Christmas at Rosie Hopkins’ Sweetshop by Jenny Colgan was, in comparison with the three other Colgan Christmas novels I have read, the meatiest of the bunch. At 345 pages, it was packed densely with text, which did not rely so heavily on dialogue as in the other novels. Christmas at the Cupcake Café, on the other hand, had wide spaces between the lines where most of them were surrounded by quotation marks. That said, this was a more substantial novel that allowed me to get deeper into it as opposed to feeling as if I was just a fly on the wall eavesdropping on other people’s conversations.
Rosie Hopkins runs a successful candy store in the Derbyshire hills. Christmas is coming and she is preparing for the increase in business. Suddenly her town is hit by a snowstorm, and it’s the most snow that anyone can remember ever having fallen. I don’t know enough about winter weather conditions in England except that the streets of Weatherfield on “Coronation Street” rarely see any of the fluffy white stuff, and since the show takes place in a fictional suburb of Manchester–which isn’t that far from the Derbyshire area–I wondered if the area where this novel takes place really does get a lot of snow at all. People are suddenly immobilized by the downfall and no one wants to go outside. Canadian readers would find such timidity laughable.
The road conditions are slippery and an accident occurs that has profound repercussions which sets the scene for the drama that follows. A truck slams into the school, which destroys the building and fortunately causes no fatalities–there wouldn’t be any in a Colgan Christmas novel–yet sends one young boy to hospital with a serious neck injury. The accident also involves a man and his elderly father, who is living with dementia. Colgan introduced a subplot involving this gentleman and his mysterious relationship with two women of the town back in World War II. I didn’t find his romances all that interesting and thought it rather incredulous that neither woman was aware of the other.
The town council decides to bus the students an hour away to a different school, and instead of spending the money to repair the building, rumours fly that the town will do away with the school altogether and shut it down for good. We now have a fight on our hands between those who want to save the school and those who want to tear it down, and just before Christmas. Some business owners, like Rosie, fear that residents will move closer to the school so their children wouldn’t have to face such a long commute each day. Her sweetshop will perish without a major part of her loyal clientele.
All of this swirls around the uncertain state of Rosie’s love life. Her boyfriend Stephen works at the school yet fears he will lose his job if the school closes. He might need to move elsewhere to teach. Rosie has visions of wedding bells yet Stephen has been adamant in letting her know that he doesn’t want to marry her. Uh-oh. He might have to move to find work and won’t commit to Rosie long-term…doesn’t sound like a Christmas novel, does it?
The title may allude to sweetness but Colgan didn’t make all of her characters sweet. There were quite a few F-bombs thrown in, as stressful times with her business and love life take their toll on Rosie, especially when her extended family comes over from Australia to spend the holidays. Colgan included a subtle queer content, introducing a gay doctor, Moray, whom the town adores. Ironically, Moray seems to show more affection for Rosie than her own boyfriend Stephen does. I was reading this book on the bus and laughed out loud when Stephen’s mother, seeing Rosie’s dog wearing a coat, exclaimed:
“What is this awful travesty you’ve been wrapped in then? Is she trying to make you gay? Are you trying to make your dog GAY?”
An editor would have caught this awkward word order. A simple change in word replacement would have fixed this:
“…and sterling sugar silver tongs seemed very strange…”
Happy endings are de rigueur in Colgan Christmas novels. so it is no surprise to learn that Stephen eventually proposes to Rosie and the boy with the neck injury is on the road to recovery. Once Stephen told Rosie that he didn’t want to marry her, I knew by the end of the book he’d be down on one knee proposing.
Colgan included some festive Christmas recipes at the end of the book. I recommend reading them, as the personal stories she added were a pleasant touch.