Can Christmas truly be avoided?

Synopsis

Two Scrooges come together for a festive-free holiday season by the sea and find all their anti-Christmas plans going up in smoke when they decide to play Santa for a single mom and her child.

Eloise Garrett thinks Christmas is overpriced, overhyped, and overrated, and without any family to share it with, she feels sad, lonely and isolated. The “season for giving” is just a constant reminder that she’s single, sixty(ish), and staring down retirement. But not this Christmas. Determined to avoid the most magical time of the year, Eloise decides to spend Christmas in Honeycombe Bay. Surely a seaside village in the middle of winter won’t be too festive?

Ever since his wife passed away, Bartholomew Knott hasn’t felt up to welcoming visitors to his guest house. With the prospect of another long, lonely winter, and having become more Scrooge than Santa over the years, Bart is dreading Christmas. However, when he’s contacted by someone who dislikes decking the halls just as much as he does, Bart has the brilliant idea of opening the guest house to people who want to escape all things festive.

Christmas isn’t easy to ignore, though, not even in off-season Honeycombe Bay. So when fate forces Bart to give shelter to a single mother and child whose holiday has been devastated by a terrible fire, Eloise finds herself playing Mrs. Claus to Bart’s Santa—dragging the house’s other guest, a heartbroken teacher looking for a break during the holidays, into the action as well. But holiday cheer isn’t the only thing sparking under the mistletoe. Will the guests at Honeycombe Bay realize that, sometimes, the best way to escape Christmas is to let it into your heart?

PERFECT FOR FANS OF

– Small-town Christmas vibes

– Later-in-life romance

– Forced proximity

– Grumpy x sunshine

My review

What Eloise Garrett wants the most this Christmas, is to not be surrounded by it at all. And as she has no family to celebrate it, instead of feeling sad, lonely and being forced to face her single-being, she decides to spend it at a B&B at a seaside village. Because who would want to spend Christmas there, even with a lovely name as Honeycombe Bay. And she has found the perfect guest house, where Christmas is not welcome. Because Bart Knott, ever since he has lost his beloved wife, is dreading everything festive. So when Eloise contacts Bart, despite the initial refusal as Bart does not want to welcome guests, Bart sees the perfect idea: to open the guest house for everyone who wants to escape the holidays. However, unexpectedly, Honeycombe is more festive than ever, and when a young mother and her son need shelter, Bart and Eloise find themselves suddenly wanting to give the little boy the best Christmas ever…

I am not the biggest fan of Christmas. And before you wish me any harm, let me explain 😊. I love spending those days with my family, going to my parents, spending time together, eating the typical Italian Christmas dishes, en yes, even opening those gifts. But while I enjoy those precious moments, I also believe that Christmas has been over-commercialized. The lights come up earlier and earlier each year, the pressure of buying the most extravagant gifts… For me, that is not what Christmas is about.

So in that aspect I could truly comprehend Eloise. And especially in her case, with no family and being single, Christmas isn’t the jolliest of times… I liked the decision Eloise took. Not wanting to burden anyone about her personal feelings, she decides to ga away, to a place where normally Christmas isn’t being commercialised.

I know that this is a fictional story, but what a luck Eloise has finding Bart’s Guesthouse.  Because the last thing on Bart’s mind is celebrating Christmas.

Not that Bart is a total Scrooge or Grinch, but he is still grieving over the loss of his lovely and beloved wife. And as they were a real power couple running the guesthouse, I could also understand that the will and the enthusiasm is no longer there to even just open the guesthouse.

So even if Bart is not looking to open the guesthouse, he sees an opportunity to give people the quiet and peace during the holidays, offering a Christmas – free stay.

A stay that attracts Mitch, who may seem all rough and tough, but quickly turns out to be a real ‘teddy bear’! Mitch shows us that no matter how you look like, it is the interior that counts, and he truly has his heart at the right place, even if he has been burnt by love before…

But that is something all three of them show in this book, upon the arrival of Sarah and little, adorable Toby.

Arrival… in a terrible sense of the word, as it s purely because Bart opens his house for the unlucky pair. Because while initially we just see heartwarming scenes between mother and son, a fire destroys their home. And the pair has (momentarily) no place to go (reminds you of another very famous story that took place more than 2000 years ago in a way? 😊).

It broke my heart reading not only what Sarah and Toby have just been going through, but also and as which we discover later on in the book, what already happened to them.

Yet at the same time, it was just so heartwarming reading how Bart, Mitch and even Eloise welcome the both of them in the guesthouse, and are helping out, in every possible way. And yes, even the Grinches/ Scrooges are changing their tunes, for Toby’s sake.

Of course several things are taking place. But whether it is Eloise and Bart getting closer, yet also fearful of admitting the feelings, or Eloise, Bart and Mitch wanting to give Sarah and Toby an unforgettable Christmas filled with amazing gifts yet Sarah not wanting to be a charity case, the main thread in this beautiful story is the warmth, love and kindness of people.

Because no matter how Bart, Eloise and even Mitch are feeling at the start of the book, we see all three of them slowly ‘melting’. And we see that even if they are closed off, we see their true characters, their true selves emerge. Ad what a delight it was to discover the wonderful persona of each character!

Of course I did not have an ounce of doubt that the characters of this book would be lovely. But I wondered how it would all come together, how each of them would un-Scrooge. And it was lovely to see that no matter how different each character is, they befriend each other, they become close and understand each other.

I loved reading this book, reading how people so adamant to keep Christmas outside, are not immune to the magic, the love and the warmth that Christmas brings. A wonderful tale, what more can I say!