A Winter Flame (THE FOUR SEASONS)

by Milly Johnson

A heartwarming and hilarious novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author 

‘The feeling you get when you read a Milly Johnson book should be bottled and made available on the NHS’ Debbie Johnson

Tis the season to be jolly… But can Eve find happiness through the frost?

Eve has never liked Christmas. So when her adored elderly aunt dies, the last thing she is expecting is to be left a theme park in her will. A theme park with a Christmas theme …

And that's not the only catch. Her aunt's will stipulates that Eve must run the park with a mysterious partner, the exotically named Jacques Glace. Who is this Jacques, and why did Aunt Evelyn name him in her will?

But Eve isn't going to back down from a challenge. She's determined to make a success of Winterworld, no matter what. Can she overcome her dislike of Christmas, and can Jacques melt her frozen heart at last?

Praise for Milly Johnson:
'Every time you discover a new Milly book, it’s like finding a pot of gold' heat
'A glorious, heartfelt novel' Rowan Coleman
‘Absolutely loved it. Milly's writing is like getting a big hug with just the right amount of bite underneath. I was rooting for Bonnie from the start' Jane Fallon
‘Bursting with warmth and joie de vivre’ Jill Mansell
‘Warm, optimistic and romantic’ Katie Fforde

• ISBN10: 0857208985
• ISBN13: 9780857208989
• Publish Date: 25 October 2012
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Out of Print: 23 August 2023
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Simon & Schuster Ltd
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 416
• Language: English

Reviews

[SilverThistle]

Christmas Chick-lit. I seem to have developed a liking for cheesy romance. Can't seem to get enough of it!

This was an Amazon recc and it sounded right up my alley. Eve, who hates Christmas because of some pretty dire festive season's gone by has inherited a Christmas theme park and must run it jointly with a mysterious gentleman named Jacques Glace (which made me immediately think of Jack Frost and was a great choice of name).

It sounded great on paper but once started it didn't take me very long to develop a very strong dislike to the leading lady, Eve. We're to believe that she takes an instant dislike to Jacques because he's too friendly, happy and nice for her liking and she thinks he's up to something because nobody could be that nice just for the sake of it. She sneers when she talks to him (and about him) while everyone round her seems to think he's lovely. Here's the thing...HE IS LOVELY!!! It's that easy. He's nice, she's not. For most of the book I felt like grabbing Eve and shaking her and telling her to get over herself. I thought she was a brat, and a bitter, twisted one at that. The things she says and does to that poor man! I felt like grabbing him too and telling him to run like the wind to get away from her, he could do better. Not really what you want to feel in a romance.

The other characters were great and reading about how the theme park was progressing was the only thing that kept me going. Some of the moments were quite touching and actually the park sounded pretty cool and I'd probably visit it if it were real...but Eve spoiled it for me. Honestly, when I read about how she met the 'love of her life' it was laughable (and he sounded like a proper arse into the bargain, for his part in the proceedings).

Urgh! The story was a good one and the characters were great but I just wish Eve hadn't been so mental. She ruined it for me. So wrapped up in her own little miserable world and with the personality of a rottweiler she wasn't really romance material. I don't know why Jacques put up with her. How he kept on smiling and being nice was beyond me.

I think I was supposed to feel sorry for Eve, for all the rubbish Christmas' she'd had in the past and for her horrible life in general, but I didn't. Crappy lives and Christmases are no excuse for the level of rudeness she showed towards others and certainly not to someone who is going out of their way to be nice to her.

The story was well written though and judging by all the other 5 star reviews I'm in the minority in regards to how I felt about it. I just couldn't get past my severe dislike of Eve. Oh, and there were far, far too many cultural references too. I lost count of the TV shows and famous people used as tools to convey a feeling, mood, look, action, on and on and on...

Great, if you know who Alan Carr the chatty man is or what the kiss David Beckham gave Posh after his affair looked like, or what Lord Sugar sounds like, or any number of other name drops, but if like me you don't... it's too much.