Winter Reckoning: A MM Superhero Christmas Romance Novella

by Ryder O'Malley

Three short days from retirement and one last assignment lands on my desk.

After twenty years on the Powered Task Force, I was ready to hang up the badge and fade into the nothingness. I had earned a quiet life. But just before my final shift, the captain hands me a top-secret mission. It’s not the Christmas gift I wished for.

I expected supervillains. I got a winter wonderland complete with a log cabin and a huskular recluse with a sexy beard and the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen. I can protect him from the enemy, but I can’t save him from despair. What’s worse, the more I watch him, the more I see a reflection of myself.

Turns out, we’re more alike than I’d like to admit.

When a seven-foot-tall creature comes knocking, my ability to wield the power of winter isn’t going to save the day. Stuck between a villain and a myth fading from existence, I need to come up with a plan or this is going to be the worst Christmas ever.

This holiday gave me the one thing not on my hope.



Winter Reckoning is a M/M, heart-felt adventure with an HEA and no cliffhangers. It features snark and sex, but not always in that order. This is book is a stand-alone novella in the Men of Vanguard Universe.

98 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 14, 2025

About the author

Ryder acts as if he doesn’t watch sappy movies. He won’t admit to daydreaming about ex-boyfriends and asking “What if…” He’s a closet romantic who gets anxious about first dates. In a world filled with turmoil, he’s wants to drown in warm, fuzzy moments that make his heart swell. He loves bringing his chaotic dating life to the forefront. While he calls himself a romance writer, he likes to think of it as fanfic about his life. Someday… it’ll become a reality. Until then, he’ll invent dreamy men that make him tear up at their insistence that love always wins.

Ryder lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, living his happily ever-after. When he’s not writing, he can be found working on book covers (which means he’s admiring huskular bears with more than a little chest hair.)

Reviews

[Mennat · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was so CUTE🙈❤️🎅🏼

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ryder's Christmas offering is just perfect

I genuinely forgot that this was less than a hundred pages. Everything was really understated for the majority of the time but so much was packed in. The quality of Ryder's writing shines, as always, and his characters never fail to intrigue me, especially here with the two men both feeling their age and questioning their futures.
Vanguard has heroes and villains and grunts, and now a different type of hero has revealed its existence. Long Live Vanguard and long live all the bears that save the day, every day and now at Christmas.
Winter Reckoning is up there with my favourite Christmas book ever, Santa's Secrets by K.C. Wells, and both have such beautiful covers too.

[Yvonne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frost is due to retire in 3 days, assigned one last mission. Arriving at an isolated cabin, he does not know what to expect. What he gets is a man of few words.
For a novella there is a lot packed in to this story and whilst for a lot of the time, there is not much communication between Frost and Nick, there are loads of clues.
The action picks up and true to form, Frost does what he does best, protect the innocent. More is learnt about Frost and it always hits home at Christmas.
Loved the epilogue, tidied it up perfectly

[isthisakink · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5. Editinggggg. I still hate anything resembling xmas, but this was cute short. I will admit to siding more with Krampus in my reality, but in this fictional instance, I definitely backed Nick (and Frost).

[Tris · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 ⭐️

O’Malley has really interesting concepts but unable to pull it off fully. Still missing the emotional tension and build up.

I didn’t even feel like Frost and Nick even got to know each other or were even interested in each other. So the romance part was a wash