(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia)
Is it possible to successfully manage a new start in life when the halls aren’t decked, the world is not being joy-ed and a man in a red suit isn’t acting all merry and bright?
Likely, yes, but honestly why would you want to when Christmas provides the perfect escape-from-the-everyday setting to leave a painful past behind, lick your wounds and see what lies between all the trauma you’ve often moved cities and states to get far, far away from?
In The Santa Suit by Mary Kay Andrews, Ivy Perkins has left the bitter pain of her divorce from unfaithful ex-husband Kyle well behind her in Atlanta and has bought an old farmhouse, The Four Roses, sight unseen – not completely; she’s seen online pics but didn’t go to see in person before signing on the dotted line – in a very Christmassy town in the remote mountains of North Carolina.
It’s a bold move, and yes, she’s more than a little trepidatious about uprooting herself and starting all over again, but despite her initial concerns over the remedial work the house will need, she senses that the farmhouse is home and she and her rescue Setter dog Punkin soon find themselves getting settled into the two acres of land that surround the home that used to be home to a much-loved family, the eponymous Roses, who were the festive and soul of the town.
‘Looks like the Fantasy of Lights is back on at Four Roses Farm,’ Ezra remarked.
‘It really is special, isn’t it?’ Ivy said.
‘You’ll leave the lights on, then?’ Phoebe asked. ‘At least until Christmas?’
‘Yeah,’ Ivy said, ‘I guess it won’t hurt to leave them on.’
Just how festive they were soon comes to light when Ivy, accompanied by super attentive real estate agent, Ezra Wheeler, a handsome man who’s all but ordained in the first few chapters as the Significant Love Interest, discovers a Santa suit with a note in it from a little girl begging St Nick to bring her dad back safe and sound from the war.
Ivy has no way of knowing if Carlette got her impossible wish answered, and she knows she likely didn’t; even so, she’s impelled to find out if anyone in town knows who Carlette or her family are or were and if she can’t find out what happened to the little girl who didn’t want toys or clothes but who just wanted her family together again.
Ivy’s unusual begins a wonderful journey into the heart of the town and its inhabitants, a number of whom like county clerk Phoebe, who’s nervous about meeting her unseen long-term boyfriend Cody, and candy maker Nancy, for whom Ivy does some business saving free marketing work, soon become fast and true friends, the kind of community that an emotionally isolated needs even if she doesn’t realise it at the time.
Joining the found family of Ezra, Nancy and Phoebe, is 96-year-old Lawrence Jones, a lonely but spirited house-ridden man who is mourning the loss of his family over the years and who soon becomes a close friend of Ivy who discovers that maybe she does the connection that the town of Tarburton provides her.
(courtesy official author page)
It’s a foregone conclusion in books like The Santa Suit that everything will end up happily and magically well, but what appeals most about this perfectly-paced and just-so plotted novella is that Andrews manages to keep things heartwarmingly interesting and surprising on the way to the expected destination.
It’s a gift to keep a novel engaging when you’re pretty certain what the end point and Andrews definitely has it, serving up a storyline that feels fresh and affectingly fun even as it serves up the requisite amount of festive rom-com love and warmth.
Almost at the same rate as Ivy does, you find yourself relaxing into the bucolic town which celebrates Christmas with a fervour few can match and which wonders if Ivy will continue the Christmas traditions of the Roses who wrapped their home in a multitude of lights, who dressed up as Santa and his wife at major town events the super duper festive Christmas Stroll and whose spirit permeates the town still and which will play a key role in Ivy’s healing through new love, friends and community.
While she’s reluctant at first to commit to too much, hurt by a broken marriage and the inherent betrayal, she begins to understand how genuinely good the people of Tarburton are and how becoming enmeshed in its inclusive small town bonhomie may not be the worst thing that’s ever happened to her.
In fact, as she helps Phoebe with her love life, Nancy with her business, Lawrence with reconnecting to his long-lost family and accepts that Ezra may be her new guy, she comes quietly but deeply alive in the grand tradition of all romantic Christmas stories.
At some point later in the evening, Ivy and Ezra made their way to the living room, where they are sprawled on the sofa in front of the fireplace …The room was dark except for the glowing multicolored lights of the Christmas tree and the crackling fire. Punkin snored softly from his bed in the corner.
It’s honestly like a perfectly-wrought short but sweet hug, which introduces you to Ivy and her broken world and then takes you on her journey of Christmas-encouraged healing in 200 pages that never really put a foot wrong.
The Santa Suit is a gem of a Christmas rom-com that takes all the usual tropes of the genre and which fashions something fresh and movingly original out while taking care to ensure the requisite warm and fuzzy touchpoints are very much still in place.
It’s true of course that you can find healing at any time of the year, but the truth is that there’s something lovely about having it happen at Christmas, at the end of what is usually a long and exhausting, and in Ivy’s case, very sad year and just before entirely nominal date of New Year’s Eve.
We all want to believe great pain can be healed and we can start all over again, and The Santa Suit answers that fervent hope in a town awash with lovely people at a beautifully festive time of the year in a story which heartwarmingly maintains that miracles do in fact happen at Christmas and that all you need to do is to be open to them.