Christmas at the Island Hotel (Mure)

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Thankfully, the story quickly settled into the usual familiar rhythm of island life, centring around the three generations of MacKenzie family, and the luxury hotel, The Rock. this is the fourth book that takes place on this fabulous fictional island of Mure off the Scottish coast. A lovely, warm-hearted Christmas tale about a family and extended family on the tiny island of Mure. It wasn't just small things, some characters who have been in the entire series now have different first or last names.

Flora feels guilty leaving baby Douglas with Joel, his father, who is totally enamored with his baby son. Set on a remote island off the coast of Scotland, a family in turmoil prepares to open a hotel in time for Christmas.

Flora is determined to have everything up and running for Christmas, in hope of the festive atmosphere bringing a smile back to her brother’s face, a smile that she hasn’t seen since Colton died. First off I must admit, I am new to Jenny Colgan, and I have not read any of the other books in the Island series, so this is my first introduction to the Island of Mure and it's cast of off putting inhabitants. Constantine is a bit of a mystery (The reader is privy to his backstory but no one in town knows his truth). Siblings Fintan and Flora are trying to get the hotel ready for opening at Christmas, while Fintan battles grief and Flora adapts to the new world of motherhood. There are some stream-of-consciousness passages, where a character's thoughts spill out, and that mostly works, but in other places I’d have preferred shorter sentences.

Christmas at the Island Hotel takes place on the island of Mure, a fictional island north of the UK. 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.Flora is meant to be on maternity leaving having had Douglas, but instead finds herself helping out at the Rock more and more, given Fintan is of course still grieving for Colton, but also finding himself whether he wants to be or not, in charge of seeing Colton's dream come to fruition. A coming of age tale for both teenage islander Isla and a playboy Norwegian prince, banished on a tiny Scottish islet until he can prove himself useful. 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. But there are some good subplots too - will Dr Saif ever find out whether his long-lost wife is still alive…?

You don’t need to read the earlier three books to enjoy this book, but it would help you to enjoy the development of the relationships between the characters. Definitely yes as well, but you need to have read the first three books in the series for this one to be as meaningful as possible. having not read the previous books I was a little concerned at first, but I was not confused or lost at any time during the story. Fishing boats leave the small harbor regularly unless the winds reach gale force, or the ice seizes everything. I completely fell in love with Gaspard, the new French chef and the Norwegian Konstantin, and I am very sad that the Rock Hotel doesn't actually exist.

But Saif finds out that his wife, whom he must have lost upon fleeing the country, is alive and seemingly married to, can you believe it, a Daesh fighter. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.

You can imagine what must be done to open a hotel and restaurant several months before Christmas, no?macht den Eindruck, dass das Buch schnell geschrieben wurde, um das derzeitige Interesse an der Serie auszuschöpfen. A cute holiday story centered around the staff at a hotel on the small (fictional) island of Mure, located halfway between Scotland and Norway. For me, there wasn't the character attachment or emotional investment in the outcome which could have potentially happened if I had read the previous books.