In this heartwarming, feel-good holiday novel, one woman needs to find a little inspiration in the 25 days leading up to Christmas to help her remember the magic of the season and the magic of falling in love—perfect for fans of Jenny Colgan and Josie Silver.
25 DAYS 'TIL CHRISTMAS by POPPY ALEXANDER
Publication date: October 8, 2019
Published by: William Morrow
Series: Standalone
Genre: romance
Synopsis
Kate Potter used to love Christmas. A few years ago, she would have been wrapping her presents in September and baking mince pies on Halloween, counting down the days and hours to Christmas. But that was before Kate’s husband left for the army and never came home. Now she can hardly stand December at all.
Kate can’t deny she’s lonely, yet she doesn’t think she’s ready for romance. She knows that her son, Jack, needs a Christmas to remember—just like Kate needs a miracle to help her finally move forward with her life. So she’s decided if there isn’t a miracle on its way, she’ll just have to make her own.
As Kate’s advent countdown to the best Christmas ever begins, she soon realizes that even with the best laid plans, you can’t plan for the unexpected. For when the path of the loneliest woman in town crosses with that of the loneliest man, these two destined hearts might find a way to save the holiday for both of them.
Poppy Alexander wrote her first book when she was five. There was a long gap in her writing career while she was at school, and after studying classical music at university, she decided the world of music was better off without her and took up public relations, campaigning, political lobbying, and a bit of journalism instead. She takes an anthropological interest in family, friends, and life in her West Sussex village (think The Archers crossed with Twin Peaks), where she lives with her husband, children, and various other pets.
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25 Days 'Til Christmas by
Poppy Alexander
My rating:
4.5 of 5 stars
I'm not a big holiday novel reader, and I can't pinpoint what exactly tempted me to pick this one up, but I'm very glad I did. In comparison to the other Christmas themed books I've tried this one really stands out and has a completely different feel from the norm. Whereas most lean more towards fluffy and perhaps even a little cheesy,
25 Days 'Till Christmas was much more serious in tone. It focuses on two people in the aftermath of losing a loved one who are struggling to return back to normalcy and find joy in the holidays again. It could have easily been quite a depressing story, but somehow it didn't feel that way at all. Yes, I was sad for both Daniel and Kate, but at the heart it was an uplifting story of healing and hope on both the main characters' parts. One a young widow who is now a struggling single mother to a special needs son, and the other a man who lost his parents and sister in a short span of time and finds himself all alone at Christmas for the first time.
It's been almost four years since Kate lost her husband, and since that time it's been one challenge after another. You really feel for this young woman who has so much on her plate and not enough hours in the day to adequately get everything done. The time when she had a partner to share the burdens of parenting and the harsh realities of adulthood is a distant memory. She's a wonderful mother to her young son, but always feels the worst sort of failure for them having to struggle so hard financially. She has a crappy job that barely pays for their needs, especially after childcare costs. But when her son Jack wants or needs something, she'll happily go without in order to provide for him and make him happy.
This year, she's come to the realization that she has been stuck in a rut and it's not healthy for herself or her son, so she sets out to make the season a happy time for the both of them. Each day leading up to Christmas, they will do a fun holiday activity together which she plans out and puts in Jack's advent calendar.
She needed to share the joy of Christmas with her son: to be his mother properly, to be there . . . He deserved nothing less, but where would she find the strength to do it? She needed a Christmas miracle.
Things don't go quite as smoothly for her however, because she's constantly hit with a barrage of huge problems. Her son being forced out of his school because he is deemed to have special needs, an elderly family member with dementia who is running out of savings for their care, her company possibly laying her off soon, and the worry of finding the money for basic needs like food and clothing. There's also a horrible woman from Jack's school who takes advantage of her, and a boss who does the same using her tenuous hold on her job over her head. Everything just seems to snowball as time progresses, but she finds it hard to ask for help from her friends.
Daniel was just the sweetest man ever. His awkward fumbling around Kate during his attempts to introduce himself and ask her out were so endearing. He's been out of the dating life for a long time due to devoting his time to taking care of his terminally ill sister. He's always had an attraction from afar for the woman who sold them their Christmas trees every year but never did anything about it. He's such a warm and caring person that you can't help but root for him. He's trying to move on with his life now, but grief will hit him at the most unexpected moments and he finds that he needs to keep busy in order to keep himself distracted. In his time off work, he selflessly volunteers at a crisis call center where he takes calls from suicidal people who need someone to talk to.
The two of them don't interact much at all until around the halfway point. And even then, I wouldn't say that the romance is in the forefront of the story. Eventually they get to know one another a little better on a fun snow day, and their attraction grows, but Kate is hesitant to make the decision to start her first relationship after her husband. This didn't bother me all that much because I was really invested in Kate's journey to happiness.
My one complaint would be that there were a couple of moments where I felt that she was acting out of character in immaturity. She came into the school meeting with a chip on her shoulder and spitting angry at the teachers and administrators who were trying to get Jack tested. In some ways it made sense, because they were trying to send him to a school with expelled, misbehaving kids where he wouldn't flourish. They were also clearly uncaring about where he went and spent no effort in helping her place him in the school he needed because of costs. But to angrily blame them for simply suggesting he needs to be tested for proper placement? She was being pretty belligerent about it. Usually she was so level-headed and rational, but there were points I was kind of confused over her attitude.
Overall, I enjoyed the book and found it to be a really refreshing read. It was also very fast paced and engrossing, lacking any moments of detachment. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a more sober look at Christmastime that's filled with a lot of heart and emotional depth.
Kate felt like she had spent the last four years since Tom’s horrific death trying to find a way back home, like Dorothy, only to discover that home was not a place, it was people and had been there all the time. All she had to do was to wake up.
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