Married By Christmas

by Scarlett Bailey

[Leah]

Last year I read Scarlett Bailey’s debut novel The Night Before Christmas, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. So when I was told she would be working on a new book, I was thrilled. Scarlett Bailey then announced she was actually Rowan Coleman which was surprising, as I’d never suspected it. So I was pleased to dig into my copy of Married By Christmas with this new information about its author, and I quite liked the idea of Anna wanting to be married so much that she was willing to do anything it took to marry her fiance, Tom. Not to mention the beautiful Christmas-y cover.

Married By Christmas is a rollercoaster of a ride. The synopsis doesn’t give much away, only alluding to the fact Anna’s fiance is a married man and that she hankers after a Christmas wedding. Don’t get me wrong, it made me want to read the book, but man, that’s a sparse synopsis as far as synopses goes. So I was pleasantly surprised that there’s a lot more to the book than just Anna hankering after a Christmas wedding and her fiance having a wife. Like Anna flying off to New York in search of Tom’s wife. It was entirely unpredicted, and I didn’t see it coming at all. It was an amazing part of the novel and when you compare it to Anna’s OCD personality, well, it’s just not something she would normally do, but, in actual fact, it works brilliantly and I loved the adventure of it all. I loved that for once, Anna just went with her idea, not stopping to really think about it and talk herself out of it. I thought the plot was just fantastic, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially with Miles who was an unexpected addition to the novel.

Anna is a Marmite character – you’re either going to love her or you’re going to hate her. She’s obsessed with making lists, and everything being just so and some will find it really irritating. I could, in a sort of way, see why Anna struggled to find and keep a man, but actually, I liked Anna. Rather than find her annoying and irrating and all of those things, instead I found it sad that after the life she had endured she still felt that she needed control of everything 100% just to make sure nothing would go wrong. So it is a massive surprise when Anna ups sticks and heads to New York, in search of Charisma Jones. Even more so when Miles, a man she had a very unsuccessful date with once upon a time, ends up helping her along the way. I thought Anna’s foster family were lovely people, especially her best friend/sister Liv, who’s pretty much Anna’s rock and the only person who knows everything there is to know about Anna.

I just thoroughly enjoyed everything about Married By Christmas, the proposal that introduced us to the novel, the revelation about Tom, the wild New York goosechase, it all just flowed so effortlessly. Scarlett Bailey/Rowan Coleman writes like a dream and I adore her books, under both author names. She has very much proven that she can write serious books and more light-hearted affairs and Married By Christmas is a million times better than A Night Before Christmas, proving that even after so many novels, she can still top herself. I wasn’t 100% sure of Miles in the beginning, but I warmed to him as the novel went on. The whole novel was just filled with wonderful characters – even Charisma Jones, believe it or not! – and the backdrop of New York was perfect and utterly unexpected. I very much recommend the book and I hope that Rowan Coleman keeps up her Scarlett Bailey persona as the Scarlett Bailey books are so fun and so Christmas-y, and I absolutely adored Married By Christmas.