Under the Mistletoe

A lovely Christmas story

A very enjoyable Christmas story. After her divorce Laurel returns to her family home in the village of Middledip, to stay with her sister Rea, and Rea’s fourteen year old daughter Daisy. Rea is having a hard time, she has developed agoraphobia, and she is glad of Laurel’s support. It is a few weeks before Christmas and the weather is freezing. Laurel is a successful artist, and is planning to use her mother’s old studio, in the garden of their house, as her art studio.

Laurel and Daisy go shopping in the nearest town, and on the way home they are flagged down by a man, and they notice another man standing beside a car, and he doesn’t appear to be wearing trousers. The first man knocks on the car window, and she recognises him as Grady Cassidy, her boyfriend when they were sixteen, nineteen years ago. Daisy recognises the other man, Grady’s brother Mac, the Head of Year at her school. Laurel has a history with Mac, and it is not a happy one, he was involved in a terrifying incident that caused her to leave the village, and stay with her aunt in the town while she finished school and college. Very few people know about it. When Laurel realises it is him she finds that her hatred of him has not diminished at all in all the years since she last lived in the village. The men had stopped to help with a car that had apparently broken down, but five young men jumped out and attacked them, taking Mac’s jeans and boots, the car keys and both their phones, and attached Mac to the car door handle with cable ties, before driving off. They were stranded and freezing. Despite having thoughts about the revenge of just driving off and leaving them, she finds a tool to free Mac in her car boot, then drives them home. It is only when they are nearly home that the brothers realise she is Laurel.

Laurel settles into village life, renewing her acquaintance with quite a few of the local people. She gets started on a new painting, and helps out with local Christmas plans. She has to take Daisy to school one day to help her sort out an upsetting problem. She gets close to Grady again, finding that their feelings for each other are every bit s strong as thy were when they were teenagers, but the spectre of her feelings about Mac threaten their relationship. Grady has issues of his own that have affected his life and need to be resolved.

Although a mostly happy, and often amusing story it does deal with some serious issues, and shows how different people handle these issues in different ways. It takes several things happening in a very short time for Laurel to finally give up her desire for revenge against Mac, and be able to move on with her life. Sue Moorcroft writes about the people on the village with such warmth that they feel entirely real. The serious issues in the story are dealt with in a real and sympathetic way that is totally appropriate. All in all, an excellent story and well worth reading.