(courtesy official Holly Martin site)
Full disclosure upfront – I am not a fan of short stories.
It’s not how they are written or the characters or the narrative ideas contained within; in a great many cases, these are all superbly presented and you have to admire how the various authors have managed to express themselves so beautifully in such a finite amount of words.
No, the issue for this inveterate reader, is they are just not long enough; you are barely coming to love the characters and getting invested in what’s happening in their world when the story ends and that’s it.
I love longer stories pretty much always, but sometimes, especially when it comes to Christmas, it’s fun to dive into a short story and see what it yields.
“A Very Merry Christmas” by Holly Martin lobbed into my inbox as part of a welcome to my newsletter email and looked like a fun, short read that would be a fine addition to my Christmas in July festival on the blog.
It took no time at all to read, such is the joy of short stories, and as Christmas romcoms go, ticked a lot of the boxes you want ticked including new love, a delightful human being, who in this case is Merry, a baker of all kinds of sweet treats, whom everyone loves but who needs romance to make everything complete and lovely.
It’s a truism of festive romcoms that the person’s life be redeemed in some way and that’s certainly the case with “A Very Merry Christmas”.
Merry hurried as fast as she dared along the icy pavement. She had so much to do before Christmas Day and there simply wasn’t enough time left to do it all. Now she had closed her shop, Sugar and Spice, for the Christmas break, she would have to work all hours to get everything ready.
The only drawback to the story is that too much seems to be have been attempted in too small a number of words.
While I admire Martin’s enthusiasm for the season and her gift for writing engaging stories – I previously highly enjoyed her festive novel, Mistletoe at Moonstone Lake – and she does a beautiful job of capturing the many delights of the season, “A Very Merry Christmas” just felt like it had way too much going on.
The central idea is really clever (no spoilers here) and it’s fun to see how Martin some inventive use of it, but it felt like the storyline of an entire full length novel had been stuffed into the story and as a result, justice wasn’t full done to the story, the characters or the very imaginative, cute plot device.
“A Very Merry Christmas” is a pleasure to read and if you want a rush of festive hope and bonhomie then it’s guaranteed to life your flagging mid-year spirits, but I got to the end and felt like there was too much going on for me to fully appreciate the fun idea that lay at the heart of the story.
By pulling some elements out and letting the potential of the situation dominate rather than seeing it fully through to the end, “A Very Merry Christmas” would have been a much more satisfying read.
Having said that, I love the books of Holly Martin and having a free story to make my Christmas in July all the richer was greatly appreciated and I can’t wait to dive into luxuriate in and greatly enjoy more of heartwarmingly good and highly enjoyable festive fare.
(courtesy official Holly Martin site)