When you think of a romcom novel, you think usually of two people which is fair enough because a relationship isn’t much good if there’s only person in it.
Fairly logical when you think about; but when you really dive into a romcom, what keeps you there, and keeps you turning the page, is the protagonist, the person lost in life/love/career, or all of the above preferably, who needs to find a purpose in life and love to go with it to heal from past wounds or losses.
Oddly enough, not all romcoms deliver such a protagonist, and this reviewer has read some books where you pretty much lose interest on whether the main character finds or not, which is a pretty sizeable liability for a novel of this type.
Thankfully A Very Irish Christmas by Debbie Johnson, which ironically takes place mostly in Wiltshire, England though it is packed full of delightful, highly engaging Irish people, serves up a protagonist in Cassie O’Hara that you instantly love and enjoy spending time with.
Rather happily, the New York born and bred event planner has a long and enduring Irish heritage thanks to her beloved and sadly deceased Nanny Nora who hailed from County Cork, and so, when she finds herself still lost quite some time after some wedding-related trauma, she decides to use her nanna’s inheritance and experience life in Ireland.
She ends up instead in England for reasons best left to the delights of the story, but when she arrives after an exhausting journey she finds a cottage that has seen far, FAR better days.
I can’t help but smile, and I feel a sense of warmth and contentment spread over me. It’s almost physical, that sensation – a sweeping presence of reassurance and wellbeing. Like my nanna really has come back to me, for this one precious moment, just to tell me: ‘Don’t worry so much, angel – everything will be as it should.’
Far from looking cosy and warm and covered in flowers and lush greenery – though it is December so the last part is an understandable omission – the cottage is dusty, dark and guarded by a stray dog who treats Cassie like an unwanted intruder.
So much for her bucolic Irish-English idyll.
Thankfully the Irish populace of the village – why is the village all Irish people including some recently arrived? It’s a long story but A Very Irish Christmas makes it all make sense – quickly take her under wing and she is whisked off to stay in the local manor house with hunky aristocrat Charles as a way of apologising for the errant booking (the cottage is being renovated and should have been removed from the site).
While that happens, and honestly it’s a joy because Charlies, his mum Allegra (who has the beginnings of Alzheimer’s), his rebelliously fun daughter Georgie and manservant/part of the family Roberts are same of dysfunctionally happy family you want to be a part of, equally hunky but far more cheeky Irish handyman Ryan is assigned to renovate the cottage with all speed and haste.
This, of course, sets up a fun romantic triangle which Johnson keeps happily burbling away for much of the novel, and while you have a sneaking suspicion who will win Cassie’s heart, the author has a great deal of fun keeping you merrily guessing.
Cassie ends up spending her month away helping Charles with a plan to save the manor from bankruptcy by turning it into a wellness/wedding/corporate retreat destination while also helping Ryan renovate the cottage when she’s not befriending the local stary dog Eejit, who ends up adopting her, eating Eileen’s delicious pastries and generally becoming a beloved part of the community.
It’s all fantastically fast stuff but it works and it feels like a great big warm and inclusively welcoming hug which is exactly what Cassie needs as she nurses a broken heart and grapples with a profound lack of mojo and purpose.
It also means that she is in constant contact with both men, and while the purpose of a festive romcom is to fill the most wonderful time of the year with all sorts of redemptive hope and mistletoe-clad love, and that most certainly happens, the novel doesn’t make the process of falling in love the main game in town, narratively-speaking.
This does mean alas that the finale when she chooses one of the men does feel a little sudden and a tad rushed, but overall, it sets the scene quite beautifully because she doesn’t just fall in love with a man, she also falls in love with a community, a found family of sorts, and a lifestyle worlds away from the busied pain of her past.
In fact, much of the joy of this superbly written book, which sports memorably fully-formed characters, a sparklingly complete story and zesty fun dialogue, is being allowed to soak up the very warm and rich communal vibes that so win Cassie’s heart.
I walk down the terrace steps, and stand at the edge of the long, landscaped grounds. I gaze around – snow, stars, and serenity in one direction, madness in the other. I look up at the ballroom, now full of light and life, and smile.
In the big scheme of things, it’s not much – it’s taking some pretty pictures to convince millionaires to part with money – but it still feels like a win, not just for me, but for everyone. I can’t remember the last time I felt like I had a win, and I know that it’s not just Bancroft Manor that’s been brought back to life – it’s me as well.
While Nanny Nora wanted to find love no doubt, you suspect that she bequeathed the money she did to her favourite granddaughter, a kindred spirit of sorts, so Cassie could find a real sense of love and belonging.
It’s something that evaded Nora until she went to the U.S. and fell in love with Cassie’s grandad, and it becomes apparent that she knew somehow that going to Ireland would be the missing puzzle piece for her lost and sad Cassie.
And so it turns out to be with Cassie not just finding a man who will love in a way no one has before, and let’s face that’s romcom 101 and Johnsons executes on it perfectly, but a place and a role that makes sense of all the things she always loved about Nanny Nora and wanted for herself.
A Very Irish Christmas is not just a romantic hug, and a bountifully enriching one at that, but a story which reminds you that at its heart, Christmas is a time of coming together and belonging and connection, and if you don’t have it, it’s the perfect time to find it especially if you’re an American of Irish heritage looking to connect the disparate parts of yourself.
You will love Cassie who is a romcom protagonist for the ages but you will also embrace the world surrounding Bancroft Manor and its attendant village, the rich and vibrant community which fills it to bursting, and the sense of festive hope, love and possibility which makes A Very Irish Christmas one of the loveliest Christmas romcoms this reviewer has read in a while.