The Night Before Christmas

The Night Before Christmas by Scarlett Bailey

Paperback, 400 pages

Published October 27th 2011 by Ebury Press

My shelves: adult-fiction, books-i-own, chick-lit, christmas-books, cover-appeal, read-in-2011, realistic-fiction, title-appeal
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Description via Goodreads

All Lydia's ever wanted is a perfect Christmas...


So when her oldest friends invite her to spend the holidays with them, it seems like a dream come true. She's been promised log fires, roasted chestnuts, her own weight in mince pies - all in a setting that looks like something out of a Christmas card.


But her winter wonderland is ruined when she finds herself snowed in with her current boyfriend, her old flame and a hunky stranger. Well, three (wise) men is traditional at this time of year...

My Review

As soon as I saw the beautiful cover, teamed up with the very festive title, I just had to pick up this book! As you can all probably tell by now, I love a good, seasonal read, but I'm usually a little disappointed when novels are simply based around Christmas with a few references of snow are chucked in, but this one was very festive indeed.
This story is told over the period of Christmas and revolves around the friendships and relationships of our protagonist, Lydia. Lydia spends her Christmas with her best friends, her ex-boyfriend, an old flame and a handsome handyman. I thought that Bailey had a good idea of all of these relationships and the characters all connected very well. The bonds between them felt solid, even though there were several characters. I think it would've been even better if Bailey had perhaps cut one or two characters out to leave room for more progression of the others, but she still did a very good job. Lydia's friends, Alex, Joanna and Kathy all had very strong personalities and were fun to read about - they were all very diverse but worked fantastically as a group of friends. There was a lot of humour in this book and it did have me laughing a few times, which is always a positive point! The children in the novel provided great entertainment and their joviality was fun to read about. As for Lydia's romances, I thought that her and Jackson's relationship was the most interesting and I would've liked to have seen her and Jackson interact more when they met again. Stephen didn't interest me at all, unfortunately, but Will was presented as a perfect, down to earth guy who had a lot going for him.
The ending was predictable, but it was a good one. The book wasn't extremely compelling and I did feel it drag at points - perhaps because I knew where it was going - but it was still a pleasure to read. Bailey did a great job writing this debut novel and although it wasn't completely amazing, I can see definite potential for more compelling reads by her. This was an enjoyable Christmas read and I think that Bailey is one to watch.