Christmas at Claridge's

Wonderful book, as always, but its not going to get you in an overly festive mood (just as a heads up).

So it is coming on Christmas now and it's time to indulge in some of the amazing books releases for the festive season. Karen Swan is an author I read last year at this time and fell in love with her lovely, emotional and romantic novels centred around the Xmas season.

This years Xmas releases was therefore an essential and the first indulgent read of the Xmas season. It is the story of party girl Clem who lives life to the full, never tying herself down and never committing to anyone or anything. When a drunken mistake puts her brothers exclusive business in jeopardy she finds herself trying to make a change and make amends.

Much of this book is not actually based around the festive season, we begin and end there much in the way we did with Swan's earlier novel Christmas at Tiffany's. Instead we are transported to rural Italy where Clem is forced to relive the most painful summer of her life. The book clearly indicates something very painful happened to her here but it leaves us guessing for much of the book.

The characters are all wonderfully written and lend depth and emotion to the book. The scenic descriptions of Portofino are lovely and pull you into the atmosphere you can imagine Clem gets from being there. It is a beautiful story and one that whilst not hitting my Xmas buttons did leave me overwhelmingly emotional and shedding a tear or two.

Perhaps a shame it will be categorised as a Xmas read when it's so much more than that and if you bought it hoping for tales of kisses under the mistletoe you might be left wanting but I don't think it should spoil the story that lies at it's heart