#BlogTour-‘The Christmas Calendar Girls’ by Samantha Tonge

About the book…

This Christmas fall in love with the town of Chesterwood…

Christmas is meant to be a time of giving, so with Chesterwood food bank under risk of closure Fern knows just what to do to save it. She’s going to get the town to create a living advent calendar.

Fern, and her best friends, call for help from the local community to bring this calendar to life. When Kit, the new man in town, offers his assistance Fern’s heart can’t help but skip a beat (or two).

As they grow ever closer, Fern must admit that Kit’s breaking down the barriers she built after the death of her husband. But his past is holding him back and Fern doesn’t know how to reach him. No matter how hard she tries.

In this town, Kit’s not the only one with secrets. Domestic goddess Cara is behaving oddly, burning meals in the oven and clothes whilst ironing, and Davina’s perfect children are causing trouble at school leaving her son, Jasper, desperately unhappy.

Can the Christmas Calendar Girls find a way to bring the community together in time to save the food bank, while still supporting their families and each other? Can Fern find love again with Kit?

This is a story about kindness and letting go of the past. It’s about looking out for your neighbours and about making every day feel like Christmas.

‘The Christmas Calendar Girls’ is out now from the wonderful Aria Fiction, in ebook format-what better way to get into the festive spirit and banish the winter blues than tucking into a blanket with a huge mug of coffee, cake and this book?

It genuinely is the perfect antidote to miserable, rainy days where no one seems to know what is going on-especially me-but everyone seems so unhappy.This lush story with an awesome redemptive arc pays no heed to the dismissive, sniffy attitude that still exists when it comes to women’s fiction(give me strength, these writers are bloody troupers finding the heart and soul of their characters and making you care about them! It’s not an easy thing to do at all)

So, the book itself, a perfect slice of fiction wrapped around nuggets of everyday life for the 3 calendar girls -Fern, Davina and Cara-all have their own reasons for distracting themselves from every day life by throwing themselves into a campaign to save the food bank in their hometown of Chesterwood.

Each one of us is only 3 wage slips away from using a food bank-on average-and they are a vital necessity for many people in a day of such wealth that we really should be appalled that anyone needs them . Anyhow, off my high horse, this issue is dealt with sensitively and thoughtfully, and each of the three women start to gather a community around them with this genius idea of a living advent calendar. It not only explores the challenges to creating such a scheme, but also the benefits to everyone when they start thinking of others at this time of year, a time made for giving and being selfless. And in giving, the girls recieve so much more than they bargained for…

I was immediately draw to the character of Fern-her backstory was just so sad and how she uses her job as a journalist to draw attention to the girls’ scheme is a neat juxtaposition with how she is diving into work as an outlet for the grief she feels about her hsband’s death. Her attempts to keep her and her daughter going through the most difficult of times-moving house,starting afresh with a child after losing a husband-really moved me. Her relationship building with village newcomer,Kit, has the reader totally invested in them becoming an item!

Fern and her friends are the center of the story but as the advent calendar idea spirals to involve the whole village, you get to see glimpses of other people’s lives as it touches on very real issues, without being overtly political, just sadly, very real .

I felt it was a beautiful piece of writing, this time of year is always a smorgasbord of reading for me as you have the creepiness of the Halloween horror stories nestled next to the Christmas and festive novels-completely spoilt for choice!
‘The Christmas Calendar Girls’ is my first book by Samantha Tonge, but I have already chosen my second-it’ll be ‘Game Of Scones’ so that I can read the followup, ‘My Big Fat Christmas Wedding’!

Thanks so much to Vicky at Aria for the blogtour invite! Don’t forget to check out the other wonderful blogtour hosts thoughtout this week, and next, as Aria really gets the Christmas spirit flowing!

About the author…

Samantha Tonge lives in Manchester UK with her husband and children. She studied German and French at university and has worked abroad, including a stint at Disneyland Paris. She has travelled widely.
When not writing she passes her days cycling, baking and drinking coffee.

Samantha has sold many dozens of short stories to women’s magazines.
She is represented by the Darley Anderson literary agency.

In 2013, she landed a publishing deal for romantic comedy fiction with HQDigital at HarperCollins and in 2014, her bestselling debut, ‘Doubting Abbey’, was shortlisted for the Festival of Romantic Fiction best Ebook award. In 2015 her summer novel, ‘Game Of Scones’, hit #5 in the UK Kindle chart and won the Love Stories Awards Best Romantic Ebook category. In 2018 ‘Forgive Me Not’, heralded a new direction into darker women’s fiction with publisher Canelo. In 2019 she was shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists’ Association romantic comedy award.

Links-http://samanthatonge.co.uk/

Twitter @SamanthaJongeAuthor