One Christmas Morning - Rachel Greenlaw - ★★★.½

AUTHOR: Rachel Greenlaw

GENRE: Magical Realism.

RATING: 3.5 stars

In a Nutshell: 'Groundhog Day' meets 'A Christmas Carol.' Not as light-hearted or heartwarming as you would expect from the theme. But if you are looking for a more emotionally intense book, this will work well.

Story Synopsis:

Thirty-two-year-old Eva's life has been all about her new business since the last three years, after some personal tragedy caused her mindset to focus inwards. As her shop is due to launch on New Year's, she is busy even on Christmas, bringing her work and her assistant with her to a Cornwall manor to attend her friends Hallie and Kian's Christmas party.

Overwhelmed by some news announced at the party, Eva attempts to escape the moors at midnight, when suddenly she is visited by the ghost of her dear grandmother. Her grandmother warns her of the self-destructive path she has chosen, and tells her that she needs to make better decisions.

The next morning, Christmas day, Eva wakes up as...

Read the book to know what is in store for Eva.

The story comes to us in the first person perspective of Eva.

If you enjoy Groundhog Day kind of stories, this is a good one. While it takes the same trope of a day being repeated while the character makes some changes in their thinking and their choices, it adds a twist in the way the day is repeated. I'll not reveal the twist to you, but I will say that it adds a lovely novelty to a tried-and-tested formula.

If you enjoyed Dickens' A Christmas Carol, you'll like this one, as it incorporates a similar 'repent or regret' style threat through the grandmother's ghost.

If you like light Christmassy reads, this book isn't for you at all, or at least, it's not something I'd recommend you read during Christmas. (You can read it as a non-Christmas story.) Though it has a few heartwarming moments, a major chunk of the book is upsetting or infuriating or depressing, a great part of which is because of Eva.

Eva is a complicated character to relate to or root for. There's a lot of self-absorbed whining at the start (which always sounds worse in first person) and hence I was more irritated with than sympathetic for Eva despite her circumstances. I had forgotten that this was a Groundhog Day book, so I was initially befuddled by the author's decision to have such an annoying character at the helm of her plot. But once the time loops began, I realised the benefit of Eva's character development. So yes... though irritating, she works well for the story.

Of course, by its very nature, the book is quite predictable. (Though there was one incident at the end that I did not see coming.) So this book is not about the destination but about the journey. And the journey is handled decently.

Christmas itself is more of a minor background than a major setting in this novel. Except for the fact that the plot is set around Christmas day and that the characters are having a Christmas party, there's nothing religious or even festive about the book. The only role that Christmas has to play in the story is to highlight how Eva's shop launch needs to be on time so that people can do their post-holiday shopping at her business. As such, the book didn't generate any warm Christmassy feelings in my heart. To me, it felt more like a second-chance romance than a holiday book.

From the first page itself, you see how mental health and past trauma are going to be a strong part of the narrative. It feels a bit too much at the beginning, as within the first 10% or so, we see marriage issues, new business worries, broken friendships, imagined faces at faces, abstract mentions of something traumatic that happened three years ago, vague references to something that happened at the manor in Eva's childhood, Eva's assistant also having personal secrets,... It is overwhelming! But have patience at the start. The real story begins at around 18% or so, and that's when things become interesting.

A tiny niggle: There are four references made to a Coldplay song, without ever mentioning which song it was. Not all of us are Coldplay fans, nor do we know all Coldplay songs, nor can we be expected to Google Coldplay hits to figure out the song. Please, dear author, specify the song title at least once in the story if it has a key role in the narrative.

All in all, I don't think this is the kind of book I'd like at Christmas. I prefer happier and lighter reads, both of which are emotions present in this story only at a minimal level. But if you are a reader who likes introspective books during holiday time, you will definitely like this one better.

The author does have potential, and based on this debut, I would certainly read more from her.

My thanks to HQ and NetGalley for the DRC of “One Christmas Morning”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

Content warning: miscarriage, death.