The Twelve Dates of Christmas by Lisa Dickenson

At thirty, Claudia's life is stale and the romance with long-term boyfriend, Seth, has disappeared. Determined to inject some festive spark back into their love life, Claudia and Seth go on their first date in a very long time. But when the night ends in disaster, Claudia suddenly finds herself facing life - and Christmas - alone. Life alone is exciting, scary and full of soon-forgotten exercise regimes and ill-advised attempts at crafting sexy underwear. It's also filling up with dates, surprisingly. With best friends Penny and Nick at her side, a surplus of festive markets, mulled wine and Christmas tunes, Claudia attempts to face all this change with gusto. One thing's for certain: this year, Christmas is going to be very different . . .

Ok there is a part of me that feels a little mad starting my festive reads in October but there are so many sparkly Christmas books coming out so I am starting early to try and get through as many as I can and when The Twelve Dates of Christmas by Lisa Dickenson arrived through the door this beautiful cover didn't take much to convince me to make a start.

Claudia is not living the life she thought she would be living, her job pays the bills but isn't what she wants to be doing and her relationship has a total of 0% romance and after a last awful date night she finds herself single. With Christmas in sight Claudia begins her own adventure of having 12 dates before Christmas but will she still be single for the big day?

What a wonderful start to the Christmas reads. This book was very light hearted, full of romance and humour. From the opening chapter I found myself snorting away much to the disgust of my husband! The humour carried on throughout the book and it flowed so seamlessly without feeling false this is clearly one of the authors strong points in her writing being able to bring humour that will get the reader laughing out loud and it being weaved through out the storyline with ease.

The storyline did have a festive feel which I loved but I still feel that you could read this book outside of the festive season as it isn't overly festive.

I love The trio in this book they were all lovable, fun characters who had a great friendship.

At times I wanted to bump their heads together but ultimately I just wanted a happy ending for them all. The book was a little predictable but this is one of those books that it is about enjoying the journey and watching the amusing events unfold. The chemistry between Claudia and Nick was burning through the pages from early on but being in a tripod friendship group meant that I was a little worried if things developed how it would effect their friendship with the lovely Penny.

I can easily say I enjoyed this book even if it did make my cheeks ache from the smiling and laughing! This book will be a great gift for fans of Lindsey Kelk and Jane Costello.

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