Published By: Pan
Pages: 464
Released On: 10/10/2024
Christmas in Copenhagen is a magical time of year but Darcy Cotterell isn’t feeling festive. Newly single, again, she’s not even going home for Christmas but must spend the holiday finishing her art history PhD. Her best friend, Freja, has other ideas though and signs Darcy up to a dating app, determined that she won’t be lonely this Christmas.
Darcy agrees to three dates but her mind is on work, not play: an unknown portrait by Denmark’s greatest painter has been found and she is tasked with identifying the woman in the painting. During her research, she encounters sexy, arrogant lawyer Max Lorensen – who happens to be bachelor number one! The attraction is instant but knowing they must work together, they abandon the match. Or try to. But their feelings are undeniable – until Darcy discovers Max has an agenda.
*****
Thanks to Pan for the gifted proof of this title in return for an honest review and a spot on the book tour.
There’s not much more exciting than a new Christmas book, especially one by Karen Swan.
This is going to be a generalisation but a positive one. Whenever I read festive books, they tend to be along the happily-ever-after line – snow, romance, uplifting, easy to read etc. And I love that, don’t get me wrong, I’d read them any day of the week. But with a Karen Swan Christmas book, they’ve got that but they’ve also got so much depth, so many other interesting layers to them that whilst you assume it’ll end in the same vein as the happily-ever-after types, there’s no guarantee and it becomes really interesting to read.
As someone who was fascinated by, but not very good at, art, and oved history, I absolutely loved the plot regarding the mysterious painting of an unknown woman. I liked the romance plot and other subplots, but it was the art strand that I was so interested in.
What I will say – and this is possibly my expectations rather than a comment on the book itself – but with a title like All I Want For Christmas, I was expecting much more of a festival novel, but with life happening around it, but apart from the odd mention about people’s plans for Christmas, there is no real festive feel to it. There are suggestions, such as buying a Christmas tree, but apart from that, there’s no festivities. Whilst I really enjoyed it and will always recommend a Karen Swan book, but this is not the cosy festive story I was expecting from the cover.
I liked Darcy as a main character. She seemed to stumble through life, not certain of things and that endeared her to me. Her best friend is a fine accompaniment; she didn’t impact the story enough for me to have a huge opinion on her but she was good to read and I loved her working off of Darcy. And then the main man Max, he is a bit…aloof maybe, confident, handsome, slightly awkward but in a way where he uses it to his advantage, sometimes cocky. My opinion on him flipped and flopped. He was charming but with a short fuse and at times I just wanted to bang his and Darcy’s heads together. Then we have Aksel, the quiet, shy, handsome vet who is not necessarily all he appears to be. There are a lot of other characters, potentially a few too many although I didn’t feel overwhelmed. Some are more prominent than others, obviously, but I didn’t feel there were any surplus ones which is always good.
It didn’t wow me quite as much as I expected. It was still really good and I thoroughly enjoyed it and I’m glad I’ve read it and will recommend it highly, but having read some of her other books, this one didn’t really have the big wow moment.
Overall, I would say a very good story, I was fully invested and really thoroughly enjoyed, but I think it’s a bit of a stretch to call it a Christmas novel.
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