The Perfect Christmas Village - Bella Osborne - ★★.½

AUTHOR: Bella Osborne

GENRE: Romantic Comedy

RATING: 2.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: An imperfect Christmas story. Could have been really good had the characters behaved better. Not my favourite Bella Osborne work by far.

Story Synopsis:

Blythe is desperate to sell just one more house this month so that she can set a new record at the real estate firm she works with. So she bends the truth just a teensy bit when she sells a home in the picturesque little town of Holly Cross to city dweller Sam. Sam hates Christmas, so he is unaware that he has purchased a residence in the centre of the most Christmassy village of the country. Needless to say, as Christmas draws near, Sam is the Grinch who might jeopardise Holly Cross’s chances of winning a Christmas village competition. Now Blythe has to do some quick reparations as she is the one to blame.

The story comes to us in the third person perspective of Blythe and Vicky – Blythe’s best friend.

I admit, I was looking for light fluff when I picked this up. But one really bad habit I have is that even when I read fluff, I can’t let go of my logical side. As such, this book, that seemed intent on punishing the honest guy and supporting the lying girl, wouldn’t win any fairness awards from me.

Sam was clear that he detested Christmas. He was the one Blythe hid the truth from. And yet, he was made out to be the villain (rather, the Grinch) of the story. Why? Not everyone likes (or needs to like) Christmas, and it was totally unfair of them to compel Sam to get involved. If I were in Sam’s position, I would have had a mental breakdown at the annoying intimidation of the villagers. It was strangely ironic to read a Christmas story with no sign of the Christmas spirit.

Moreover, as a small-town holiday story, I expected to find some genuine Christmassy moments in the plot as well. But there’s no sign of carolling or anyone going to church, or doing anything else that’s truly connected to Christmas, except for one scene about a Christmas day family lunch. Instead, the whole story focusses only on those elements of Christmas that even I detest – the over-the-top decorations, the needless competitions to have the best decorated house/village, the frivolous expenses for purchasing huge quantities of non-recyclable décor, the cutting off of live trees, the larger-than-life gifts,… All nothing but crass commercialisation with no connection to the solemnity of the occasion.

Of course, this is only a romcom, so I can’t really expect much on character development and festive accuracy. So let me gauge it as a romcom.

The rom is almost invisible. Sam and Blythe are at loggerheads with each other, until they suddenly aren’t. There’s no mention of attraction, there’s no friendship that slowly warms up to something deeper, there’s no “sparks flew” meet-up. No build-up at all! Basically, it is like a Sophie Kinsella novel, where the idiotic self-centred heroine can do what she wants without any concern for others, and the good guy still falls in love with her. So unfair and unrealistic!

The com is more varied in comparison. There’s situational comedy, double entendre, slapstick, repartee,... I like clever humour so the puns and the dirty jokes were quite funny to me. But the slapstick humour, I could have happily kicked out.

There is a minor mystery in the story, connected to the owner of the house that Sam purchased. This is decently satisfying, though it wasn’t convincing.

The blurb makes this sound like the story of Sam and Blythe’s relationship. But about a fourth of the book is written from the point of view of Blythe’s best friend Vicky, who is a single mom and has her own second-chance romance. I didn’t like this track either, as once again, there was no build-up, and once again, the past involved lies.

What I did like about the story were some of the secondary characters such as Blythe’s mother and stepfather, Vicky’s daughter, and most of all, Tarpin the feral cat.

Basically, there are a few good holiday moments herein, but on the whole, it was a meh experience for me. I’d rather read Jaimie Admans, who does a much better job at handling holiday romances in vivid settings. Holly Cross felt very pale in comparison to the stunning locations Admans envisages in her novels.

All in all, this did most of what it set out to do. If you don’t use your brains too much and are a Sophie Kinsella fan, you might enjoy this as an entertaining light read.

Unfortunately for me, I was looking to replicate the great characterisations I saw in this author’s ‘The Promise of Summer’ and ‘The Library’, but that wasn’t to happen. As it was also over-dramatic for my tastes, this might just be a case of right book, wrong reader. Do read the other reviews and get a more balanced opinion before you take a call.

My thanks to Aria & Aries and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Perfect Christmas Village”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.