Thirty-eight year old Emily has a satisfying job, fab friends, and most importantly, a wonderful flat, exactly 411 miles away from the crazy interfering family she reluctantly sees twice a year. In fact, the only stress in her life is her twenty-something neighbour Evan and his penchant for flirting, loud music and even louder sex...but he's nothing she can't handle.
Emily also has a boyfriend called Robert and it's going really well. So well, in fact, that this year Emily wants to take him home for Christmas. Finally she won't be subject to endless pitying looks from her parents and younger married siblings. But when she and Robert break up a week before Christmas, Emily is gutted. How on earth is she going to face her family now? Enlisting the help of party-boy Evan, Emily is determined to take Robert home for Christmas come hell or high water, even if it isn't the real Robert...
Publisher: Quercus
Pages: 416
I really did love this book! I liked Emily from the very beginning and her family was simply brilliant. Emily had been looking forward to taking her boyfriend home for Christmas but they unexpectedly break up the week before. Emily does not want to lose face so she ends up asking Evan, her next door neighbour to come with her and pretend to be Robert. One of the many problems is that Emily can't stand Evan. He has kept her awake many nights, entertaining a constant stream of women in his bedroom which happens to be on the other side of Emily's bedroom wall. But she can't go home on her own so Evan is her only choice.They set off to Scotland, luckily it's a long car journey from London as Emily needs to make sure Evan has all the information he needs to pretend to be Robert plus they need to appear that they have been together for over 8 months.
So ensues four days of Emily and Evan pretending to be madly in love in front of her parents. However, their feelings start to develop when they are behind closed doors. Emily is so confused as to what is happening. She can't stand Evan so why does he give her butterflies and now her family think he's Robert, she really has dug herself a hole.
Joanna Bolouri has written an excellent book, I totally fell for Evan (think Ryan Gosling in Crazy, Stupid, Love) and the chemistry between him and Emily is perfect. The author provided me with so many laugh out loud moments; Emily's family were hilarious but still entirely believable.
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year has the perfect balance of romance and humour. It's lovely that the book is set at Christmas but for me it was all about Evan and Emily- they are now on my list of top fictional couples. I highly recommend this book, I may give it another read before Father Christmas comes!
Many thanks to Alainna at Quercus for inviting me to be part of this lovely book tour!
1 comment:
This book sounds like such a fun read. I love Holiday books and this one is now going on my TBR list. So glad you posted about it!
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