Christmas films are a great way to get into the festive spirit, but this year I thought I’d try reading some Christmas-themed books as well. In my head there is nothing better than curling up under a cosy blanket with a hot drink, a mince pie and a book that feels really Christmassy, so I paid a visit to my local library to pick up a festive-themed selection. Well, the first thing I noticed is that there are A LOT of books with the word Christmas (or similar) in their title, and as I’ve discovered, they are not even all about Christmas (Karen Swan’s Christmas at Claridges for example, promised great things with its title but was actually mostly set during summer and only the last few pages involved Christmas!). My plan was to review loads of these books for you, but Christmas has turned out to be busy time so we will see how it goes.
The first book on the list was Calling Mrs Christmas by Carole Matthews. This is a nice little chick lit read, and starts off with a very happy relationship. Cassie is totally in love with her long-time partner Jim, but is unhappy with her financial situation, being unemployed and generally never being able to afford a comfortable life. So she starts a Christmas-themed business (more about that later) and the story is mainly about how she gets it up and running, until the point where she meets millionaire Carter. As well as running round in circles for Carter as her biggest client, she also starts developing feelings for him and it ends up being a story about what she will choose – the love of her life, or the prospect of a new and exciting romance full of chemistry with a man who can give her the life she always wanted.
Generally I liked this book, although I found the story involving Cassie’s man choice all quite sad. It’s well-written so that you fall in love with the kind, lovely man that Jim is, as well as totally understanding how she could be swept off her feet by Carter.
The whole point of reading this book for me though was the Christmas factor, so that is what I really want to review. Cassie’s business “Calling Mrs Christmas” is about providing Christmas preparation services – such as decorating trees, organising parties, gift wrapping, food shopping and baking mince pies. It’s basically filled from start to finish with Christmas things and even concludes on Christmas Day, so it was actually perfect as a Christmas read! There was even a magical trip to Lapland which was full of winter scenes that I really enjoyed reading. Even better, it was all very “nice”, with likeable characters, people doing good things for their fellow man and a warm, fuzzy ending. I suppose it’s not the most exciting book I’ve ever read, but I can’t deny that it made me feel very festive, which was the whole point. I’d recommend this book for a light and enjoyable read, but definitely only at Christmas!
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