Wednesday 21 October 2015

Book ~ "Christmas on Candy Cane Lane" (2015) Sheila Roberts

From Goodreads ~ Everyone's getting ready for Christmas in Icicle Falls, especially on Candy Cane Lane, where holiday decorating is taken very seriously. 

Tilda Morrison, town cop, is looking forward to celebrating Christmas in her first house … until she discovers that she's expected to "keep up" with the neighbors, including Maddy Donaldson, the inspiration behind the whole extravaganza. But this year, someone's destroying Maddie's precious candy canes! Thank goodness for the cop in their neighborhood. 

Tilda already has her hands full trying to sort out her love life and fix up her fixer-upper. Oh, and won't it be fun to have the family over for Christmas dinner? Not really.

Then there's her neighbor, Ivy Bohn. As a newly single mom, Ivy can sum up the holiday in two words ... bah, humbug. But she's determined to give her kids a perfect Christmas.

Despite family disasters, irritating ex-husbands and kitchen catastrophes, these three women are going to find out that Christmas really is the most wonderful time of the year! 

Tilda is a police officer in Icicle Falls.  She sold her condo and has bought a house that needs a lot of work on Candy Cane Lane.  What would complete her life is to find "the one".  But the only one who is interested in her is bad boy, Devon Black, and she won't give him the time of day.

Maddy is one of Tildy's neighbours.  It's important to her that the street live up to its name during the Christmas season and ensures that everyone decorates and that someone plays Mrs. Santa and gives out candy canes when people drive up and the down the street to see the decorations.

Ivy is another neighbour and is newly divorced.  Her ex-husband, Rob, wanted his freedom last year and left her ... which left her very bitter.  He is a good dad but Ivy is left with the majority of raising their two young children while trying to run the family business.

This is the ninth I've read by this author (and the eighth in the Icicle Falls series) and I liked it.  Written in third person perspective, the focus shifts among the characters and you get to know what they are thinking.  I liked the writing style and found it was easy to read.  As a head's up, there is some mild swearing.

I liked Tilda, though I found her to be very biased.  She doesn't even know Devon yet she makes assumptions about him.  She's gotten more than she bargained for by moving to Candy Cane Lane.  Her neighbours think it's great having a cop on the street, even when she's off duty.  Ivy would give anything to have her family back together but is constantly wishing ill on Rob.  She definitely is having a hard time moving on.  Maddy was my least favourite.  She was obsessed with making sure Candy Cane Lane was decorated for the holidays and that someone was always out giving away candy canes ... even to the point of putting it above her obligations to her family.  Her 13-year-old daughter, Jordan, was an annoying brat but no wonder ... she felt that Maddy put Candy Cane Lane ahead of her and she's wasn't wrong.

I'd recommend this book if you are looking for a nice "feel good" story.

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