Review: Candlelight at Christmas

Title: Candlelight at Christmas
Author: Katie Fford
Publisher: 24th November 2016 by Random House UK / Cornerstone Digital

Pages: 66 pages
How I Read It: ARC book
Genre: christmas, chick lit, romance, women’s fiction
My Rating: 3 cups

Synopsis:

Welcome back some familiar characters and treat yourself to some extra romance with this exclusive, straight-to-digital short story from the Sunday Times No. 1 Bestseller.

Fenella and Rupert are organising the perfect Christmas, surrounded by their friends in their beautiful Somerby house.

Until Fenella gets a phone call from her ghastly parents-in-law asking if they can join them for the holiday. Fenella couldn't possibly refuse and besides, it could be worse.

But when they arrive and the house is suddenly plunged in darkness thanks to a power cut, Fenella knows she has her work cut out to keep everyone happy and pull off the perfect Christmas feast.

My Thoughts

Having read Katie Fforde's novels before and enjoyed them, I thought it time to try one of her famous Christmas novellas. Although a stand-alone, this clearly features couples from a previous book - this may enhance reading, but in no way detracts from it. However,  if you had read the full-length novel,  you may get more from this novella; but it is perfectly possible to read it without having read the full length novel associated with these characters.

The story is very short and, given this, it is often difficult to get to know characters in such a short space of time. However, Katie Fford is a master writer and she achieves much within these few pages. - a difficult thing to do, but the Christmas atmosphere presented, a time for giving and embracing family (for better or worse) combined with the increase in stress levels,  shine through these pages and succeed in giving you that warm, festive feeling that one looks for from a Christmas book/novella.

Candlelight at Christmas is set at the 'big house' Somerby, which featured in Fford’s full length novel, Recipe for Love. It's a sweet little story, focused on the everyday - dealing with uninvited guests, family dramas and of course, it wouldn't be Katie Fforde if it didn't have a little romance. All up, a satisfying novella for this Christmas period.  

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher and provided through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The quoted material may have changed in the final release