To A Blissful Christmas Reunion by Joanna Maitland
I meant to post a review of To A Blissful Christmas Reunion some time ago, but I was struck down by a horrible bug before I could do it. I spent so much time coughing, writing a review was the last thing on my mind!
To A Blissful Christmas Reunion is the first timeslip romance I’ve read for a long time. I had assumed that it was always the woman who goes back in time. It came as a nice surprise to find that in this story it’s the hero, Gabriel Bliss, who gets a taste of Victorian life. I also liked the way that the story revolves around Christmas trees, rather than cupcakes.
There’s lots of realistic detail in this story. Anyone who has laboured long and hard over planting only to have a hunt smash through the whole lot without so much as a by-your-leave will sympathise with Gabe. Lucy’s confession that she lost her mother’s wedding ring after trying to impress school bullies will chime with anyone who has ever had to make a painful confession to a parent.
Both Gabe and Lucy Cairns, his heroine, are likeable, well rounded characters. Gabe’s concerns about being a manual labourer while Lucy is the boss’s daughter means he tries to keep her at arms’ length. Lucy’s sad memories of a bereavement one Christmas Eve long ago and a guilty secret she is keeping from her father mean she finds this time of year a trial. That makes for extra tension between her and Gabe.
As with all romances, the reader knows the hero and heroine will end up living happily ever after. The enjoyment comes from how Gabe and Lucy’s individual journeys will map out before bringing them together at the end of the book. Joanna Maitland achieves this with warmth, charm, forty Christmas trees, and a long-lost wedding ring in this thoroughly enjoyable book.
If you want to escape from all the doom and gloom created by the news and the approach of short days and cold nights, do yourself a favour and read this book. It will make you feel that the world isn’t such a bad place after all.
‘Welcome To Quayside’ by Stefania Hartley
I loved these Quayside stories when they appeared in serial form in The People’s Friend magazine. Stefania Hartley has now brought them all together in a collection and added bonus material. This creates a lovely little book, bursting with optimism and charm. The characters are believable, the setting realistic, and the story – with its gentle interweaving of a love story and growing community spirit – is warm and inspiring.
The project to create a Library of Things within a block of flats is an inspired way to bring the previously insular residents together in a common cause. It means the plot is believable, as is the way the romance between Tanya and Giacomo begins and develops. It is threaded through the book in a completely natural way.
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