Christmas at the Island Hotel (Mure)

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Especially when their motley staff includes a temperamental French chef, a spoilt Norwegian kitchen boy who can't peel a potato without mutilating his own hand and a painfully shy kitchen assistant who blushes when anyone speaks to her.

Although this is book four in Jenny Colgan’s ‘Mure Series,’ it is my first from this talented author. There are a handful of literary references, too, which is fine, although I was irritated at mention of Edward (rather than Edmund) and turkish delight. Flora feels guilty leaving baby Douglas with Joel, his father, who is totally enamored with his baby son. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Not realizing this was book 4 in a series it took a bit to sort out who was who and their back story.The new hotel’s impressive kitchens throw together two unlikely new friends: Isla Gregor is the hardworking young girl who has been a waitress in the island's cafe, dreaming of a bigger, better life now that she’s at a proper fancy hotel.

A lovely, warm-hearted Christmas tale about a family and extended family on the tiny island of Mure. Agot, as ever, provides so much light entertainment, I can almost see her furrowed, often furious brow. BUT Jenny Colgan has changed the back stories of several main characters which I find really frustrating. It is still close enough to Christmas with a nip in the air, so I see no reason to stop reading Christmas stories, and this one was good fun and hit all the feels from the lows of grief and humiliation to the highs of a freshly acquired sense of purpose and pride as well as new and deepening love affairs. Fintan goes off to Glasgow to interview chefs and brings back the only one willing to go to Mure, a tattooed, long-haired, Frenchman, named Gaspard.The settings make you want to move there (she even makes the tap water sound amazing) and the descriptions of baking and food have ruined my attempts to stick to my diet, goddammit! So badly so, that he doesn't care about the wishes of his dead hubby that he would rather just mope about and not exist within the confines of the pages of the book about his hotel. Hoewel ik stiekem graag nóg iets meer kerstsfeer had gevoeld, krijg je toch al een flinke portie toegeworpen met sneeuw, kerstbomen, lichtjes, verrukkelijke diners en liefde. Yes, of course, there is a little romance in here, but it is not the ‘syrupy sweet’ stuff I have read in other books. Suffice to say I am not the target audience, and I won't be reading any of the other books in the series.