Rachale's Reads: The Twelve Dates of Christmas by Lisa Dickenson

For this 'Friday First', I'm reading a much anticipated read and I'm very happy to be part of 'The Twelve Dates of Christmas' blog tour! Make sure you check out the other blogs on the poster below!

Synopsis

At thirty, Claudia's life is stale and the romance with long-term boyfriend, Seth, has disappeared. Determined to inject some festive spark back into their love life, Claudia and Seth go on their first date in a very long time. But when the night ends in disaster, Claudia suddenly finds herself facing life - and Christmas - alone.

Life alone is exciting, scary and full of soon-forgotten exercise regimes and ill-advised attempts at crafting sexy underwear. It's also filling up with dates, surprisingly. With best friends Penny and Nick at her side, a surplus of festive markets, mulled wine and Christmas tunes, Claudia attempts to face all this change with gusto. One thing's for certain: this year, Christmas is going to be very different ...

This is the story of Claudia and her twelve dates of Christmas. Hilarious, uplifting and romantic, it's a story about losing love, finding love, and discovering what's been there all along. Expect Christmas sparkle, butterflies-in-your-stomach romance and a lot of very funny moments in The Twelve Dates of Christmas.

Review

I've heard really good things about Lisa's previous books, however I had not read any of them, so was ecstatic to be asked if I wanted to review this for the blog tour.

The cover is beyond gorgeous. The lovely turquoise colour of the back ground, the gold foil snowflakes and London eye, the silhouette of the London skyline and the white snow. Perfectly wintery and Christmassy. The typography as well is just beautiful. Now, time to stop fawning over the cover and onto the contents inside.

From the get go, this book was incredibly readable. Everything from Claudia's struggle with her evil underwear to the incident in the bathroom was captivating and alot of it made me smile and laugh. Lisa has a fantastic way of writing to really get you visualising where Claudia is and how she is feeling is well written, clear and relatable.

Claudia's close friendship with Nick and Penny is one of my favourite trio's I've read. They obviously know each other really well and support each other. There is one incident when Penny tells Claudia something that made my Jaw drop and while I wish Claudia would have told Penny how she was feeling, I understand fully why she wouldn't and it doesn't matter how close I was to someone, it was a very difficult subject to approach, especially as she was denying her feelings to herself.

All the dates are varied but there are a few beyond the first one that are especially memorable. The blind date that Penny sets Claudia up with was just hilarious. Eddie was a disaster from the get go, but is a great example of the humour I was talking about earlier. The date with Billy was also one of my favourites and I really liked Billy as a character.

Of course there is conflict in the book not only in love interests but in friendships to, and the last third or so of this book really stood out, you could see exactly what everyone was thinking and while you wanted to shout 'just speak to one another', it's always easier to see what other people should do in situations, and nothing is ever clear when you're the one hurting.

This book has a wonderful wintery feel, with each date having the Christmas magic that this book promises. If you're looking for a book to get you in the Christmas spirit, this is the perfect place to start!