Product Description

Two sisters...two very different lives. Alison's American dream is in tatters. Her highflying career is on the skids in the financial meltdown. Her Upper East Side apartment is now way beyond her means . But pride prevents her from telling her family back home just how bad things are. Olivia is fraught trying to juggle family, career, preparations for Christmas and organize a surprise party for their mother's seventieth birthday. How she envies, and sometimes resents, her sister Alison and her life of excitement and affluence in New York. Coming home is the last thing Alison wants to do, especially now that she's met a rather attractive, sexy, down to earth neighbour who doesn't believe in 'non exclusive dating' unlike her wealthy boyfriend, Jonathan. But family ties are strong. Alison and Olivia sort their differences, the party throws up a few surprises and Christmas brings changes for Alison that she could never have imagined before coming home.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #711 in Books
• Published on: 2009-10-22
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

About the Author
Patricia Scanlan lives in Dublin and loves spending Christmas with her family. Her books, all Number One bestsellers, include Two For Joy, Double Wedding, Divided Loyalties, Forgive and Forget and Happy Ever After.

Customer Reviews

Small but perfectly formed
Now Patricia Scanlan is famous for her Chick Lit style of writing and I almost always pre-order her books before they come out. This book was no different; however I was surprised when I received her latest novel. I was expecting the usual bumper edition hardback, and instead I got a very small hardback consisting of just over 250 pages. However, I didn't let this put me off and got stuck into the book.

We meet Alison Dunwoody who is working and living in America. She is living the high life with expensive clothes, designer handbags and high-profile boyfriend to match. However when the recession hits, she is one of the thousands that get laid off and find herself out of work with her savings dwindling rapidly. She is forced to give up her lovely apartment and instead move to a small studio flat.

Meanwhile over in Ireland her elder sister Olivia is flat out managing her three children, husband, ageing relatives and her Mum and Dad. She is planning a party for her Mum Esther who turns 70 over the Christmas period. It's all she can do to keep it together and with so much on the last thing she needs to do is argue with her sister to try and persuade her to come over to celebrate with the family.

Olivia has kept her unemployment from her parents and family and decides to go home for the party to spend Christmas with her family. However since moving into her new apartment (albeit small) she has found an unlikely friendship with man called JJ who lives upstairs. She does however make the trip home for the surprise for her Mam. Going home is the last thing she wants, especially since finding friendship with JJ but she goes anyway. What she finds when she arrives home surprises her. Will she return to America or stay back at home in Ireland? Will Olivia and her get along okay and how will she feel hiding her secrets from her family?

The story itself was lovely with real old fashioned morals running through it and has been perfectly timed to be published with the current financial situation both in the UK and the USA. Although the book was smaller than I expected, and only took me a matter of hours to read I cannot fault it. The writing was fantastic, the story incredibly real and it was a heart-warming tale. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to her next; although I hope this time it will be a standard size Hardback.

I can understand everybodys comments regarding the fact that they felt letdown, I understand, but to be honest I think the only letdown was the price. Maybe they should have marketed this a little cheaper or maybe produced in paperback to save on costs and charges. Overall though the writing itself was brilliant.

Disappointed
Sorry, very disappointed with this book, it finished so abruptly I was left wanting.
It was unfortunate as I have read all Patricia Scanlan's books and thoroughly enjoyed them.

Disappointed by the appearance!
I had spent a long, long time selecting a book for my MIL's 50th Birthday to go with a nice bottle of tipple for her so was really happy to stumble upon this one. I thought the cover art was really pretty and looked nice to give as a gift. However, as others have said, the book is TINY, very thin and most of all the quality of the book cover is awful. It's like printer paper and the photo on the cover isn't great quality. If you're a fan, pick this up, but do not give it as a gift. It looks like something you could have picked up in the pound shops!