Reviewed by Emma Crowley
It’s been a year since Lottie’s fiancé walked out, leaving her heartbroken. But things start to look up when she lands her dream job at a beautiful Lake District estate, with a handsome groundskeeper for a neighbour.
So when Lottie is asked to organise a last minute Christmas wedding at Firholme, she can’t wait to get started. Until she meets the couple, and discovers that Connor, the man who broke her heart, is the groom-to-be.
As snow falls on the hills, can Lottie put aside her past to organise the perfect winter wedding? And will there be any festive magic left to bring Lottie the perfect Christmas she deserves?
Many thanks to Avon Books for my copy of A Surprise Christmas Wedding to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
I find with Phillipa Ashley books that recently I seem to really enjoy every second book that she publishes and the book proceeding it just to be ok. This new Christmas book A Surprise Christmas Wedding falls solidly into the first camp. I knew from the first few chapters that I was really going to enjoy this story and I really did, it’s packed full of all things Christmas and the story waiting to be told between the fabulous cover was a joy to read. It’s a nice, relaxing, quick and easy read with a good solid storyline with romance, some problems and twists and turns within all centred around the run up to Christmas Day. The blurb says 'will there be any festive magic left to bring our main character Lottie the perfect Christmas she deserves?' Well I couldn’t wait to find out and judging from the first few chapters that grabbed my attention I knew I was in for a very good read and one that is ideal for this time of year.
Lottie works an event organiser for a hotel and is dating Connor. They come to Porthmellow in Cornwall, a setting readers will be familiar with from Phillipa’s last few books, for a get away and before she knows it Lottie has accepted a proposal from Connor. Lottie envisages a long term future and a family as Connor is full of charm, energy and determined to go for what he wants. On arrival home to the village of Langmere Lottie believes her future to be secure and a happy one but her dreams are shattered when Connor walks in the door from a business trip and says he wants to call the whole thing off and that his proposal was a mistake that he couldn’t face a lifetime of commitment. Lottie is distraught and heartbroken and can’t fathom the abrupt change of mind. The rug has certainly been swept out from under her. Fast forward to a year later and Lottie has a new job at the Firholme estate near Langemere. She is living on site and her boss Shayla is determined to make the estate a success as she bought it when it was about to go bankrupt.
Lottie, has been through the mill in the past year and you can tell she is still bruised and hurting but she always puts her best foot forward especially when it comes to her family. Her parents are away living in New Zealand and her sister Steph and her twin girls only had Lottie for help when the darkest hour struck. Despite her own trauma and problems which she kept secret from her family, yes they knew Connor and herself split up but as for specifics she didn’t make those clear to anyone, Lottie has battled on and been there for those that needed her. In that way I thought she was so selfless and caring in particular with relation to Steph’s storyline. To be honest this storyline hit a bit too close for home for me so I skim read bits where it was mentioned. But not in any way because it was badly written or shouldn’t have been there just that in the frame of my mind I was in whilst reading I didn’t feel able to contemplate what she had been through. I pushed this aspect of the plot aside and focused on Lottie and how she was going to face the challenge to turn the estate into a must visit destination for events and weddings.
The new job for Lottie meant that she could leave old associations behind and have something to take her mind off her heartache and worries but she doesn’t bet on Jay, the new estate manager and her new neighbour, throwing a spanner in her plans to get her life and the estate back on track. She wanted smooth sailing but Jay was a challenge she didn’t see coming. You could feel the sparks between the pair when they first meet but Jay doesn’t reveal much about himself and more often than not he came across as abrupt, standoffish and sometimes rude. He was good at his job but was a closed book when it came to his personal life and the fact he didn’t really want to mix or interact with people outside of what was required with his job really wasn’t a good sign. I was desperate to know what made him this way, I knew he was drawn to Lottie. Their circumstances were different but they were both scarred and unwilling to let anyone pierce the shell around them. I hoped that with time and being forced to work together to pull off the surprise wedding of the year that Lottie would breakdown Jay’s barriers and he in turn would let her and they might both find some love and happiness in the process. She wondered was she able to judge his feelings at all given her disastrous experience with Connor? As really the reader could tell they were perfect for each other from the outset. But the will they/won’t they and the twists and turns was great to read about.
With Christmas being in the title I was hoping for lots of mentions of that special time of year that would help me feel more festive and thankfully there were. The estate sounded magical with reindeer, Santa’s grotto, the Christmas tree centre and not to mention the magnificent decorations in the big house. Langmere, itself and the surrounding areas were brilliantly described and with the cold weather and Christmas approaching it all added to the atmosphere not to mention the frantic preparations for what was one of the major points of the book.
Lottie wants to prove to Shayla that she is good at her job and that she can turns things around on the estate. One big successful event is all that is needed to do this. But Lottie certainly doesn’t count on a face from her recent past being the event that everyone relies on to secure the estates future. I thought it was so clever and would set the cat among the pigeons when Connor was reintroduced. It threw Lottie off kilter in that on one hand she wanted to pull off this big event but on the other she wanted to give Connor a piece of her mind and tell him where to shove his wedding to Keegan.
Lottie deserved nothing but admiration for the way she handled the entire situation, she put her job and the future of the estate before her own needs whereas I would have had it straight out with Connor. I couldn’t fathom at all how he had found a new woman so quickly and gone back on everything he had said to Lottie. I would have told him where to go and exactly what I thought of him and his behaviour. Instead Lottie becomes caught up in a web of lies that becomes very tangled. I don’t know how she kept things secret or forged ahead with wedding preparations and the endless demands from Keegan in such a short space of time. You wondered would the house of cards all come tumbling down and all the secrets, lies and some much needed truths would come out into the open? Would Lottie and Jay solve their own personal problems and find the security and happiness they both secretly craved? Would the surprise Christmas wedding be a success or an utter flop? Well I kept eagerly reading to find out and I know anyone who picks up this delightful book will do the exact same.
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