Book Review: Twelve Days of Christmas by Trisha Ashely

The festive season has always been a sad time for young widow Holly Brown, so when she's asked to look after a remote house on the Lancashire moors, it's the perfect excuse to forget about the festivities.
The owner of the house, Jude Martland is also avoiding Christmas since the last one saw his brother run off with his fiancee. But forced to return home unexpectedly, Jude arrives to find that all his family are running amok- with Holly seemingly at the centre of it all.
As the blizzards descend, there is no escape. With nowhere to go, Holly and Jude get much more than they bargained for and it soon looks like the twelve days of Christmas are going to be very interesting indeed.

If i had to pick one word to describe this lovely book then I would choose cosy. You just want to get comfy on the sofa with a big cup of tea and keep turning the pages.
Holly Brown has had a life full of tragic events, she has already lost her parents and her husband, when we first meet her, she is just coming to terms with her Gran's recent death. Holly's gran provides a mysterious element to the story; Holly takes her recently found journals to read and discovers that her Gran may have suffered a tragic event during her life too. Each chapter begins with a small journal extract so we find things out at the same time as Holly does.
I love it when there is a big house involved in the story and Old Place does not disappoint. Jude Martland's house is on the secluded Lancashire moors so when the bad weather sets in, Holly ends up with Jude's whole family turning up for sanctuary. Holly doesn't usually celebrate Christmas so preparing a big family festive celebration is quite a novelty to her. She likes to live quite a solitary life but when she is thrust into this large and vibrant family, she finds that she is actually very much enjoying herself.
I will admit that I fell in love with Jude Martland, I always fall for the mysterious, brooding types. We first meet him over the telephone and Jude and Holly don't exactly hit it off. However, the tension between them gradually becomes something else when Jude returns home unexpectedly.
Twelve Days of Christmas is such a good read. There is a lot of humour and many festive references but right at the heart of it is a love story and we all like one of those at Christmas time.

 Thank you to Harper Collins/Avon for sending me this lovely book to review.