Miracle on Regent Street

Miracle on Regent Street by Ali Harris
Paperback, 484 pages
Published October 13th 2011 by Simon & Schuster Ltd


My shelves: adult-fiction, books-i-own, chick-lit, christmas-books, read, read-in-2011, realistic-fiction, cover-appeal
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars


Description via Goodreads

Evie Taylor, a girl with a big heart, gets lost in the big city. For the past two years, Evie has lived an invisible life in London. Her neighbours think she’s just moved in, her sister mistakes her for a live-in nanny, and even Evie’s manager at work can’t remember her name. But all that is about to change …this Christmas has brought a flurry of snow and unimaginable possibilities into town. Evie works in the stockroom of an old-fashioned, family-run, London fashion department store. Hardy’s is a beautiful, wood-panelled jewellery box of a building, but it’s in dire need of a makeover. One day Evie overhears that if the entire store’s takings don’t turn round by Dec 26th – 3 weeks’ time – the family who own it will be forced to sell to one of the big chains. Hardy’s is in need of a Christmas miracle. Determined to save her beloved store, Evie hatches a plan to secretly transform it into a magical place to shop again. But has the time come for her to be noticed too? When an accidental romantic encounter with handsome, enigmatic Joel gives her the chance of a whole new identity, she takes it.

My Review


Miracle on Regent Street was a light, festive read. Straight from the beginning, we are introduced to London, where Evie works and resides. The story begins on the 1st December and the atmosphere that is created surrounding the festive holiday is almost magical. Harris manages to make London come alive with her vivid descriptions of the city. The Christmas feeling is very clear too, with the sights, sounds and smells being explored throughout the book. Evie is a likeable character, as are her friends, particularly Lily and Sam. As characters, their personalities were realistic and their thought processes seemed authentic, but their actions just didn't seem very believable. Harris did well to include a strong community of different people - different in age, culture and mannerisms. For me, Lily was one of the strongest characters and I managed to get a good, bold image of her. Sam was slightly cliché, but sweet and I found the relationship between Eve and her sister to be the most interesting, relationship in the book and I enjoyed seeing it evolve.
I feel as though the main issue with this book is that it's very unbelievable. Notably, in the sub-plot, Evie pretends to be one of her co-workers and pretty much gets away with it-something which, in the real world seems practically impossible. My other concern with this book was the length. It was fairly lengthy at nearly 500 pages, and I feel as though it could've been condensed down a lot more which would've made it, in my opinion, more enjoyable.
The storyline of friendship and Evie finding her identity made for a fine plot, it wasn't very complex, it was simple and it was seasonal. This wasn't a bad book, but it was nothing spectacular.