Christmas at the Little Clock House on the Green by Eve Devon

I haven't read the first book in this series and this is a must if you are to enjoy this book.  There are a bunch of disparate characters already ensconced in Whispers Wood and the writing is not such that you can figure out just who these people are from jumping in at Book Two.  Based on this particular publication I don't really have any inclination to buy that first book to see where it started.

I presume that Emma is a new character as we get told all about her but I simply couldn't connect with the character or feel that she was anything more than a bunch of words on a page.  I did appreciate that just because she was an aspiring actress she wasn't all supreme self-confidence but did have doubts and insecurities; I just couldn't get a sense of a real person inhabiting the page.  As for the people already at The Clock House they didn't have any personality and honestly, what grown woman goes WAAAAH! at regular intervals - it would seem that Kate and, I think she was called Jemma but I really can't be bothered to check - do.

The Christmassy setting with the tree lighting ceremony,  variety show staged by the residents of the village and the group Christmas meal were charming and I even quite enjoyed the parts with Jake and his garden.  Unfortunately, these are a tiny bit of the book and this made it a hard slog to get to the end.

The writing is loose and sloppy in places and jumps all over the place.  Although each chapter is supposed to be about the perspective from one particular person none of them really move the story on so the middle 50% stagnates and feels like complete and utter filler.  In my personal opinion this is a 100 page novella fleshed out to a full length book and done so very unsuccessfully.

**Review originally published December 16th, 2017**