Kirsty Scott is a Sunday Times Bestselling Author. Not bad for an author who has published only 2 previous novels. I should be so lucky. Anyway, this is a family saga set in present day Scotland. A family reunion of Great-Grandmother, Gran and Grandad and their 3 daughters with various grandchildren and spouses/partners either present or dropping in temporarily. Plus the unseen presence of Gran and Grandad's lost son, the daughter's brother, killed in his teens in a road accident many years before.
It's quite a gentle tale of quite an ordinary family but Christmas is notoriously a time when close proximity brings out long forgotten challenges in family life and that's exactly what happens here. What I particularly liked about this story, however, is that it didn't seek to solve everybody's problems in the last chapter. We don't get to see what happens to the teenager when he goes back to school after the holiday, or the straight talking Great-Grandmother who is quietly losing her marbles, or the daughter who can't tumble over the edge into commitment and would rather tumble into a bottle instead. They are human, and their stories continue after the book ends. And that's just as it should be. Wonderfully drawn portraits of people of all ages, crafted with love by an observant author who weaves a page turner out of ordinary events. Masterful.
Recommended if you like modern family stuff.
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