Christmas at the Island Hotel (Mure)

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Flora lives on the island Mure in the North Atlantic with her large family of brothers and her father. She runs the Seaside Kitchen and is very happy and in love with the American Joel, who has relocated to the island. Flora has just found out that she is pregnant but is very nervous about telling Joel her news as he has trauma from his childhood and she worries that he may not want to be a father. As the novel begins, Joel has been away in the US on a business trip, but he is due to return and Flora knows she can't keep the news from him.

Next we have Flora, workaholic mother of Douglas and her husband Joel. Flora is clearly jealous of the close bond her husband appears to have with their newborn, but her focus, despite this worry, is still on opening her brother's dead husband's hotel, because, you know, reasons. As the island’s residents and special VIP guests gather for the hotel’s grand opening gala, Christmas is in the air. But so are more than a few small-town secrets… My Rating: Favorite Quotes: Lorna needs to grow up. What she does here is unprofessional and what she does to Ib and Ash in the school nativity play is insensitive. Neda should have told Saif about state sponsored schools force feeding the Christian religion down kids' throats and how their parents blindly put up with it. He should have known that since there were no other Muslim kids on the island, his kids would feel left out. That was really Neda's job to help them. Mrs. Laird means well and comes up with a nice solution but then it goes overboard and Christmas appears again, but I think I would feel the same way if I were here. These are the ONLY two kids on the island not celebrating Christmas, they've had a tough life the last few years, why not do something to show them the magic and wonder of the season in a secular way? Saif is my favorite character. He's so lovely and kind to all his patients and trying so hard to balance work and fatherhood all while grieving his lost wife. The romantic drama is sad and I felt for Saif more than Lorna. I can't imagine not knowing what happened to my spouse. I think, in his head, he knows Ameena can't be alive but his heart isn't ready to let go yet. It did start off really slow and I was overwhelmed by the overload of characters and trying to keep them all straight, but each of their individual stories was heartwarming. Some of the romances seemed a little out of place and extremely rushed as well, but they were still sweet. In Book 3 I liked the development of the story line for Lorna and Dr. Saif, the Syrian refugee doctor. His challenges with assimilation and his 2 boys and his missing wife make for an interesting secondary story. However, there is a brutal scene when the refugee office shows him video of an abused woman found in the war zone, asking him if he can identify her. I'm sure this is based on reality but it felt jarring and out-of-place in this type of "cozy cafe" novel.

Suddenly, the fairytale trip seems doomed to fail… much like the innkeeper’s dwindling cashflow. It will take a miracle to save her heart and the inn. And that just might be what Fate has in mind.

Did you think that a major plot point in an earlier book, that the reason Mark and Marsha didn’t adopt Joel when he was young was because they too, had young children at the time . . . Has now vanished in book three? Now they are childless and regretted their decision. They regret their decision in the earlier book, too, but for a very plausible reason! Now to make them childless means they were just plain weak willed when it would have counted for Joel to have parents. There were better ways to handle THAT! But then her best friend signs her up for a dating agency that promises to help singles find love before the holidays. Twenty-three days until Christmas. Twelve dates with twelve different men. The odds must finally be in her favor . . . right? I’d like to say the poor editing and character inconsistencies ex: Mark and Marsha are childless now even though Marsha referred to her children in the first book kept me from enjoying this but there was more to it than that. To avoid spoilers, I'll just leave it there. And I hope a certain character really did have an epiphany near the end and that things will be different. But I did not enjoy having American politics drug into what I had expected be a moving Christmas story set on a windswept Scottish island. This finished with so many loose ends there’s bound to be a fourth book. I’ll know to avoid it. 2 ½ stars.Another heartfelt and delightful Christmas tale from the beloved New York Times bestselling author of The Bookshop on the Corner and Christmas on the Island. The miscommunication and hurt feelings continue between Flora and Joel, with me reminding myself that they are 31 and 35 (36?) years old. They both seem younger emotionally. Favorite moment in this book... Joel is sitting with Flora, who is laying in bed with a concussion, stitches in her head, and the news that she is about to miscarry her baby, but Joel as usual is talking about himself. Finally: 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. Konstantin Pederson is working his way up in the hotel's kitchens too…but he is also, secretly, the only son of the Duke of Utsire. Konstantin has been sent to learn what it is to work hard for a living, before receiving his inheritance. Although he’s initially resentful, the place grows on him; he has never met anyone quite like Isla and her fellow Murians before. Lucy, who has jetted off to snowy Colorado for her dream-come-true white Christmas, is taken into the fold of Jules’s loud and brash family, discovering more about herself in a few short days than she has in years. Additionally, the timing is pretty off in the book. Timelines are important in series, especially and in a few instances they are muddled or stretched out, again just pointing out a laziness.