Christmas Under the Stars by Karen SwanPublisher: Pan Macmillan, November 2016
Genre: Fiction
Pages: Paperback, 484 pages
Rating: 4/5 stars
Summary (from chapters.indigo.ca):
In the snow-topped mountains of the Canadian Rockies, Meg and Mitch are living their dream. Just weeks away from their wedding, they work and play with Tuck and Lucy, their closest and oldest friends. Meg and Lucy are as close as sisters - much to Meg's sister's dismay - and Tuck and Mitch have successfully turned their passion for snowboarding into a booming business.
But when a polar storm hits, tragedy strikes. Alone in the tiny mountain log cabin she shares with Mitch, Meg desperately tries to radio for help - and it comes from the most unexpected quarter, a lone voice across the airwaves that sees what she cannot.
As the snow melts and they try to live with their loss, the friendship Meg thought was forever is buckled by tensions, rivalries and devastating secrets. Nothing is as she thought and only her radio contact understands what it is to be truly alone. As they share confidences in the dark, witnessed only by the stars, Meg feels her future begin to pull away from her past and is forced to consider a strange truth - is it her friends who are the strangers? And a stranger who really knows her best?
Review:
I said this in the last Karen Swan review, but I read her Christmas books every year and thoroughly enjoy them. Christmas Under the Stars is a bit of a mixed bag for me though... while I loved it, I don't know if I would classify this as a 'Christmas' story.
To me, a Christmas story needs to take place in December and focus on, well, Christmas. Christmas Under the Stars actually takes place from March through to the end of the year, 2017, however, it's not until page 463 (of 484) that the story even enters the month of December. Literally TWENTY pages of the book was over Christmas and on none of those pages did you get the Christmas-y feel. Oh, wait, I think someone may have said "Happy Christmas" on one of those pages. There were no trees, no Santa's, no cookie, no presents... nothing! Not even a mention of a candy cane or some Christmas lights. The cover was more Christmas-y than the story.
All that said, I really did enjoy the story. I felt like Karen Swan took a step back from what her readers have come to expect with her Christmas stories (hence the lack of Christmas) and almost delved into a bit of a suspense. Not officially a suspense, but I did find myself sitting close to the edge of the seat while I waited to find out how the story would come together. There really wasn't a point in the book that I felt the story was lacking... I enjoyed the characters very much and thought they all melded together well.
Overall, I can really only fault the story for it's lack of Christmas, hence the 4 stars but if you are just looking for a good, quick, read... this is one that I would highly recommend.
