Christmas Secrets In Snowflake Cove by Emily Harvale

This was an okay read, I never really managed to get absorbed in to the place or the people if I'm being honest.  I was conscious of reading the story all the way through rather than becoming immersed in it and eagerly turning the (virtual) pages to get to the next happening in the lives of the Starrs.  Things did settle down towards the latter half of the book and I did start to enjoy myself a bit more - but I still couldn't work up the wherewithal to worry about what Darren was up to or what was going between Jessie and Mr Joshua(?) Thorn.

The setting is well described and you could smell that ozone and feel the sting of salt in the air.  Even Michelmas Bay sounded like an enchanting medium sized town that was strangely full of independent shops without a chain to be seen.  Got to love that about fictional places, they still have a non-homogenised High Street, or evena  High Street at all.

I never really felt as though I knew any of the characters on the page though.  This book may have been about Evie but apart from her best friend's younger brother, Roland, having a major crush on her, her not really getting on with her sister Severine I never really felt like she was more than words on a page.  Her grandmother Jessie, whilst being a mainly peripheral character, was far more interesting and I think I would have preferred to hear more from her than Evie.

The book is undoubtedly festive and taps right in to the collective nostalgia for a Christmas I think few of us have experienced - roaring log fires, snowball fights and lashings of hot chocolate.  It is almost filmic in its Christmas tropes which is no bad thing when you are curled up on the couch waiting for your belated Christmas celebrations to begin (I worked Christmas Day and in to Boxing Day so we had a later than the calendar family celebration).

Not a bad book really just not an immersive read and it didn't make me interested enough to get the second in the series.