Krampus (I mean Grevar) and Daisy! If you love a sunny girl that can bring a big grump to life, you will not be sorry you picked this one! Just in time for Christmas too. Sorry for the SPOILERS: I really appreciate how Daisy managed to keep her sweet disposition without getting walked all over, and truly admired her grit and determination to give it another go after such a rocky start! Grevar makes such strides to becoming the husband Daisy needs, it is a great journey for them both.
Profile Image for Jannie Cv.
1,082 reviews29 followers
November 26, 2020
Very intriguing story!
Meeting an alien for the very first time must be shocking, especially when they are so very different. This is what Daisy and the Colonel encounter upon meeting each other. Top it off with misunderstandings and lack of essential information given, then you have a mighty big mess. It was sheer pleasure to watch the story unfold, with appreciation and other feelings developing between the two. By the time I reached the end, I was giddy with glee!
Profile Image for Erin.
3,528 reviews78 followers
December 2, 2020
Lighthearted and Sweet Christmas Story!

I absolutely loved this story! The vivid imagery, the fantastic characters and the out of this world love story was phenomenal. There was a little bit of suspense and mystery to the story which kept me riveted to my seat. The connection between Daisy and Grevar took a little time but the chemistry heated up quickly. These two made me laugh and had me swooning over them by the end.

Fantastic story that was highly enjoyable to read.
Profile Image for Rachel ♥⁷.
266 reviews23 followers
December 9, 2020
I downloaded this book originally because it was a Christmas Alien romance? Well, it is exactly that and I couldn't have enjoyed it more. It had a strong, sassy female lead, comedic relief, and a cute happy ending. What more could you ask for? Highly recommend for a quick, cheerful, occasionally spicy, read.
Profile Image for Dr susan.
3,078 reviews51 followers
December 13, 2020
Good sci fi romance

Honestly, I skip the sex, because, as a friend put it, there are only so many ways to put tab A in slot B. But the characters, plot, and world building are great. I enjoyed the story and laughed out loud several times. The Colonel's sons are wonderful, as is his cousin. All in all, Married is a happy, entertaining book.
Profile Image for BobaFett114.
1,954 reviews3 followers
December 2, 2020
Excellent! I highly recommend!!!

Daisy has a chance to go to another planet and marry an alien that looks like Krampus. He certainly acts like it too. They have a few roadblocks, one of which is a woman of course, but they overcome these. It was a fun, exciting, a bit smexy, and just lovely.
Profile Image for Siobhain .
17 reviews
December 3, 2020
Krampus

Wow! This was an amazing Christmas story. I love the world that Marina created. She has a great mind for detail building the characters. I liked how the relationship between the main characters was not insta-love but rather slower. This was a lovely treat!
Profile Image for Sandra R.
3,354 reviews47 followers
July 7, 2021
Well written slow burn, science fiction romance with a Christmas theme. This was so much fun to read and had all the feels. The author has a wonderful imagination. 💘😍
5 reviews
July 23, 2021
Beautiful

Very tender, true to life story….even in another universe. Great job capturing all the hopes and fears of an ordinary woman.
Profile Image for Lynn Anne.
1,249 reviews22 followers
December 21, 2022
I am actually surprised by how fun and entertaining this book was! Well written, well plotted out, cute and lighthearted!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 141 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.