While everything seems perfect on the outside…

Synopsis

Kate seems to have it all – wonderful friends, a successful career and an idyllic life in the quirky Yorkshire town of Essendale. But under the surface Kate’s lonely, and she longs to feel part of a family – especially during Christmas.

With the holiday season fast approaching, and the town desperate to attract more visitors, Kate conceives a brilliant plan: an enchanting living Advent calendar. Each December evening, a captivating window display will be unveiled across town. With local businesses struggling, including her best friend’s board game café, she’s feeling the pressure.  

But Kate’s picture-perfect plans take an unexpected turn when her ex-boyfriend arrives in Yorkshire, insisting on creating the Christmas Eve display. Can Kate trust him to deliver a show-stopping window? And can she finally put the past behind her and embrace the future she’s always dreamed of?

My review

At first sight, you would think that Kate has it all: she has the best friends, a successful career and even if she lives a little bit further away from her friends, she likes her own little home.
But what nobody seems to notice, is that Kate at moments feels very lonely. Everyone around her seems to move forward in their lives, while Kate is still single. And especially now that Christmas is approaching, her loneliness screams louder and louder, and her desire for a family is palpable.
However, Kate doesn’t want to be a burden to anyone, so her latest determination is to attract more visitors to the town of Essendale, as the local businesses need them to remain profitable. And she comes up with the idea of a living Advent calendar featuring the locals and their windows.
As Kate has the reputation of being Miss Perfect, everyone is trusting her to run things smoothly. Between al the hectic of making a success of her plans, Kate finds herself unexpectedly in a romantic turmoil as a new flame and an old one are suddenly in her life…

Yes, once again I started this book with a smile on my face. Because even if I am not into board games and don’t even know half of the discussed games in this book, I truly enjoy reading the journeys of the main characters.

Kate in the previous books always seemed like this strong woman, seeking perfection in everything she does. But she is also a great friend, being often the voice of reason, or the people turn to for help.
But while that strength, that ‘power – womaness’ is something that made me admire Kate, I liked reading in this particular book how vulnerable Kate in fact truly is.

Because while Kate is obviously a great character, seeing this softer side of her, seeing her struggles and her pain, made her more real, more recognizable. And I really wanted to learn where those pains came from, why she acted and acts in a specific way. And I often just wanted to enter the book to give her a huge hug, showing her that she is not the only to have such thoughts of loneliness, insecurities and even perhaps a feeling of failure.

When Peter crosses her path, I could understand her train of thought, her not wanting to betray one of her best friends, but also thinking that it may be her own loss if she doesn’t pursue it further.
This shows us that even if Kate herself could ‘gain’ something, she doesn’t want to hurt her friends, and that she is in fact a genuine, honest person.

So when Kate has a revelation, realizes the truth, it saddened me with the choice she makes there, because she deserves more and better. Yet in a way, her acceptance of the facts also resounded to me, as I truly believe that often people make such choices for a lack of better options…

I liked Kate’s inventiveness, how she comes up with the idea of a living Advent Calendar, involving all the businesses in town. And while initially she is reluctant of being the driving force behind it, we see slowly how much she enjoys being part of something so important. And just like Kate, with all the secrecy, very curious to discover what each window would look like! 😊

Of course there is also more romance – drama in this book than just what she has with Peter. And this is truly a blast from the past, as Kate is shocked to discover who has just moved to Essendale…

Obviously it doesn’t come as a real surprise, as there are flashbacks in this wonderful story. Yet I have to admit, that initially I didn’t like how Kate acted, as it fell so out of character and even felt so judgmental of her. But of course, I should have known that there was more to it than what seemed.

And with this return, I truly had the most fun while reading. Because there is an easiness, lots of banter, understanding, comprehension, even when the total opposite could be taking place. That truly warmed my heart, reading how perhaps things just need to be happening at the right time and the right place. How perhaps other things need a resolution before it’s time for a second chance…

I truly LOVED returning to Essendale, see lovely characters again, getting to know some better, meeting new people. This book was exactly what I wanted it to be, and all of this in a warm, comfy embrace that Christmas is!