(Simon & Schuster Australia)
There’s a host of Christmas romcom novels out there, all predicated on the same deliciously alluring idea the the most wonderful time of the year is the perfect time for miracles to happen and lives to be remade.
But not all of these festively restorative delights are created equal, and you are sometimes left deflated after diving into one of them because all the requisite tropes and clichés are present and accounted for, they’ve been used in a fairly predictable and lacklustre manner.
Thankfully, no such unimaginative affliction affects the buoyantly festive romance of Home for Christmas by Heidi Swain, which from its gleefully red, very Christmassy cover through to emotionally satisfying happy ending is all the Christmas love and joy you could ask for and more.
It is also beautifully written, with dialogue that sparkles courtesy of characters who are wonderfully brought to life, world-building that has you feeling as if you’re walking the streets of the gorgeous village of Wynbridge in Norfolk where all the action takes place, and a story that has all the necessary ups and down that a romantic comedy demands but without feeling like you’re treading water until both the main characters come to their senses.
It flows seamlessly from antagonistic meet-up – meet-cutes don’t really exist in this world or not usually; far better for a festive romcom if there are barbs and dislike that give way to something far more fetching – to love, true love without putting a foot wrong, dishing up all kinds of lovely Christmas moments along the way.
‘So that’s settled then,’ said Angus, clapping his hands together. ‘Shall we say that Jude can come to yours on Tuesday, Bella? That’ll give you time to move into the apartment again, won’t it?’
‘Yes, I squeaked, then cleared my throat. ‘Yes,’ I repeated a little more clearly. ‘Tuesday will be fine.’
We get Christmas markets – many, many of them because the protagonist Bella is a maker of fairies, all of them imbued with a magical intent she very much believes exists in the world – and decorations aplenty, food everywhere, and a heady sense that this is a very special time of the year.
Bella is a Christmas addict and once her last tenants leave from the house she rents out for about 9 months of the year – it was her beloved grandparents’ home and they instilled in her a great and fervently abiding love of the season – she loves down from the apartment above it, and decorates it to within an inch of her life.
This is all while she selling fairies to all and sundry, working with her famous author friend Holly on inserting fairy characters into the books she writes, and staging festive pub quizzes and all kinds of other wonderful Christmassy things.
Bella lives and breathes the season and so, when she meets the guy that might be the one for her, you’d expect that he’d be just as into the season as her.
You would be wrong.
At first, anyway; when Jude arrives to write the history of Wynthorpe Hall, the aristocratic pile near the village owned by the Connelly clan, who are practically family to Bella, and it’s suggested by Angus and Catherine, the owners, that Jude stayed in town with Bella, there’s snarkiness everywhere.
Which is, in a festive romcom, just as it should be.
He’s frankly a nasty piece of work, all rudeness and bombast (and he hates Christmas!), and you can hardly blame Bella for wondering what she’s agreed to – does she really want someone like this in her home, delaying her decorating plans and Scrooging up her favourite time of year.
No, no she does, but just as she’s beginning to wonder if she shouldn’t go back on the deal with Angus and Catherine, Jude apologies for being a complete and utter prat and well, they become sort of friends, then actual friends and then … well, you can likely see where this is going, and you would be right.
But it’s far from smooth sailing, and with Bella convinced that her mother doesn’t believe in love after two men abandoned her and that short flings are the only way to go, she has no appetite for trying to see where things with handsome, Hugh Grant-ish in his younger, foppish hair days could go.
If he wants a fun, festive fling, then sure, but all indications are that he does not, and deep down, that’s now what Bella realises she wants either; but she’s spent a lifetime living her life on some very temporary grounds when it comes to love and changing now would be anathema.
But oh her heart begins to want Jude very badly indeed, and while she still has all the joys and traditions of Christmas to keep her warm, she wouldn’t mind if Jude added to the heat too … MAYBE.
‘No.’ I [Bella] swallowed. “Hope that, having watched your reaction to an evening with the festive Muppets, there might actually be a chance that I can get you a bit back onboard about Christmas before you’re fit enough to escape from my festive clutches. Perhaps I might be able to turn some of those negative triggers back into the happy memories they should be.’
‘Well, good luck with that.’ He [Jude] smiled and I smiled back.
The fun of Home for Christmas, like many a festive romcom, is seeing how it will all end up; we know the “where” which is bedrocked into these plots with an inviolability bordering on granite-like but the how?
Ah, that is where the real interest lies, and where the true test of a writer’s skill is revealed.
Swain is masterful in her ability to gradually bring Jude and Bella together in a way that feels as grounded as these sorts of stories get; they are two people with issues to deal with, and while the tug of festive love is unmistakable, you can’t assume that the pieces will just smoothly fall into place.
There must be decision and indecision, back and then forth, forth and then back, and it must be done in such a way that it doesn’t feel frustratingly half-baked because nothing kills the thrill of Christmassy love that two people who are chaotic messes driving in an endless of emotional stupidity.
Fortunately, Swain is too bright a writer to let that happen, and what you get in Home for Christmas is a coming together that feels reasonably real, honest and true but with all the frothy fairytale trappings of the genre and the warmth, colour and festive vibrancy of the season.
It is a joy to read, not only because the story is told so well, but because Swain understands the magic and possibility of the season, and uses it brilliantly good effect throughout Home for Christmas which is one of the best romcoms of this year’s tinsel-draped and fair light-strung crop.