Saturday 28 December 2013

Christmas Reading Challenge: Scarlett Bailey - Just for Christmas

Her best friend's wedding...

When Alex Munro learns that the love of her life is getting married to another girl, all she wants is to be alone - and as far away from Edinburgh as possible.


Moving to a Cornish cottage, which comes complete with the world's scruffiest dog, Alex finds that her new neighbours are determined to involve her in their madcap Christmas festivities.


Then she meets her sexy neighbour Ruan - and somehow Alex doesn't want to be alone this Christmas after all. But having lost one fiancé, Ruan has no intention of letting anyone get close to him again...



  Amazon links: Kindle or Paperback

Scarlett Bailey is back with another Christmas hit, Just for Christmas, which has become my favourite Christmas read so far this year and I have to say she's definitely challenging Carole Matthews for the title of 'Queen of Christmas'. ;) 

Alex flees her hometown of Edinburgh after finding out that her best friend Marcus, who she's secretly in love with and who she'd just poured her heart out to, has proposed to his current girlfriend Milly. She couldn't have escaped any further if she'd tried after taking up a new job as a harbour master in the sleepy Cornish town of Poldore, and despite wanting to live a solitary quiet life she soon finds herself caught up in the many dramas that are brewing as Christmas fast approaches.

I loved everything about this book; the setting - Poldore sounds like my idea of heaven. I've always fancied living by the sea and the descriptive writing made this sound like somewhere I would like to visit and potentially live, the plot - the idea of running away to escape but becoming part of a community, but most of all it was the delightful characters who made this story - Alex, the brooding Ruan and lively Lucy to name just a few but I have to confess that one of my favourite characters wasn't human, he was Buoy, the dog that Alex reluctantly inherits, who certainly treated the town as if he owned it...  

This is one of those books that has stayed with me long after finishing it, and one I've given as Christmas presents to several friends which is a good indicator as to how much I enjoyed reading it.  The good news is that we don't have to wait until next Christmas for another book from Scarlett Bailey as she's currently working on a new book, due out in the Summer, which will be taking us back to the delightful town of Poldore.   

I'd like to thank Ebury Press for sending me a copy of this book to review.

No comments:

Post a Comment