Rachel Gilbey's Reviews > I'll Be Home for Christmas

Over the past few years I have been attracted to Roisin Meaney books when I have spotted them in various Kindle sales, and then unfortunately I have forgotten to start reading them, and so my collection for the author has grown until this book.

I'll Be Home For Christmas is the first Roisin Meaney I have read, and all I can say is I'm so glad I have a stock pile of others to read already, as I need to read more from this fabulous author. This was obviously also my first trip to Roone Island, and I can see why I've seen people raving about the location. There is just something special about this tiny island off the west coast of Ireland, that draws visitors and readers into it.

I'll Be Home For Christmas can definitely be read as a standalone book, I am guessing at what was background info from the previous books, and felt like I knew more than enough to get a good idea of what may have happened. However the main focus of this book is on Laura's family.

Laura has five children, one husband, a menagerie of farm animals, and is recovering from Cancer. She also has her mother in law visiting just before Christmas. Between some awful weather conditions, she last thing she wants or needs is her mother in law stuck on the island for Christmas, and then on Christmas day she gets a surprise visitor.

Tilly had boarded a plane, from Australia, via Singapore and London, to Ireland,three days before Christmas to meet a woman she has never met, and doesn't know that Tilly exists.

The book alternates viewpoints between Laura's and Tilly, and from Tilly's early story we see a lot of kindness of strangers, and some fabulous examples of that famous Irish hospitality.

This is a story of warmth towards everyone, and also of families, of all kinds. Adoptive families, birth parents, extended family and also features some lovely children. Laura's twin girls and Poppy, are all utterly adorable, and Laura although clearly stressed, and scared, is someone who we get to know in great detail. And see her thoughts on the new arrival, and then on other occurrences to the family, and on Roone Island.

I got a great feeling for the island of Roone, and its fabulous community spirit. I think if I was to read the other books set their I would get a stronger feeling of its beauty, which is harder to tell in winter.

I'll Be Home For Christmas is a truly remarkable book, set over the Christmas period. It isn't the sort of book that will make you run out and want to put the tree up early, but it is, a heart warming tale, that you won't want to put down.

Thanks to Netgalley and Hatchette Ireland for this review copy. This was my honest opinion.