BLOG TOUR! The Best Little Christmas Shop by Maxine Morrey: Review

The blurb...

Come home for Christmas to the Best Little Christmas Shop – the snowiest, cosiest place you can be!

Home for the holidays…  

Icing gingerbread men, arranging handmade toys and making up countless Christmas wreaths in her family’s cosy little Christmas shop isn’t usually globe-trotter Lexi’s idea of fun. But it’s all that’s keeping her mind off romance. And, with a broken engagement under her belt, she’s planning to stay well clear of that for the foreseeable future…until gorgeous single dad Cal Martin walks through the door!  

Christmas takes on a whole new meaning as Lexi begins to see it through Cal’s adorable five-year-old son’s eyes. But, finding herself getting dangerously close to the mistletoe with Cal, Lexi knows she needs to back off. She’s sworn off love, and little George needs a stability she can’t provide. One day she’ll decide whether to settle down again – just not yet.  

But the best little Christmas shop in this sleepy, snow-covered village has another surprise in store…  

The review...

The whole settling down thing wasn’t for me. I’d tried once before and it had ended painfully, not to mention publicly. What made me think this time would be any different? It wasn’t meant for me. It was meant for people like Giselle and Xander, Mum and Dad, and Dan and Claire. But the universe had other ideas for me apparently. Stick to what you’re best at, Lexi, it said. PS: this isn’t it.

An engineer for a top Formula One team, Lexi’s much more at home fixing a car in her overalls than glitzing it up with the rich and famous. It’s her dream job, though, and she even has a glamorous fiancé to match.

Now she’s back home with her large and affectionate family, minus both job and fiancé, and working temporarily in the family business - the best little Christmas shop of the title. It’s not just a Christmas shop though - the quirky village gift shop, called The Four Seasons, sells merchandise themed around the seasons of the year, changing along with them. It’s a lovely idea and certainly sounds like it would be hard to resist popping in for a browse around. 

When handsome single dad Cal and his adorable five-year-old son, George, walk into the shop one day, Lexi’s life is about to take an unexpected turn, via a spot of impromptu teddy-bear surgery and some narrowly averted swearing. There’s more than a spark between them, but is Lexi really the right person to provide the love and stability this little family needs?

I’m not personally a fan of Formula One - the noise puts me off for a start, it always sounds to me like a load of demented wasps on the attack - but I know plenty of people who love it so it obviously does have a broad appeal. Anyway you certainly don’t need to like or even know anything about Formula One to enjoy the story as it doesn’t really play a big role.

The supporting characters are fun - Lexi’s noisy, loving family, her best friend Xander and his wife Giselle, and of course little George.

Cal really was the perfect man: handsome, caring and evidently besotted with Lexi. Call me cynical but I don’t think you get too many of them to the dozen in real life! There are no big surprises about the eventual outcome but then you wouldn’t want there to be...

I think the number one word I would use to describe this book is “cosy”. It’s warm, comforting and best suited to curling up with beside a roaring fire. Preferably while it’s snowing outside.

Order on Amazon here.

The author...

Maxine Morrey has wanted to be a writer for as long as she can remember and wrote her first (very short) book for school when she was ten. Coming in first, she won a handful of book tokens - perfect for a bookworm!  As years went by, she continued to write, but 'normal' work often got in the way. She has written articles on a variety of subjects, aswell as a book on Brighton for a Local History publisher. However, novels are what she loves writing the most. After self publishing her first novel when a contract fell through, thanks to the recession, she continued to look for opportunities.  In August 2015, she won Harper Collins/Carina UK's 'Write Christmas' competition with her romantic comedy, 'Winter's Fairytale'.  Maxine lives on the south coast of England, and when not wrangling with words loves to read sew and listen to podcasts. As she also likes cake she can also be found either walking or doing something vaguely physical at the gym

Website  www.scribblermaxi.co.uk
Twitter @scribbler_maxi
Instagram @scribbler_maxi
Facebook www.Facebook.com/MaxineMorreyAuthor
Pinterest  Scribbler Maxi

The giveaway... (UK only)

Win -
Signed copy of The Christmas Project
The Best Little Christmas Shop notebook
Box of mini gingerbread men
Chocolate teddy bear



Enter here!