My library requests arrived early so read mostly Christmas stories in November, which worked out well as it was a cold, frosty and dark month that definitely felt more wintry than autumnal.

The Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan

I’ve been feeling oddly nostalgic for the years I spent working in a bookshop, though romance is a genre I’ve overlooked but this appealed to me because it reminded me of how my own husband and I met in a bookshop. The Christmas Bookshop defied all my expectations, it’s so much more then a romance, with a much greater focus on family relationships and personal agency than romance. When the department store Carmen has worked at since school closes down, she moves to Edinburgh with her over achieving, perfectionist older sister, Sofia, and starts working at a failing bookshop with the eccentric and reclusive owner. In many ways, this story feels like a love letter to Edinburgh with its idiosyncratic architecture and town planning, and I have to agree the Scottish capital is particularly enchanting around Christmas. I loved this story from start to end, and I can’t wait to read more by Jenny Colgan.

I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday by Milly Johnson

The Christmas Bookshop was always going to be a hard book to follow and this didn’t hit the mark for me. It follows six people who are snowed in at an abandoned inn in the middle of nowhere: there’s the couple who met at the wrong time in their lives and had a roller-coaster romance reuniting only to sign their divorce papers, the PA with a crush on her oblivious boss, and an aging gay couple celebrating one last Christmas together after one of them receives a terminal diagnosis. This is full of festive atmosphere but it’s a very slow burn romance and I was disappointed when the couple I was rooting for didn’t end up together and the heroine I really hoped would move on ended up with her love interest whose rapid realisation and personality change just didn’t ring true for me.

The Christmas Sisters by Sarah Morgan

This was more of a family drama than a romance, which was just as well as the romantic subplots all fell flat for me, but I was swept up in the McBride family’s Christmas reunion as all three sisters return home for the first time in years. There’s ambitious, successful and emotionally reserved Hannah, Beth who feels overwhelmed and lost in motherhood but feels guilty about wanting to return to work, and finally the most open and adventurous sister, Posy, who has never left home for fear of letting her parents down. This was an enjoyable read but quite cheesy and the personal and romantic dilemmas were all resolved a bit too easily.

The Deal of a Lifetime by Fredrik Backman

Having read and loved Fredrik Backman’s Beartown, I’ve been eager to read his other works but given the heavy topics he usually covers, I knew better than to expect his Christmas story to be cosy and heartwarming. The Deal of a Lifetime is a very short but haunting story about a man grappling with living and dying, his fear of death and his quest to build a legacy that will live on after him, until he has to choose whether to do something truly selfless even if no one else will ever know about it.

The Power of Showing Up by Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson

I ended the month by finishing a parenting book that I’ve been dipping in and out of for a few months. The Power of Showing Up takes a look at how to build a secure attachment with your children, explaining attachment theory and attachment disorders, before breaking down how to build a secure attachment at any age into four specific steps. I really enjoyed the informative and practical approach this book took to a topic that overlaps my personal and professional life.

Have a lovely week. X