This September, Melody Carlson offered her inspirational Christmas tale. In the story, a mother and son are both hiding important secrets that once revealed threatens to change their relationship entirely. Colleen Frederick is a recent widow and her son’s silence as he nears his college graduation date bothers her, but she realizes she cannot push him. Now that she is all alone, she decides to sell her late husband’s shoe store and their family home and settle for something smaller near the ocean.
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Meanwhile, Jamie, her son, is hiding the fact that he dropped out because he never wanted to get his business degree, music is all that matters to him. When he learns that his mom has sold the store and is planning to sell their home, he is furious, but most of this is an act. He simply doesn’t want to reveal the truth about his own future. On a whim, Colleen books a trip to Ireland for the two of them. She has a secret to share about Jamie’s past that she feels is best told in Ireland.
I love Melody Carlson’s books, but found AN IRISH CHRISTMAS to be harder to get into. The writing was just as emotional as always, but I think my compassion for the characters was lacking. Had they been up front from the start, they could have saved themselves a lot of pain. Either way, by the time they headed for Ireland I was totally engrossed to the storyline. The reader is aware of secrets far before the characters so it is enjoyable to see how they play out.
I have to admit that I was all ready to argue the legal drinking age in this review, but I always research items first. Turns out the author knows her stuff and I learned a thing or two. The legal drinking age was 21 until the 70s when it was lowered for a little more than a decade. So this is an eye-opening piece of history that I never would have known had I skipped reading AN IRISH CHRISTMAS.
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