Portobello Book Blog

I do love Kirsty Ferry’s books as you’ll know if you are a regular visitor to the blog. I really enjoyed both her previous books set in Padcock village Christmas of New Beginnings and Edie’s summer of New Beginnings. Click on those titles if you’d like to read my reviews. So I was really pleased to see that her Christmas book this year was about more new beginnings in Padcock. Kirsty will be joining me next week as part of my Festive Spotlight series so watch out for that.

About the Book

It was meant to be a romantic Christmas getaway …
Except Flora’s boyfriend Paul is more interested in whether there’s WiFi in their holiday cottage than he is in the pretty village of Padcock where it’s located. It seems he’s incapable of taking time out from his work for gossip mag darling Maxine Marling – or Maxine Marmoset as Flora not so secretly calls her (well, she does look like a marmoset!) – to spend time with his actual girlfriend.
But as Flora discovers the friendly and festive community of Padcock with its eccentric but lovable locals – including dreamy musician Geraint Davies – she begins to question her London life and lots more besides. Especially as a certain marmoset becomes ever more present on her Christmas break for two …
But luckily Padcock is a village where fresh starts happen – and maybe Flora is in line for her own Christmas of new beginnings.
A wonderful new instalment to Padcock Village but it can be read as a standalone story!

My Thoughts

A pre Christmas getaway to Bookend Cottage in Padcock sounds like my idea of holiday heaven. Not so much though for Flora’s work obsessed boyfriend Paul, who is only bothered about whether he can pick up a wifi signal to keep up with work. Oh how I disliked him! After a disastrous Christmas the previous year when she was unceremoniously dumped on Christmas Eve, Flora really deserved a better time this year but it looked very much like a case of history repeating itself.

I love the sound of Padcock Village – can I go there please? From the fabulous sounding deli, to the chocolate shop to the Spatchcock pub, it’s my kind of place. Throw in all the quirky and welcoming inhabitants, some of whom I’ve met in the previous two books, and it’s somewhere I think I’d feel right at home. After one particular scene, I think I love Lovely Sam even more than I did before. It was great to meet musician Geraint in this book, for me as well as Flora! He is the brother of craft shop and tearoom owner Cerys, who features in the first book and I thought he was just lovely.

This book has everything I want in a Christmas book. There’s snow, mince pies and cosy fires, community spirit, friendship and, of course, new beginnings and happy endings. It’s sweet, funny and charming and has a gorgeous festive romance warm enough to melt the coldest of hearts.

Incidentally, the tune Carol of the Bells plays quite a significant part in the book as you’ll hear from Kirsty next week so I’ve included a YouTube link at the bottom of this post. Sadly I couldn’t quite find Geraint playing it! However, Karolina Protsenko is a very talented young violinist as you’ll hear so I hope you enjoy that.

Thanks to Liz at ChocLit for sending me an e-copy of the book for review. Flora’s Christmas of New Beginnings is published by Ruby Fiction and is available now. You’ll find buying options for various retailers on the Ruby Fiction website here: Flora’s Christmas of New Beginnings

About the Author

Kirsty is from the North East of England and won the English Heritage/Belsay Hall National Creative Writing competition in 2009 with the ghostly tale ‘Enchantment’.

Her timeslip novel, ‘Some Veil Did Fall’, a paranormal romance set in Whitby, was published by Choc Lit in Autumn 2014. This was followed by another Choc Lit timeslip, ‘The Girl in the Painting’ in February 2016. ‘The Girl in the Photograph’, published in March 2017, completes the Rossetti Mysteries series. The experience of signing ‘Some Veil Did Fall’ in a quirky bookshop in the midst of Goth Weekend in Whitby, dressed as a recently undead person was one of the highlights of her writing career so far!

Kirsty’s first timeslip novel ‘The Memory of Snow’, commended in the Northern Writers’ Awards, is set on Hadrian’s Wall, with the vampire tale ‘Refuge’ set on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. She has also put together a collection of short stories, a non-fiction collection of articles and writes Gothic Fiction under the pen name Cathryn Ramsay.

Kirsty has had articles and short stories published in Your Cat, Peoples Friend, Ghost Voices, The Weekly News and It’s Fate, and her short stories appear in several anthologies. She was a judge in the Paws ‘n’ Claws ‘Wild and Free’ Children’s Story competition in 2011, 2013 and 2014, and graduated from Northumbria University in December 2016, having achieved a Masters with Distinction in Creative Writing.

You can find out more about Kirsty and her work at http://www.rosethornpress.co.uk, catch her on her Facebook AuthorPage, follow her on Twitter @kirsty_ferry or pop by her blog at http://www.rosethornramblings.wordpress.com.