Monday 26 December 2011

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, chi
ck-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.

4 comments:

  1. This sounds like a good holiday read and I do love me some of those!
    Thanks for the review, the cover is lovely and I don't think I had heard of this book before.

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  2. Awwww, this sounds like such a sweet holiday read! And I absolutely LOVE that cover too -- it's simple but gorgeous, which is honestly my favourite kind! :) Even if it wasn't a blow-you-away kind of book, I'm glad you enjoyed it and I really want to pick it up! Anything that gets me more into the spirit of Christmas is a must-read for me! ;)

    Thanks so much for the awesome review! :)

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  3. Nice review! I love the sound of this! And that cover is just gorgeous. :)

    Sam @ Realm of Ficton

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  4. This sounds so cute. And like it would make a cute made-for-tv movie too :)

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