You’ll know by now how much I love Christmas reads – once we get to December I’m more than happy to read nothing else until after the big day. But it’s also never too early for me to be getting the festive feeling (I started in August this year…), and I’m really delighted today to be helping launch the blog tour for The Perfect Christmas Village by the wonderful Bella Osborne, and sharing my publication day review. Published today (20th October) by Aria Fiction, it’s now available for kindle via Amazon, for KoBo and via Apple Books, and also in paperback (with that simply perfect cover!). My thanks, as always, to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for the invitation and support, and to the publishers for my advance reading e-copy (provided via netgalley).
I’ve mentioned before, I know, that I once laboured under the delusion that Bella’s romcoms might be aimed at a rather younger reader than me – when she’s now such a personal favourite, I’m still wondering what on earth I was thinking! I totally adored The Promise of Summer – warm and uplifting, so very funny (but touching too), and with the most wonderful characters (you’ll find my full review again here). And then came The Library – not her usual romantic comedy, a book club read instead (and mine most certainly enjoyed it!) – and I loved it so much that it became one of my 2021 Books of the Year (you’ll find my review here). The Girls was just fantastic, with mature characters I really took to my heart (you’ll find my review here) – A Wedding at Sandy Cove was blooming gorgeous too (review here), as was An Invitation to Seashell Bay (yes, there’s a review of that one too – here!). But I’ve never read anything from Bella set at Christmas, and knew it would be something rather special – my goodness, I was so looking forward to this one….
When Christmas-hating Sam moves to Holly Cross, he thinks he’s found the perfect home, until he discovers that, each year, Holly Cross transforms into the most Christmassy village in the whole country…
Blythe is just one sale away from being Real Estate Agent of the Month, so she twists the truth to sell a home to city boy Sam, who is looking for the perfect house in the perfect location. Little does he know he’s just bought a cottage in the middle of the most Christmassy village in the country. And if there’s one thing Sam loathes, it’s Christmas.
Sam’s arrival puts Holly Cross’s chance to win the title of Britain’s Most Perfect Christmas Village now in jeopardy, and the villagers are soon up in arms. Meanwhile, Sam is in his own personal hell surrounded by fairy lights and everyone is looking to Blythe to fix things.
But as the festive season looms, maybe there’s more than just Christmas in Holly Cross for Sam to fall in love with…
With a father involved in the property business who seems to find her a constant disappointment, it means a great deal to Blythe to be recognised as Estate Agent of the Year in the village of Holly Cross – even if it means selling a house that’s not even on the market, and hoping everything can be put right later. The house belonged to her friend Murray, recently passed away – and the (at first) delighted buyer is Sam, who had been a particularly difficult client to please until she showed him the house of his dreams.
The sale works itself out – with a bit of a mystery attached – but Sam, who hates Christmas with a passion, is horrified to find that he’s moved somewhere that’s in contention for the title of the UK’s Most Perfect Christmas Village, with a community for whom success means so much and whose efforts are managed with military precision by the redoubtable Leonora, with firm plans for his house to be the centrepiece of their display that it’s always been. When he absolutely refuses to engage, Blythe doggedly sets about trying to change his mind – with an adopted semi-feral cat (the wonderful Turpin) who needs feeding, she’s a regular visitor, chipping away at his reluctance to join in, their friendship growing as she begins to find that he’s not quite the miserable so-and-so he at first appears to be.
I really must say that I loved everything about this book – that grumpy/sunshine relationship between Blythe and Sam (both of whom turned out to be such likeable characters, with particular issues in their past lives), the community of Holly Cross with its quirky and such wonderfully drawn individuals, the subplot with friend Vicky and her attempts to find a source of extra income while managing a relationship of her own, and all the many activities in the build-up to Christmas that really were absolutely everything I could possibly have wished for. There’s a lot of laughter, the humour so perfectly judged – but there’s plenty of poignancy too, with all the issues really sensitively handled, along with a few elements of mystery and moments of particular drama.
It’s all just so perfectly paced, thoroughly enjoyable, and the warmth of the writing really is exceptional – the whole book felt like the most gorgeous festive hug, and I adored every single moment. This is one I’d urge every lover of Christmas romance to add to their reading list – I promise you won’t be disappointed, and that it’ll delight you in every way. It might be only October, but I found myself buying some new fairy lights and a far-too-large nutcracker ornament today – and it’s all because of Bella Osborne…
About the author
Bella Osborne has been jotting down stories as far back as she can remember but decided that 2013 would be the year that she finished a full length novel. Since then she’s written nine best-selling romantic comedies, two best-selling bookclub reads and won the RNA Romantic Comedy Novel of the Year Award.
Bella’s stories are about friendship, love and coping with what life throws at you.
She lives in Warwickshire, UK with her husband, daughter and a cat who thinks she’s a dog. When not writing Bella is usually eating custard creams and planning holidays.
For more about Bella, visit her website or follow her on social media:
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