Thursday 12 October 2023

That Festive Feeling by Heidi Swain

 



Holly has the place to herself this Christmas. It’s not her place, though – she is house-sitting for friends who live on Nightingale Square – just there to keep the place warm and cosy and only for long enough for her to sort her life out. Newly single and finding herself unsure about next steps for her career, she plans to hunker down and make some life decisions.

To clear her mind, she sets off on early morning walks around a nearby lake and bumps into May, an older lady who is also new to the area, and her dapper Dachshund Monty. Quickly, a firm friendship blossoms. Then when Holly meets Bear, a rather large and rather attractive man, at the local pub, and his rescue dog Queenie, her stay at Nightingale Square suddenly feels even more appealing.

As the community comes together for the season’s festivities, Holly must start thinking about where her life will take her next. Some big decisions need to be made, but distractions close to home make thinking about the future more tricky than ever…

Will she get that festive feeling this Christmas…?


I am mad I know, only just dipping my toes into October and I have already caved in and read my first Christmas book of 2023 but it was impossible to resist when it is a Heidi Swain novel. That Festive Feeling is the title of this years festive novel by this author and the cover is stunning using my favourite winter colours of green gold and white to create a soft chilly comforting vibe which I hoped would absorb through into the storyline inside.

We meet newly divorced Holly who is so easy to relate to, after finding herself alone and thinking ahead to the next step of where her life goes from here, where does she live and a troubling problem of what does she do now it seems her love of her job has lost its excitement. Luckily her friends who live in Nightingale square offer her a bit of breathing space house sitting for them whilst they are away over Christmas. But the peace and tranquillity she was hoping for to get her head together never seemed to be an option as she is soon pulled into many welcoming arms!

We are reunited with many much-loved characters from the Nightingale Square which makes us as the reader feel as though we are being welcomed home but if you haven’t read any of the others not to worry as this can easily be read as a standalone.

As well as reuniting with past characters and meeting the lovely Holly we also have the gorgeous Bear to provide a little bit of love in the air and also the lovely May and her wonderfully dressed dog Monty and they all come together to make this a thoroughly enjoyable cosy winter read.

The author has really covered the topic of living alone after divorce and loss well in the book tackling those struggles of finding where you fit now your alone and learning to make decisions on your own again after so long of making decisions together. So often after separation it feels like everything else around you is about to come crumbling down and thanks to those around Holly they open up her eyes to different options available to her as well as giving her a big helping of support which we know is always plentiful in Heidi Swain novels, oh how I would love to crawl into her written worlds.

There is a wonderful little sprinkling of festivity with this being set around Christmas time and this has been a fabulous start to my Festive reading, I knew Heidi Swain wouldn’t let me down!


Paperback                             Kindle

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