(courtesy Simon & Schuster)
Finding your way out of a dark and terrible place in life is never easy.
For Holly that sense of being trapped somewhere she doesn’t want to be – divorced, alone and effectively homeless with nowhere to go but either to stay at her emotionally frigid academic parents (neither wants that) or a gay couple who have been warm and loving friends since uni and chose her in the marriage breakup chaos – happens to coincide with Christmas, accentuating the sense she has that is alone with no real sense of the way forward.
A talented, in-demand illustrator of children’s books, she finds herself at the start of Heidi Swain’s That Festive Feeling questioning her chosen profession, feeling creatively burned up and deciding that what she needs when she house-sits for her friends in Nightingale Square is to lie low, lick her works and hope time and space gives her some much-needed direction and perspective.
But no sooner has she moved in than she bumps into older woman May when out walking at a nearby lake, am unexpected meeting that leads to the two women becoming firm friends and to Holly becoming, by degrees large and small and far faster than she expected – to be fair, she expected not to be enmeshed in the community at all, so anything beyond zero is a surprise – very much a part of Nightingale Square’s tight-knit bunch of neighbours.
Unfortunately, however, the longed-for peace and solitude didn’t pan out in my favour because rather than emptying my head and relaxing before trying to decide what to do with my life next, all I could think about was work — or, more worryingly, my continued desire not to work. And rather than not stress over my potential next home for a while, there was also the preoccupation with where in the country I might want to move to, ceaselessly buzzing about in my mind, too.
Set around a beautifully area of lawn that frames the homes around it with a sense of picturesque togetherness, the Square has a community garden where everyone pitches in to grow all kinds of produce, and an outreach program for at-peril youth known as The Chapel where among other things, pantomimes and plays are held to show its clients there are opportunities in life beyond the limited number to which they’re exposed.
Next door neighbour Lisa, a full speed ahead woman who finds a way to convince almost everyone to take part in the area’s communal activities, and Holly, despite her best efforts, is not immune to Lisa’s ability to enthusiastically coerce, soon has creatively talented Holly making sets for the upcoming play, and even working at the garden, something she didn’t want to do, and finding that maybe, after all that, she doesn’t mind becoming friends and, really, family, with people she had pretty planned on avoiding for eight weeks.
In no time flat, Holly, who dresses only in milder hues of navy and black, and who finds the ideas of anything beyond the conventionality of the mainstream a little terrifying – to be fair, she’s gone through a lot of emotional trauma at the hands of ex Piers and his family who drop her like a shot as soon as she’s replaced by her onetime husband’s then-mistress – is part of a family she didn’t know she needed, and her life, at Christmas time no less, begins to transform in ways that surprise and eventually delight her.
(courtesy official author site)
And it’s not just garrulous, colourfully-dressed actor May, newly emerged from the most intense depths of the initial grief of mourning the death of her much-loved husband, who impels her on this new path; she also meets, and this is essential since That Festive Feeling is very much a carols and tree lighting member of the Christmas rom-com genre, the handsome and muscular Bear, and his rescue dog, Queenie, a garden designer who soon becomes the object of her heart’s desire even if Holly, like many a potential meet-cuter before her, is reluctant to let love get her a second time.
As Christmas gears up and festive events compel into close proximity with Bear, and indeed the whole wondrously wonderful Nightingale Square community who become the family she’s never really had, she begins to grapple with what it might mean if a temporary move becomes a far more permanent one.
The whole thrust of That Festive Feeling is that while good and lovely things are unexpectedly not just on her horizon but very much part of her festive here and now, is that Holly is not ready to do anything more than bunker down and figure in her own sweet time what on earth she should do next.
But life has a way of making things happen right when you don’t want or expect them to, and Holly is quickly swept up in events, as happens in many a Christmas rom-com, that leave her no choice, though she still tries to exercise some, but to surrender to an all-but-irresistible festive tide.
Bear stood up again and stretched out his back. ‘If you’re on Santa’s nice list,’ he told his friend, ‘you’ll probably get one.’
‘In which case,’ I said, also standing up and reaching for my coat, ‘we won’t spoil the surprise.’
‘Good plan.’ Bear beamed at me, making my heart race and not for the first time that day.
Rich with characters who are fully-formed and a joy to be around, and a protagonist whose pain feels real and her desire for social anonymity and emotional isolation quite understandable, That Festive Feeling is a beautifully-paced story of one woman’s journey, and at Christmas no less which is redemptive richness central, from pain and loss to healing and belonging that totally transforms her life, outlook and sense of self.
With her friendship with the magnetically lovely May burgeoning and giving her an emotional centre of gravity she lost with her marriage (assuming she even had it then), and Bear very much wanting to be a part of her life, Holly is a changed woman by book’s end but then when you pick up a book like That Festive Feeling that’s pretty much what you’re hoping for.
Still, even if you know the destination, and let’s face it, the end point for many a festive rom-com is all but warmheartedly pre-ordained, it’s the journey to that point of redemption that is key, and Swain at no time disappoints, offering a reasonably authentic story of one person’s move from broken and alone to included and alive, making it clear that while life can offer some truly truly terrible places in which to find yourself, it can also offer love and belonging too, and as Christmas sweeps into a full decorative and socially inclusive swing, That Festive Feeling grants Holly all the wishes she didn’t know she was making and gives us as readers yet another moment to marvel at the way things can turn around at the most wonderful, and life-changing time of the year.