Linda Mitchelmore
HQ Digital
December 4, 2018
Blurb: A holiday to change their lives forever!
A festive feel-good holiday read, perfect for fans of Lilly Bartlett, Tilly Tennant and Eve Devon.
When Lissy inherits her late godmother’s seaside villa, Strand House, she decides to turn her life upside-down and move to the seaside.
It couldn’t have come at a more perfect time for Lissy, so when she realizes that her best friends, Janey, Bobbie and Xander are going to be alone over the holidays, she invites them to stay!
Every one of them has a secret, but at Christmas time anything can happen – and this is sure to be one to remember…
SASCHA DARLINGTON’S REVIEW
Honestly, I expected more from Christmas at Strand House by Linda Mitchelmore from reading the blurb. It sounds like the perfect read with four lonely people, each with a tantalizing secret, spending Christmas in a huge, lovely home.
The secrets turn out to be not so tantalizing; the descriptions of the food, however, are.
The novel is so ripe with possibilities that never quite come to fruition. And, I found it marred by an incident early on when both Lissy and Xander, separately, recall an intoxicated dance at Xander and Claire’s wedding in which they had a moment, a moment of “what could have been.” I suppose that the author thought this would be romantic having the new husband and the wife’s best friend have that moment so that they had a foundation for this future romance, but I found it sad, and it unsettled the remainder of the novel for me because it so was unromantic. Idealistically I would have preferred that the new husband be totally and absolutely, head-over-heels in love with his new wife.
Christmas at Strand House has little drama. What does occur are misunderstandings via dialogue and then drawn out apologies. There’s a lot of repetition due to this.
Despite the setting and Christmas frivolity, Christmas at Strand House never moves beyond that for me. I never really came to care about the characters, and ultimately I just wished something would happen.
This is a case of YMMV (your-mileage-may-vary) because it has lots of love on Goodreads.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
rating: 
3 out of 5 butterflies
I wouldn’t be keen on that premise either. If groom can’t focus on his bride, doesn’t bode well.
She subsequently died but still. It had an element of ooky for me.
That’s too bad. The blurb does sound a lot more positive. And you’re right, it certainly doesn’t sound as geel good as one likes at this time of year.
You might want to check out the other reviews on Goodreads which are glowing. Unless, you tend to agree with my take on books. 🙂 I hate to dissuade someone from a novel they might enjoy.