I’ve previously enjoyed books by Lindsey Kelk – so when I saw she had a Christmas book out, I requested it from NetGalley and was lucky enough to be sent a review copy. Here’s the blurb:

“Newly single lawyer Gwen Baker is hoping that a family Christmas – countryside, a mountain of food and festive films –
will salve the sting of her career hanging by a thread and her heart being trampled on. Because everyone else has their life sorted: even Dev, her boy-next-door crush, is now a tall, dark and handsome stranger with a fiancée. She can’t help wishing her future was clearer.
Then Gwen wakes up to discover it’s Christmas day all over again. Like Groundhog Day but with turkey. And family arguments. On repeat.
As she figures out how to escape her own particular Christmas hell, Dev is the one bright spot. He might be all grown-up but underneath he’s just as kind and funny as she remembers.
Maybe, just maybe, her heart can be mended after all.
But how do you fall in love with someone who can’t remember you from one day to the next?”

I enjoyed the book from the start with Gwen and her cousin Manny travelling to their family home town from London for Christmas. Although not specified exactly where – later on in the book it’s evident that it’s walking distance to Chatsworth House – so clearly near my Aunt and Uncle in Derbyshire!

Gwen and Manny clearly have a close relationship as cousins – and as the book continues, lots of the backstory for the whole family is filled in. They are a really mixed bunch – but you’re rooting for them all. You’re also definitely rooting for Gwen and Dev!

The Groundhog Day element is brilliant! Each day Gwen wakes up and it’s Christmas morning again – and she needs to work out what has gone wrong and why she’s gone back in time again, and again. It’s so clever – and each iteration affects the next in some way or other.

It’s well written, intricate but still very funny and relevant. I had one tiny niggle (because I’m a d*ck) and that’s in one version of the day, Gwen grabs a bacon sandwich as she leaves the house – but a few pages later is starving because she hasn’t eaten all day. Now maybe she didn’t eat the sandwich she grabbed – or maybe I just spotted the one tiny continuity error in it!

It’s a perfect book to curl up with at this time of year – and it’s bargain on Kindle at the moment. I would thoroughly recommend it with a glass of Baileys / box of celebrations / log fire / cozy blanket (delete as applicable)

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC.