Christmas at the Island Hotel (Mure)

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In what is probably the most jarring strand of storytelling in this novel is the part about Saif and Lorna.

As the island’s residents and special VIP guests gather for the hotel’s grand opening gala, Christmas is in the air. Even the younger characters, whilst using messaging services, seem to b e blissfully unaware of the internet. This book piqued my interest because I was in immediate need of a happy read, (and I mean now), that could lift me from my reality, (pandemic cabin fever), and take me anywhere else to lift my mood. The Rock – the rambling, disused hotel on the tip of the island – was Colton's passion project before he died.Maybe she is a bit jealous, but she is also amazed that Joel went from a high-powered, international lawyer, to a Daddy! Instead the story revolves around the opening of ‘The Rock’, a hotel bequeathed to Finton MacKenzie by his deceased husband.

You don’t need to read the earlier three books to enjoy this book, but it would help you to enjoy the development of the relationships between the characters.Also, one of the storylines has seemed off since Colgan first introduced it in an earlier book - maybe it’s because I don’t think it’s a story she should be telling. If you're looking for sweet, chatty, uplifting and absorbing reads you can't go wrong with Jenny Colgan. Flora feels guilty leaving baby Douglas with Joel, his father, who is totally enamored with his baby son.

What I love about her books is the witty writing, the laugh out loud comedy, the heartwarming plots, and the cozy settings. wife and his relationship with Lorna, and some other funny and not-so-funny antics around the island. I completely fell in love with Gaspard, the new French chef and the Norwegian Konstantin, and I am very sad that the Rock Hotel doesn't actually exist. Die Story war ganz nett, was mich aber massiv gestört hat, war, dass die Autorin sich offenbar nicht mehr an die Namen ihrer Charaktere erinnern konnte.I didn’t read the first two books, and that didn’t much matter, but I quite liked ‘ Endless Beach’, and ‘ An Island Christmas’, which I read in August 2020. It is still close enough to Christmas with a nip in the air, so I see no reason to stop reading Christmas stories, and this one was good fun and hit all the feels from the lows of grief and humiliation to the highs of a freshly acquired sense of purpose and pride as well as new and deepening love affairs. Thankfully, the story quickly settled into the usual familiar rhythm of island life, centring around the three generations of MacKenzie family, and the luxury hotel, The Rock. Especially when their motley staff includes a temperamental French chef, a spoilt Norwegian kitchen boy who can't peel a potato without mutilating his own hand and a painfully shy kitchen assistant who blushes when anyone speaks to her.

Right from the very start of the book, I was scratching my head trying to figure out who the Bookers were. With Flora's help, Fintan is going to get the hotel up and running in time for Christmas, transforming it into a festive haven of crackling log fires and delicious food.

The residents of this gentle, close knit rural Scottish community, will provide you with some lovely escapism. The cleverly constructed storylines were engaging and relatable and packed with wry levity and amusing observations from a large cast of compellingly quirky and complex characters. And while I really liked the series in general, if another Mure Island book comes out, I would hesitate before reading it--I simply have no patience with the inconsistencies and changes--when you are writing a series of books that readers grow attached to, it makes zero sense to start changing names, etc. A large amount of this story features the staff working in the kitchens of The Rock, including the fiery French chef Gaspard, Isla from the Seaside Kitchen who is incredibly shy, and Konstantin who is a young Norwegian man with absolutely no life experience of anything, but has been banished to Mure to get a job. The characters were not particularly memorable, but there were some quite interesting subplots and I was intrigued to know how it would continue.