Home for Christmas (Christmas Fiction)

by Cally Taylor

[Leah]

Back in 2009, Cally Taylor’s debut novel blew me away. I loved it. Heaven Can Wait was one of the most refreshing and enjoyable, not to mention unique, Chick Lit novels I’ve ever read. The magic set it apart from all other Chick Lit novels and I was gutted Cally’s second novel was pushed back to 2011 from 2010. Slowly, slowly, though, the release date for Cally’s second book has been arriving and I was thrilled to pieces to receive a bright pink proof copy of Home For Christmas.

Home For Christmas is an enjoyable Christmassy novel. I can see the novel’s point, I read it in a matter of hours, but at the end of the day it’s nothing more than an enjoyable Christmas novel that I will have forgotten this time next year. Home For Christmas is lacking everything Heaven Can Wait had. The only thing that’s retained from Cally’s first book to her second is the humour and the lovely characters. The rest is gone. There’s no magic to speak of (apparently, magical novels don’t sell very well, so Cally had to take all of it out. And it shows) and it just has the kind of plot I feel like I’ve read a million times before. That doesn’t necessarily make it a bad book – because it wasn’t, I didn’t want to throw it out a window – but it’s not very memorable. It’s like I could see what Cally was trying to do and she did it well enough… But it just wasn’t good enough. It was good, but it wasn’t great.

The novel ticked all the right boxes to be a good novel, but when I got to the end I just felt disappointed. I liked it, but it has the kind of plot many authors have done before and there was nothing that particularly stood out to me. The plot was fine – Beth loves working at the Picturebox and when she learns a bigger company are trying to buy it, she’s devastated. Enter Matt, who works for said bigger company. Throw in a ditzy best friend, a psycho ex-girlfriend (on Matt’s side), a total idiot of an ex-boyfriend (on Beth’s side), chuck in a pushy mother who wants to move to Austrlia (Beth’s) and a Granddad who just wants to see his Grandson happy (Matt’s), stir and you’re done. Oh, and not forgetting Carl, the total creep Beth works with and allows to bully her considerably. And it’s set at Christmastime (score one for Cally Taylor writing an obligatory Xmas novel, woohoo!). I know that probably sounds flippant; heck I’m sure the entire paragraph sounds flippant but I was expecting more from the book and I felt it was all just ho-hum.

The characters helped to keep me reading. Sure, they’re all carbon-copy cookie-cutter Chick Lit characters – Beth with her hopelessness in life/love/job and her ability to wear ridiculously tight pants to go abseiling thinking they wouldn’t split(!) and Matt who despite thinking his girlfriend Alice is a psycho, still allows her to walk all over him when most people would tell her exactly where to take herself, but despite their foibles I did like them. Beth was charming in a strange sort of way, despite her stupidity over the pants and despite the fact she let Carl The Creep treat her like crap. She made me laugh, and I found her very amusing. Matt, too, was endearing at times. I did find him a tad weak (re: Alice) but I liked his banter with Beth, I thought they got on really well together. The rest of the characters were fine, with Matt’s Granddad being the stand-out character for me, I absolutely loved him and his and Matt’s relationship was just amazing to read.

I know I probably sound like a Debbie Downer on the novel, but it honestly wasn’t a bad novel. It just sort of ticked all the requisite boxes without really challenging itself. I think Cally having to take out the magical elements is probably what caused its downfall because it does feel as though something’s missing. It does feel a bit soulless. But like I said, I did enjoy it (and I know if I keep saying that, you’re all going to think I doth protest too much) I just expected a better follow up from the author who brought us Heaven Can Wait. It kills me that authors have to write to an expectant publisher and take out any elements that don’t follow the Chick Lit handbook. Doesn’t how much I – and many others – loved Heaven Can Wait prove that a bit of magic isn’t going to kill a novel dead? I would love to pick up a German copy of this novel, as Cally was allowed to keep in the magic and I’d love to see how that differed with all of its originality in tact. (Of course, I would have to learn German first, sadly.) It’s an alright novel. I feel bad I didn’t love it as much as I wanted to, but it just wasn’t a patch on Cally’s first novel.