Christmas At The Dancing Duck by Daisy James

The Dancing Duck is that perfect country pub that we all wish we could find.  Filled with warmth and extraordinarily good food, courtesy of Leon and Michel, it is the hub of the community but it is sadly losing money and the Harrison daughters have no real option but to sell and avoid bankruptcy - especially as Olivia is married to the local magistrate.  But this tale isn't about Olivia it is about the other sister, Kirsty, and her terror of facing up to her parent's death at Christmas 2 years ago.  This leads her to make some unfortunate comments caught by the sound man of her morning cookery segment and it soon goes viral on You Tube and that's it, she runs home to lick her wounds.  For, despite it all, The Dancing Duck is home.

Okay, so the plot is rather predictable.  Will Kirsty get back together with her old flame Josh?  Will they really sell The Dancing Duck?  I'm sure without reading the book you can already guess the answers to these questions.

What saves this book is the characters within it.  Kirsty is fun and although fond of melancholic "episodes" when she sees everything as doom and gloom and enjoys a good old pity party she reads so well you feel as though you know her.  Josh is vaguely enigmatic but his personality shines through in the little things he does that are passed over slickly without rubbing our noses in what a jolly good bloke he is.  Even Miles, the undoubted villain of the piece, is cast in a good light even if he turns out to be a double-crossing swine.

Could have done with a little more stringent editing though.  For one whole chapter Michel (Leon's sous chef at the brasserie within the Dancing Duck) is referred to as Marcel, which infuriated me no end.

A wonderfully charming tale that I thoroughly enjoyed.  Yes, I knew what was going to happen and the mechanism by which it would happen but it was told so well I got completely sucked in and desperately wanted to take part in the Craft and Baking Competitions, never mind sampling that wonderful Christmas feast.

**Review originally published December 31st, 2017**