Reviewed by Emma Crowley
Tis the season.... for a Christmas cynic to have his frozen heart melted by festive magic.
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...
Many thanks to Aria and Aries via NetGalley for my copy of The Perfect Christmas Village to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
The Perfect Christmas Village by Bella Osborne has the most beautiful festive winter wonderland cover and between that cover you will find the most delightful Christmas read which was entertaining and heartwarming. This is a book to make you happy and feel all festive but alongside the humour (which there was plenty of) there were a few more serious issues to be dealt with as well but everything balanced itself out perfectly. The characters, the setting and all the little Christmas details are just brilliant and it’s not long before you are wishing that you to could visit the village of Holly Cross and enjoy everything that it has to offer. For you soon come to realise that Holly Cross is not only about Christmas but a community that gives people a purpose. It provides a chance to get together and to support one another and create something special that benefits others.
Holly Cross turns into a winter wonderland every year and the village raises money for charity. Everyone always pulls together to make the village the best that it can be and there are a whole host of special and unique characters that work diligently to achieve this. There is Norman, the local baker, two elderly sisters that live in Rock Cottage, Leonora who spearheads the Christmas committee, Sarvan and Jassi from the Highway Inn and the two main characters of the book Blythe and Vicky alongside many more. But this year there is an absence in the village as their dear friend Norman has passed away. They wonder who will buy his cottage and if they will be up for participating in the Perfect Christmas Village Competition which they are determined to win. Plans have been set in motion and in the months leading up to the festive season there is a flurry of activity to transform the village to make it the most Christmassy village in the country.
Blythe is an estate agent who is in a completion with fellow co-worker Amir to secure the most sales every month for a year. By doing so she hopes to gain a promotion from boss Ludo but Blythe is angry when Amir is given the job of office manager and wants to try and out do him. She tries to sell Norman’s cottage even though she doesn’t exactly know who now owns it. A deal is soon struck with a man named Sam who provides props for films and tv series but there is one major stumbling block. Sam detests Christmas with every fibre of his being and that is a huge problem considering the village is about to engage head on with preparations for the Christmas competition.
Sam instantly came across as someone who preferred his own company just wanting peace and quiet and to avoid all things Christmas. He is angry with Blythe that he was apparently hoodwinked when buying the cottage, not being told how big the village goes in for Christmas. How can they win the competition if Sam refuses to decorate the outside of his house? It will be like a black hole amidst the village where every inch of it is adorned with lights, trees and decorations. Blythe has a huge challenge on her hands to make Sam change his mind and in one way I totally understood why she wanted to do this but on the other I thought she was putting unnecessary pressure on Sam as there must have been a very valid reason for the stance that he took and when this is revealed later on in the book you do fully understand but also wish that things could have been different for him.
Blythe in my mind had only her own interests at heart when selling the cottage to Sam, that being the competition in the estate agency office but soon she came to realise there is a more personal, human and emotional side to this deal. She devises a subtle plan to gradually introduce Sam to village life in the hopes that he will take part in the Christmas festival. We read about Halloween, pumpkins, trick or treating and Bonfire Night and admittedly I was wondering at this point when would a more Christmassy feeling develop. But when it did it was full on Christmas and I loved every minute of the madcap exploits and activities that occurred in the village.
There was a Christmas Fayre, Christmas tree auction and a Sexy Santa Auction which was just pure genius and provided plenty of laugh out loud moments and I was thinking god this should be an activity that is run somewhere every year. For despite its simplicity it was a highlight of the Christmas festivities. As the weeks pass by and things between Sam and Blythe thaw a little you could see the tiniest of sparks igniting between the pair but given how much of a polar opposite viewpoint they each have when it comes to Christmas I wondered whether anything could happen at all between them? I didn’t like Blythe at the start simply because of her actions regarding the house sale but as the chapters flew by I really warmed to her and in a way she was trying to right a wrong whilst still doing the best for the village which meant so much to her.
Vicky is the other female protagonist in the story and at times I thought she got too much of a focus as initially she was more like a sidekick to Blythe. But over time she grew on me. She is a single mum to daughter Eden and she works in a candle factory but has set up a dog walking business to try and earn more money as things are quite tight. Herself and Blythe are best friends and they confided an awful lot in each other. But in the lead up to Christmas an ex of hers Owen starts poking his head in her life again which stirs unwanted emotions and memories which she would rather keep buried and just keep moving on with her life. She had loved Owen but she had messed up their relationship and with his reappearance a whole can of worms is once again opened up and she has to battle on knowing that one way or another the truth will have to out at some stage. There is a connection there with him as she had deeply loved him but at the same time she finds him extremely irritating and he definitely was anytime that he featured. Will things resolve themselves for Vicky or has she erected too many barriers around herself for them to be broken down?
The Perfect Christmas Village was a great book that by the time I reached the end I was sad that it was over and I was left with that feeling of wanting more. I’d love to revisit these characters again perhaps to see how they are getting on in the summer but that’s just a wish of mine but in the meantime this is the ideal read to enjoy as you relax over the festive season and it’s definitely one of the Christmas books not to be missed out on this year.
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