Christmas with the Surplus Girls – Polly Heron (published 7th October)
I make no secret of the fact I love Polly Heron’s books, so the moment the review copy of this one was available I requested it and dived straight in. For a start, I think the premise of this series is brilliant; the stories of the women who had expected to marry, only for the First World War to kill so many men. Their battle to make something of their lives as single women in the 1920s is seldom told and quite frankly it should be.
A saga series needs central characters and in the Surplus Girls these take the form of unmarried sisters, Prudence and Patience Hesketh, who run a business school from their home to train women in the skills they need. In this, the third book, our understanding of their position deepens and their stories move on too, for one of them at least in a quite unexpected way.
Christmas with the Surplus Girls is a wonderful blend of the comfortingly familiar (characters from previous books making appearances, the orphanage as the heart-warming seasonal setting, and, of course, the love story) with quite a few twists and turns. There are moments when nothing is quite as it seems, as well as breath-takingly written passages of true drama, but to say more would spoil it for the reader.
For the saga fan, this is the perfect Christmas read. As ever with Polly Heron’s writing there is no mawkish sentimentality, there is genuine emotion, elegantly portrayed. And even better, if you haven’t read the other Surplus Girls books there is still time to catch up with them before it’s time to pour yourself a glass of festive cheer and settle down with this beauty.
Underneath the Christmas Tree – Heidi Swain (published 28th October)
While Polly Heron puts Christmas at the climax of her book, Heidi Swain’s has Christmas stamped through it like a stick of seasonal rock. Heidi is the absolute mistress of the contemporary Christmas romantic read and I think Underneath the Christmas Tree is her best yet.
Absolute genius to set the book at a Christmas tree farm, where there is every reason for the festive feeling to start in November. Nothing about the seasonality in this book is forced; it is there as a delightful backdrop to a cast of characters so brilliantly drawn you would want to meet them at any time of year.
At the heart of the book is the love story between Liza and Ned; you know it will be fraught with difficulties but you also know a happy ending could very well be written in the stars, because that is what the romance genre does. It is just that this particular book does it so very well and it was pretty hard to see how everyone’s happy ever after could possibly work out. The world Heidi Swain creates is as rich and warm and comforting as a mug of hot chocolate with a whole ton of marshmallows and cream, but never ever as sickly, and of course its entirely calorie free.
I was delighted to receive a review copy of this book but now I have a major problem. What on earth am I going to start reading when December arrives to get me properly into the Christmas mood?