If the next tune was another sodding Christmas song, Eloise Garrett was going to grab the nearest pair of scissors and sever the damn radio's electric cable...
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I am required to make it clear at the beginning of my reviews that I received this book for free from Rachel's Random Resources. I have not been paid for doing this and all opinions are my own. I am Bookshop.org affiliated, which means I earn a very small amount of money if you buy from there using my direct link. Although I include purchase links to Amazon, I am not affiliated with them. I include them to make it easy for you to navigate to them if you so wish.
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The Blurb
Two Scrooges come together for a festive-free holiday season by the sea and find all their anti-Christmas plans going up in smoke when they decide to play Santa for a single mom and her child.
Eloise Garrett thinks Christmas is overpriced, overhyped, and overrated, and without any family to share it with, she feels sad, lonely and isolated. The “season for giving” is just a constant reminder that she’s single, sixty(ish), and staring down retirement. But not this Christmas. Determined to avoid the most magical time of the year, Eloise decides to spend Christmas in Honeycombe Bay. Surely a seaside village in the middle of winter won’t be too festive?
Ever since his wife passed away, Bartholomew Knott hasn’t felt up to welcoming visitors to his guest house. With the prospect of another long, lonely winter, and having become more Scrooge than Santa over the years, Bart is dreading Christmas. However, when he’s contacted by someone who dislikes decking the halls just as much as he does, Bart has the brilliant idea of opening the guest house to people who want to escape all things festive.
Christmas isn’t easy to ignore, though, not even in off-season Honeycombe Bay. So when fate forces Bart to give shelter to a single mother and child whose holiday has been devastated by a terrible fire, Eloise finds herself playing Mrs. Claus to Bart’s Santa—dragging the house’s other guest, a heartbroken teacher looking for a break during the holidays, into the action as well. But holiday cheer isn’t the only thing sparking under the mistletoe. Will the guests at Honeycombe Bay realize that, sometimes, the best way to escape Christmas is to let it into your heart?
My Review
This is a charming story of later-life romance and was most enjoyable to read.
It was such a heartwarming novel full of lovely characters. The main character was Eloise and the book is told largely from her perspective. She has no family and all the Christmas cheer grates on her nerves. So she heads to a bed and breakfast in off-season Honeycombe Bay where she meets the owner, Bart, who is still grieving for his wife.
There are other characters who end up at the B&B too and this turns into a tale of found family. In addition, there is romance in the air between Eloise and Bart, if only they were brave enough to admit it. When circumstances occur that force them to observe Christmas, they both demonstrate such generosity of love towards others that I was rooting for them to do so to each other.
This was a wonderful book to read and I enjoyed every page. The author has created characters that leapt off the page and I almost felt that I was in the B&B with them, sharing a mince pie and glass of Baileys.
I found this gorgeous story captivating and would have gobbled it up in one sitting if I could. It warmed my heart and put a smile on my face. The author did such a fabulous job of creating her curmudgeonly characters and atmosphere, and enabled us as readers to see them grow and change.
This is a lovely book to read in the run-up to Christmas and I wholeheartedly recommend it.
Book Details
ISBN: 978 1035927302
Publisher: Aria
Formats: e-book, audio and paperback
No. of Pages: 304 (paperback)
Purchase Links
About the Author
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Lilac Mills lives on a Welsh mountain with her very patient husband and incredibly sweet dog, where she grows veggies (if the slugs don't get them), bakes (badly) and loves making things out of glitter and glue (a mess, usually). She's been an avid reader ever since she got her hands on a copy of Noddy Goes to Toytown when she was five, and she once tried to read everything in her local library starting with A and working her way through the alphabet.
She loves long, hot summer days in the garden, and cold winter ones snuggled in front of the fire, but whatever the weather she's usually writing or thinking about writing, with heartwarming romance and happy-ever-afters always on her mind.
Lilac also writes under the pseudonyms Liz Davies and Etti Summers.
You can also find Lilac at:
My Other Blog Posts Featuring This Author
Surprises on the Scottish Isle
(ARC and media courtesy of Rachel's Random Resources)
(all opinions are my own)
(Bookshop.org affiliated)
