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Bestselling author Meghan Quinn has a new holiday romance on the wayMerry Christmas, You Filthy Animal, out in October, is a spinoff of her 2024 book How My Neighbor Stole ChristmasRead an exclusive excerpt here
Ring in the holidays a few months early with Meghan Quinn’s latest book!
PEOPLE has an exclusive first look at the author’s new novel, Merry Christmas, You Filthy Animal, set to publish this fall via Bloom Books.
The book is a loose spinoff to the author’s 2024 enemies-to-lovers romance How My Neighbor Stole Christmas, about two rivals who meet while competing in their town’s annual holiday contest. Though an official synopsis for the new novel has not yet been released, Bloom Books calls it a “brand new holiday rom-com with all the humor and heat her fans adore.”
The cover of ‘Merry Christmas, You Filthy Animal’ by Meghan Quinn.
Bloom Books
In addition to her holiday-themed books, Quinn is also the bestselling author of multiple series, along with the standalone rom-com Till Summer Do Us Part.
Read an exclusive excerpt from Merry Christmas, You Filthy Animal below.
Narrator: And through the woods, without a hug, Max trudges over broken tree trunks, under snow-laden branches, subtly tripping here and there but with one mission on his mind: to find out who this Betty, the niece of Dwight Yokel, really is and what her intentions are. Because in his eyes, right now, she’s seeming like a real wench.
I slip my slippers onto my feet and then look at myself one more time in the mirror to make sure I rubbed in all my lotion. I turn off the bathroom light and start to settle in for the night when I see a flash of light in the window again. Startled, I pause where I’m at in the kitchen and reach into the fridge, pulling out another two-liter of soda, this time Coca-Cola, and I bring it up to my chest just as there’s a knock at the door.
Meghan Quinn.
Julie Harris
Ready to attack, I shuffle toward the door, two-liter in position to take out a human, and I call out, “Who is it?”
“Atlas Maxheimer, without a crowbar.”
What is he doing here?
Didn’t he get the hint the other day at the farm that I want nothing to do with him?
Or this morning when I sprinted across the street to avoid walking past him?
“I promise, I come in goodwill. I’m not here to hurt you.”
Says the serial killer about to attack.
“How do I know that?” I ask.
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“Because I’m not that kind of guy.”
“You were trying to break into my window with a crowbar. You are very much that kind of guy.”
“That was a misunderstanding,” he says through the door. “And if you’d give me a chance to apologize and explain, I’d greatly appreciate it.”
“How do I know you’re not just trying to get me to open the door so you can bash my head in with your crowbar?”
“Because once again, that’s not something I’d want to do. As much as it might seem that way from the two negative interactions you’ve had with me, I don’t like to spend time in jail.”
I think about it for a second. I mean, if I’m murdered, there will only be one person who gets called out for it, and it will be him. Given the freshly fallen snow and his footprints, all tracks will lead to him, so . . . I could possibly be protected.
Not to mention I’m curious about what he has to say and how he’ll spin his little breaking and entering story. And sure, curiosity killed the cat and all, but I seem to want to test my fate tonight.
So I say, “I want your hands up where I can see them, and you will do what I say, or else I’ll make sure the cops take your no-good keister off my property, understood?”
“No-good keister? What are you? An old-timey mobster?”
“Just answer the question. Understood?”
I hear him chuckle on the other side of the door, but then he says, “Understood.”
“Hands are in the air?”
“Hands are in the air,” he calls out.
I unlock the door and fling it open fast, startling Atlas so much that he jolts backwards.
Copyright © 2025 by Meghan Quinn
Merry Christmas, You Filthy Animal will be published on Oct. 14 and is now available for preorder, wherever books are sold.