Love and Lies at The Village Christmas Shop: Book 10

Portia MacIntosh

Oct 2018 · Sold by HarperCollins UK

About this ebook

Blast the Michael Bublé, wrap your hands around a cinnamon latte and enjoy this warm, hilarious Christmas novel!

Ivy loves Christmas. As the owner of Christmas Every Day, the year-round festive store, you'd expect nothing less!

The only thing missing in Ivy's life is a dash of romance – something her twin sister Holly will not let her forget...

When her mother passed away, Ivy vowed to take over the running of her mother’s store and keep the Christmas spirit alive in the idyllic seaside town of Marram Bay.

But all this changes when an enigmatic businessman moves to the town, threatening to bulldoze her beloved shop to make way for a holiday complex.

Can Ivy save her shop before Christmas? Could there be a different side to the newest resident of Marram Bay that would make all her Christmas wishes come true?

The brand-new laugh-out-loud romantic comedy from bestseller Portia Macintosh. Perfect for fans of Zara Stoneley and Tilly Tennant.

Readers love Portia Macintosh:

‘I really loved, no make that ADORED reading this book.’

‘I didn't enjoy it... I LOVED IT!!!!’

‘A heart-warming, uplifting book that had me captivated from the first chapter’

‘Portia MacIntosh as always delivers us a treat, one that will leave us smiling from ear to ear.’

‘Hilarious, unique, refreshingly brilliant, and addictive read’

‘Heartwarming, well-written, and entertaining’

Ratings and reviews

3.5 Stars I was actually quite charmed by this tale, once I settled in to it and couldn't understand why some of the peripheral characters felt so familiar. I knew that Ivy was new to me, and her twin Holly, but something had the vaguest twinge of deja vu to it. Then I realised we have been transported to Marram Bay before, but a very different Marram Bay to this rather isolated location. I could get on board with an all year round Christmas Shop and I know they do exist but to have one so far outside the village seemed to defeat the purpose of a retail outlet and to find it struggling was no real surprise. To be entirely honest the whole trying to save the shop from the charming developer plot left me cold (and not in a festive way). What did save this book for me was the characters that inhabited it. From a devious Santa, to a stay-at-home mum with worries about her future and her family to the grieving daughter who has never really covered from the loss of her mother. Every character, no matter how brief their appearance on the page, has a fully rounded personality that the author manages to coax out with few words. The residents of Marram Bay feel wholly real and as complex as any person you really know, some of them are even rather unlikeable. The plot itself is rather predictable but there is no miraculous saviour for the Village Christmas Shop and a modicum of reality is held on to by the author. Despite managing to give you that warm feeling of a happy ending it is only really happy-ish as a dollop of the real world is allowed to intrude in to the way things work out. Only a dollop though, after all this is fiction and we demand our happily-ever-after. A fun, solid read that is more about the people than the plot.

About the author

Portia MacIntosh has been ‘making stuff up’ for as long as she can remember – or so she says. Whether it was blaming her siblings for that broken vase when she was growing up, blagging her way backstage during her rock chick phase or, most recently, whatever justification she can fabricate to explain away those lunchtime cocktails, Portia just loves telling tales.

After years working as a music journalist, Portia decided it was time to use her powers for good and started writing novels instead.

Bestseller Portia writes hilarious romcoms, drawing on her real life experiences to show what it’s really like being a woman today – especially one who doesn’t quite have her life together yet.