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Surviving Christmas: A BWWM Holiday Horror Rom-Com: Meeting the Parents during the Zombie Apocalypse
Meeting the parents is hard. Surviving them during the zombie apocalypse is a whole different level of holiday stress.Amara Banks is a professional crisis manager. She has a spreadsheet for supply chain collapses, PR disasters, and most importantly, introducing her white, landscape-architect boyfriend, Evan, to her formidable Black family. The plan is Navigate the "Potato Salad Protocol," survive her father’s interrogation, and get through Christmas dinner without a single hair out of place.
Evan Miller just wants to fit in. He’s practiced his handshake, memorized the "No Raisins in the Potato Salad" rule, and studied Amara’s family dossier like it’s the bar exam. He’s ready to prove he’s more than just a guy who plants shrubs.
But the Krampus Strain has other plans.
When a contaminated batch of eggnog turns the neighbors into "Carolers"—shuffling, light-sensitive monsters that hibernate in the cold and wake up hungry—the Banks family fortress goes into lockdown. Now, Amara’s carefully color-coded itinerary is replaced by a desperate fight for survival.
Trapped in a house with no power, a bitten patriarch, and a front lawn full of frozen zombies, Amara and Evan must forge an unlikely alliance. To get her family to the CDC safe zone, they’ll need more than just firepower. They’ll need Evan’s landscaping tools, Amara’s project management skills, a reinforced Ford F-150, and the ear-splitting power of Mariah Carey.
Can they survive the undead, the cold, and the Spades table? Or will this be their last Christmas?
Evan Miller just wants to fit in. He’s practiced his handshake, memorized the "No Raisins in the Potato Salad" rule, and studied Amara’s family dossier like it’s the bar exam. He’s ready to prove he’s more than just a guy who plants shrubs.
But the Krampus Strain has other plans.
When a contaminated batch of eggnog turns the neighbors into "Carolers"—shuffling, light-sensitive monsters that hibernate in the cold and wake up hungry—the Banks family fortress goes into lockdown. Now, Amara’s carefully color-coded itinerary is replaced by a desperate fight for survival.
Trapped in a house with no power, a bitten patriarch, and a front lawn full of frozen zombies, Amara and Evan must forge an unlikely alliance. To get her family to the CDC safe zone, they’ll need more than just firepower. They’ll need Evan’s landscaping tools, Amara’s project management skills, a reinforced Ford F-150, and the ear-splitting power of Mariah Carey.
Can they survive the undead, the cold, and the Spades table? Or will this be their last Christmas?
- GenresParanormal
250 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 27, 2025
1 person is currently reading
4 people want to read
About the author
Katie Williams
22 books624 followersKatie Williams was born and raised in mid-Michigan. She earned her BA in English from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and her MFA in creative writing from the Michener Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
Katie is the author of The Space Between Trees (2010, Chronicle Books), Absent (2013, Chronicle Books), and Tell the Machine Goodnight (2018, Riverhead Books).
Katie is the author of The Space Between Trees (2010, Chronicle Books), Absent (2013, Chronicle Books), and Tell the Machine Goodnight (2018, Riverhead Books).
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 26, 2025
Surviving Christmas: A BWWM Holiday Horror Rom-Com by Katie Williams meshes Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner with The Walking Dead. Amara handles big business snafus with ease, after all she was reared by an engineer/military strategist. Amara is heading home to Georgia for Christmas with her boyfriend, Evan. Evan is a kindhearted landscaping architect, more adept at the New Green Deal than navigating the nuances of a different culture. Amara has attempted to give him the training he will need for success but feels that it is woefully inadequate. On the way to Atlanta, they have a strange encounter with a deer on the road which sets the tone for their visit. Once at the family home, Evan is understandably nervous, but nothing prepares the group for the realization that something is very amiss in the neighborhood. Usually kind and friendly neighbors have devolved into flesh eating zombies! How will they survive and who is expendable?
Conclusion:
Ms. Williams gives readers a funny and at points in time, very tense romantic horror story. As the story progresses, readers can see growth from each character in real time. I read this story between cooking my Christmas brunch and the juxtaposition between crab cakes and the undead was disconcerting. I enjoyed the thrills! Ms. Williams did not neatly tie up her story with a solution, so it ended up in a more realistic Happy for Now situation.
Favorite Lines:
It didn't look like blood. It looked like tar, or ink. It had a strange, metallic smell, like burnt wires and spoiled meat.
The look he gave her wasn’t angry. It was something worse. It was disappointed.
“Lauryn Hill,” he said, his voice steady. “Specifically, ‘The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.’ As a complete work.”
On the screen, a title bar appeared in bold, red letters: ‘KRAMPUS STRAIN’ OUTBREAK SPREADS ACROSS REGION.
“Officials from the CDC are linking the outbreak to a contaminated batch of ‘Holly Jolly Eggnog,’
It was just a squirrel, doing squirrel things.
"A green path," Joyce said, her voice filled with a kind of wonder. "You're making a path out of the yards."
“They’re like… athletes,” Darius muttered. “Apocalypse athletes.”
https://theretiredreader.com/f/surviv...
Conclusion:
Ms. Williams gives readers a funny and at points in time, very tense romantic horror story. As the story progresses, readers can see growth from each character in real time. I read this story between cooking my Christmas brunch and the juxtaposition between crab cakes and the undead was disconcerting. I enjoyed the thrills! Ms. Williams did not neatly tie up her story with a solution, so it ended up in a more realistic Happy for Now situation.
Favorite Lines:
It didn't look like blood. It looked like tar, or ink. It had a strange, metallic smell, like burnt wires and spoiled meat.
The look he gave her wasn’t angry. It was something worse. It was disappointed.
“Lauryn Hill,” he said, his voice steady. “Specifically, ‘The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.’ As a complete work.”
On the screen, a title bar appeared in bold, red letters: ‘KRAMPUS STRAIN’ OUTBREAK SPREADS ACROSS REGION.
“Officials from the CDC are linking the outbreak to a contaminated batch of ‘Holly Jolly Eggnog,’
It was just a squirrel, doing squirrel things.
"A green path," Joyce said, her voice filled with a kind of wonder. "You're making a path out of the yards."
“They’re like… athletes,” Darius muttered. “Apocalypse athletes.”
https://theretiredreader.com/f/surviv...
Displaying 1 of 1 review