Cover design by Cate Ashwood
A Swants Soiree
A short and sweet holiday story
Why is “fun” always so freaking painful?
Software engineer Brent Levine has always struggled with the life part of work-life balance, but to hold on to his new job, he’ll have to embrace his employer’s dreaded “staff enrichment” events. This year’s annual ugly holiday sweater party will strain his ambition to remain inconspicuous: everyone has to wear their sweaters upside down and converted into pants—aka “swants.”
At six foot eight, Brent has a hard enough time finding clothes that fit him the right way up. And while he’s an ace at coding, when it comes to handcrafts, he’s definitely at the far left end of the bell curve. Luckily he encounters seriously cute theater costumer Jonathan at the Goodwill Outlet. Jonathan offers Brent both an acceptably ugly sweater and his expertise in swants conversion. Attraction sparks on Brent’s side, but how can Jonathan be interested in a nerdy geek like him?
A Swants Soiree is a short and sweet opposites-attract rom-com featuring crafting catastrophes, suggestive sweaters, and an awkward introvert who meets his extroverted match.
Nothing says meet-cute like scrounging for ugly sweaters, at Goodwill and meeting Mister Adorable who saves your backside… Literally and figuratively!
The swants themselves were almost a third character, with the sweater options offering up further snippets of hilarity. Any story that includes an article of clothing named “Sixty-Nine Santa” is a winner to me.
From Brent’s being confronted by his colleague to his madcap effort to Jonathan’s lending hand and so on, “A Swants Soiree” is a romp of a read that entertained me from start to finish. Definitely a pick-me-up tale guaranteed to boost the mood when needed.
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