Reviewed by Emma Crowley
She’s snowed in with the family. The only problem? They’re not her family.
A family gathering
This Christmas the Miller siblings have one goal – to avoid their family’s well-meaning questions. Ross, Alice and Clemmie have secrets that they don’t intend to share, and they are relying on each other to deflect attention.
An uninvited guest
Lucy Clarke is facing a Christmas alone, and the prospect of losing her job – unless she can win a major piece of business from Ross Miller. She’ll deliver her proposal to his family home in the Scottish Highlands and then leave. After all, she wouldn’t want to intrude on the Miller’s perfect family Christmas.
A Christmas to remember
When Lucy appears on the Miller’s snow-covered doorstep, she is mistaken for Ross’s girlfriend. But by the time the confusion is cleared up, a storm has hit and Lucy is stuck. As everyone settles in for a snowed-in Christmas, tensions bubble to the surface and suddenly Lucy finds herself facing a big family fallout with a family that isn’t hers…
Many thanks to HQ via NetGalley for my copy of Snowed in For Christmas to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
I can’t believe I am saying this but Snowed in for Christmas is the first book that I have read by Sarah Morgan. Don’t ask me how it has taken me so long a book by this author especially seen as she has such a prolific and frankly staggering back catalogue and I also always see her books popping up on my Twitter feed. But finally, I have righted a wrong and this Christmas book was a gorgeous read that gave me a real sense of the author’s writing style and I just know that I will continue to read books from this talented author. What really attracted me to reading this book was the absolutely stunning cover. I just adored the colours and image used and as I read through the book I came to understand how it gave a real sense as to the plot and the themes that were explored. This was a lovely, quick read, ideal for this time of year when you may get just an hour or two to relax amidst the Christmas madness and preparations. It provided me with a much-needed escape as a lovely and heart-warming story unfolded.
Lucy Clarke works at a creative agency in London. This is a high pressured job with the tension increasing tenfold when there is a fear that people will lose their jobs unless they secure a new ad campaign. Lucy has been given a tight deadline to try and secure some reindeer for a Christmas shoot and whilst in Scotland she hopes to present a marketing campaign/proposition to Ross Miller who has a high profile sportwear company. If she could get this campaign it would mean security for both herself and her fellow co-workers. But Ross is very hard to reach and his company is doing so well. Really what would make him choose the marketing company Lucy works for over all the others? What can they bring to the table?
Lucy is a lovable character. Her job is her security, both financially and emotionally, and the most important thing in her life. She comes across as being very vulnerable though as she is still grieving the loss of her grandmother last Christmas. She misses that unconditional love. That love that could be depended on and now she just feels cold, exposed and alone. She misses someone she could talk to and anxiety has plagued her with her feeling like she is on the edge, navigating life with no safety net. Despite this maelstrom of emotions that she is experiencing and living with everyday she always does her best in her job but little does she realise that Scotland has a lot more in store for her than she first expected.
Lucy just wants to get the job done and get back to London and hibernate for the festive season as it’s something she has been dreading all year. The magic for her is gone. But when she arrives at the family home of Ross she is mistaken for his girlfriend and a comedy of errors ensues leading to her being stuck with the family due to a snowstorm and the fact she has hurt her ankle leaving her incapacitated. She has no choice but to stay with this family of strangers when all she wanted to do was leave the proposal and scurry back to London as quickly as possible. Lucy is a warm, genuine and generous character who gets a lot more than she bargained for as Ross’ family embrace her. Each of them is dealing with their own issues and uncertainties and maybe having a surprise guest in their midst will force them to confront a few home truths?
Glenda is married to Douglas who runs Glen shortbread. They have been desperate for Ross to take over the family business, but he has set off on a different path. Glenda is a real mother hen who looks after and nurtures everybody and she just wants to see all her children happy in their lives and married. I think said children Ross, Alice and Clemmie had other ideas and felt under pressure to conform to what their mother wanted for them. Really Glenda had a good heart and was only coming from a place of love and wanting the best for her children. There are many secrets within the family which slowly spill out over time and there is a sense that they are a funny yet maddening bunch with discord aplenty and poor Lucy finds herself in the middle of it all. But I felt she handled things well and given she had no choice but to stay put she integrated well with Ross’ family and maybe she needed this in her own life to take her out of the maelstrom of emotions she was feeling in the run up to Christmas which she had dreaded all year.
Alice is a doctor in emergency medicine and very focused on her career putting an awful lot of pressure on herself. She has been dating Nico for several months and she senses he may be about to propose but because of her nature to worry and stress about things she feels that there are so many ways that she could fail at marriage. She is very hesitant and I thought she was so down on herself when really she was a remarkable woman who showed such strength and fortitude in her job yet underneath it all she was very vulnerable and not willing to open or confined in anyone as to how she felt about marriage and relationships. I desperately wished that she could find the will to get things off her chest and to accept she needed to give things a try. Fear of failure is natural for everyone, but you have to give in to it and take the steps to move forward whether they be tentative or not.
Clemmie is the baby of the family who is hiding a big secret which I didn’t guess at until the moment of reveal. She has no interest in a high powered career similar to her siblings. She loves children and has trained as a nanny but has just left her most recent job. As she returns to the family fold will she be ready to impart some big news and will the family accept it? As for Ross, he is made to feel guilty for not joining the family business and he wants Clemmie and Alice to cover up for him. In fact all three band together to cover for each other and if Glenda had known her children believed they had to carry on like that she would have been horrified. All Glenda wanted was a cosy family Christmas but as the snow falls and the temperatures dip even further there is a lot of revelations, home truths and honesty about to come to the surface.
I can’t fail to mention Nana Jean, she was a fabulous addition to the story bringing much needed humour and light relief when tensions threatened to boil over. She really had no filter and said things straight up that needed airing. As the story developed, I felt more in love with the characters and the plot and it really felt as if I was whisked away from the troubles of everyday life and I became very eager to see how things would pan out for Lucy and co as I had become deeply invested in all the goings on.
Snowed in for Christmas was a wonderful, magical read. Sometimes books that claim to focus on Christmas can have the briefest allusion to the festive period and the reader is left disappointed. Thankfully, this wasn’t the case here at all and it really got me in the mood for Christmas. The cover alone would make you pick this book off the shelf and then the story that awaits you inside was such a pure joy to read. I loved the sense of family that developed despite the different issues the various family members were experiencing. I think I made a very good choice with my first Sarah Morgan book and its certainly one that you should add to your festive reading list for 2022 which if you are anything like me is growing longer by the day as there have been so many fabulous books published in this genre this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment