Zac Fallon and Ivy McFarlane have a problem.
They haven’t declared their undying love for each other to each other, what with suppressing how they really feel and not wanting to risk looking like a fool or deciding that a onetime dream of a goal trumps present bliss and happiness, and so, when Ivy decides to leave a certain Scottish island for a place in an artists’ studio down in Glaastonbury where her bestie Gideon lives, a whole lot of very important things go sadly unsaid.
Christmas on the Isle of Skye by Kirsty Ferry is all about what happens as Zacm who hates the mainland and who can’t imagine life away from his renoved croft and artist studio/tearoom, discovers he has, in the words of the novel’s back cover blurb, an “Ivy-shaped hole in his life too big to bear.”
It doesn’t matter that his business making heather gems and polished Cairngorm stones into jewellery is thriving, that heaps of tourists flock to his cosy tearoom and that his newly renovated croft manages to be modern in design and yet homely in the best way in sensibility.
Surely Zac, who’s Goth bestie Angel is more of a close sister than a friend, though she mostly is forever that, has it all? Well, yes, in many ways he does but when Ivy, who manages the tearoom while creating her superlative beautiful lino prints and other artistic work ups and leaves for Glastonbury to fulfill a long-held (but she doesn’t realise at time, no longer relevant) dream to practice her craft, all of that doesn’t matter without his beloved by his side.
Ivy laughed and the conversation continued cheerfully as she turned and headed home, past the warm, yellow welcoming lights of the Dunollie Hotel and the relentless winter waves crashing against the unseen shore behind it, the Cullins looming mysteriously above it all like some ancient sleeping god.
It was very sublime indeed.
Oh and yes, there’s the matter of not telling her she is his beloved.
A small matter words-wise but so, SO big in terms of emotions, life goals and any semblance of happy and fulfilled life, and so as Christmas nears, Zac decides he can’t bear Ivy’s absence any longer and and he sets off to drive the 12 hours or so to Glasto, as it’s apparently called, to declare his love for Ivy to Ivy – a handy thing to do really since feeling miserable and having “I love you” ricochet around his head is helping no one – and to start the rest of his life, you presume.
But does she feel the same and will she want to come back to Skye when the bright paganistically buoyant lights of Glasto, with its Tor and its vibrantly diverse community of open-minded souls, beckon so brightly?
At least that’s what Zac thinks, and while romcoms, including festive ones, being the way they are means she will eventually be reunited with Zac and love’s great unrequited void will be filled, it’s not clear to him that she loves him (course she does you unobservant sweet man) nor that she will give up her big dream for the smaller climes of the beautiful Isle of Skye.
But it’s Christmas and festive needs must, and all that.
(courtesy official Kirsty Ferry Facebook page)
The joy of Christmas on the Isle of Skye is that even though you know their love is all but inevitable, Ferry a beautiful, and often funny job of keeping the tension alive and the will-they, won’t-they fires burning.
It’s a tricky art keeping interest on the boil when you know where it’s all going to end up, but Ferry proves herself more than up to the task with Christmas on the Isle of Skye feeling like a cut above the usual festive romcom flock as Zac races to see Ivy (twice) and win her back, and Ivy returns the favour … and all before Christmas because Mariah Carey, as we all do, decrees that Christmas is only Christmas with the one you love.
But it’s touch and go if the two would-be artistic lovebirds will be side-by-side and heart-to-heart come the big day and the novel has a great deal of fun, as well as employing quite a few emotional moments, keeping us guessing about when Zac and Ivy will finding admit to each other than their home is forever with the other.
The two characters are lovingly and fully realised, their dialogue feels authentic and realistically human – some festive romcoms feel like two people talking who have never mastered the art of actual speech but not Christmas on the Isle of Skye which is a down-to-earth talkfest delight – and the story never really flags which is quite an achievement when much of the average romcom is technically about soft-pedalling under the big TA-DAH!” finish line.
He [Zac] wasn’t quite sure what he might be doing. Regardless, he fumbled his credit card out of his wallet and before he knew it, he had a room booked in Glastonbury in a house with ivy around the door.
This could either be a very good idea, or a very bad one.
Happily, Christmas on the Isle of Skye never once flags and you feel like Zac and Ivy are two people that you absolutely just have together if you are to enjoy your own Christmas (or Christmas in July as the case may be).
That’s a nice place to be in as you read a festive romcom; of course, you want to be invested and you want to believe in one particular couple’s Christmassy take on love sweet love, grand cross-countries gestures and all that (which are, let’s face it, integral to the season) but that doesn’t always happen in every romcom, despite the author’s clear intent.
But good lord and crackers and Christmas pudding, you really care about Zac and Ivy and you want them to be home with each other, and comfy, cosy on Skye and all that matters is that they get to that place and it’s every bit as blissfully happy as you hope it will be.
Spoiler alert: it absolutely is but Christmas on the Isle of Skye soars and signs with transportive romantic delight because the journey to that all-but-certain place is as wonderfully loved-up as the final act, and while yes, there is uncertainty and and poor perceptions, and more than a little accidental self-sabotage, there’s also the promise and hope of true love to come, and at the most wonderful time of the year, no less, and it’s all fulfilled and its wondrously good and your heart, craving love, will be more than adequately satisfied.