Member Review

As always, Rebecca Raisin did not disappoint. "Flora's Travelling Christmas Shop" was just the palate cleanser I needed after my last read. (While technically this is the third in a trilogy of books about traveling shops, each can be read as a stand alone.)

As is to be expected, Flora's story is a classic Rebecca Raisin rom-com... However! What I loved most about it was the fact that they (the characters IN the story) knew it was a romcom and ran with it. Throughout the entire story Flora and her best friend compare Flora's life to a Hallmark Movie. It absolutely played out that way and I couldn't have loved it more.

{Reader/Reviewer Rant: The thing with romcoms and their close cousins, cozy mysteries, is that we read them because we KNOW what to expect and we KNOW how it's going to end. So when I refer to this story as "classic" or "typical" it is not even close to a negative comment. It is, in fact, a compliment - a way to show that an author has hit their stride in giving their audience exactly what they are hoping for. With both romcoms and cozies, since you know the HEA is coming, you get to choose exactly what kind of environment and character can make that happen for you. Love a small town bookshop? We've got a book for that! Want a mystery set on a canal boat in England? We've got that, too! If you pick up this type of story and then complain that it's formulaic, then this is clearly not the genre for you. Rant Over. Thanks for listening.}

So are you looking for a romcom set around traveling shops in Finland at Christmastime whose main character is a misunderstood dreamer and whose love interest is a curmudgeonly boss that grumbles like Scrooge but looks like Thor? Then have I got the book for you!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and HQ/HarperCollins for this advanced copy to read and review.