Guest post written by A Mannequin for Christmas author Timothy Janovsky
Timothy Janovsky is a queer, multidisciplinary storyteller based in Washington, DC. He is the USA Today bestselling author of The Merriest Misters, Never Been Kissed (Booklist starred review), You’re a Mean One, Matthew Prince (AudioFile Earphones Award), and New Adult (2024 ALA Alex Award Nomination). He is an inaugural author for Harlequin’s new, inclusive spicy romance line Afterglow Books. Find him on social media for more!
About A Mannequin for Christmas: The unlucky in love Henry, does not want to face another Christmas alone, so he makes a wish for “The Perfect Man.” The next morning, he finds one of the male display mannequins at the vintage shop he manages has sprung to life and entirely wrecked the place. The gorgeous, magicked man comes with a Cinderella-style caveat: If he doesn’t experience true, human love before the midnight chime on New Year’s Eve, he will turn back into a mannequin for good. Henry has one month to teach Aidan how to be a functioning person in the modern world and a swoony boyfriend that will win over his family.
Growing up as a child of the late 90s/early 2000s, I shopped in the version of Toys R Us that was bisected by paint jobs. The blue section was for boys, and the pink section was for girls (as if colors have genders, and gender isn’t just a construct!). I always held a lot of shame for being more attracted to the toys in the pink section—dress up sets, stuffed animals, and dolls, specifically Barbies. My Barbies wore the hottest clothes, vacationed often, and lived on-going dramas in the wild, sweeping storylines I weaved for them every day.
If adulthood is all about tending to your inner child, it’s no surprise that I chose to be an author. Writing romance novels is a bit like playing Barbies all day long, so naturally when the Barbie movie took over the world in summer 2023, all those childhood feelings came flooding back to me. I missed the fun and delight of shoving shoes on those anatomically incorrect doll feet and having them strut around the dream house. Right away, I knew I had the perfect inspiration for my next Christmas romance!
A Mannequin for Christmas tells the story of Henry Aster, a struggling vintage shop owner who doesn’t want to face another family Christmas alone, so he makes a wish for “the perfect man” and one of his store mannequins magically springs to life. I wanted to write this story in dual point of view so we got to experience the wonders and trials of spontaneously coming to life. To make my fictional mannequin-turned-man, Aidan Smith, feel real, I looked to many pieces of pop culture from my youth.
Disney Movies
I grew up with a large collection of Disney VHS tapes on constant rotation. Two Disney characters have stuck with me more than others: Pinocchio and Ariel from The Little Mermaid. When developing Aidan, I summoned the childish curiosity of these characters who desperately want to be part of the human population for differing reasons. Pinocchio wants to cut his strings and become a real boy so he can have autonomy. Ariel wants to shed her tail so she can claim her prince and experience true love. Both learn the hard way that being human isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. “Part of Your World” and “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” both were songs in heavy rotation while drafting the Aidan chapters of this book because Aidan has an idealized version of what being a person is like which gets challenged by his experiences with Henry.
The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz was a movie we watched every year around Thanksgiving when it aired on TV. Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz meets three characters on her trip down the yellow brick road—the brainless Scarecrow, the heartless Tin Man, and the courage-less Lion. Aidan Smith, confounded by his new state of being and the ways of the world, is a quick learner but almost everything scares him, and love confuses him, which is frustrating because if he doesn’t experience true, human love before the midnight chime on New Year’s Eve, he goes back to being a mannequin for good. Talk about a terrifying fate! I wanted to underline the universal feeling of lacking something in yourself only to learn the power was within you all along. In that way, Aidan possesses the same wacky physicality as these characters mixed with their existential conundrums. This leads to both comedy and pathos throughout the book.
Cult Classics
The plot of A Mannequin for Christmas bares resemblance to classics like Mannequin and Life-Size, two movies that live rent-free in my imagination. I love the fish-out-of-water tales with healthy sprinklings of magic in them. Whenever I approach a source of inspiration, I always ask myself two questions: 1. How can I modernize this? 2. How can I make it gay?
I loved the idea of bringing this story of an inanimate object coming to life into 2025 and addressing queerness as normalcy. Aidan as this newly formed man develops feelings for Henry and this isn’t ever seen as odd or different because Aidan hasn’t been forced into heteronormativity like most of us are at birth. The world is an accepting, beautiful place to Aidan. I had fun delving into what that meant and how it could shift Henry’s perspective. These movies felt like great springboards for expansion and exploration of new themes.
Pygmalion Myth
The Greek myth about a sculptor who falls in love with one of his statues inspired the George Bernard Shaw play of the same name, which inspired me not only in giving my main character the name Henry—after the character Henry Higgins—but also in the idea that just because you create something, doesn’t mean it’s yours. Henry teaches Aidan how to be human in the modern world and the swoony Christmas date that will win over his family, but as Aidan grows, he develops his own wants and values. This was such a juicy dynamic to write, especially since Henry might have as much to learn as Aidan does about what it means to be a good person.
A Mannequin for Christmas is both an homage to classic movies and an ode to my childhood self. I’ve infused it with as much joy, hijinks, and romance as I possibly could. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Have a very happy holigays!
