Christmas on the Island by Jenny Colgan was a surprise, to say the least. Of the six Colgan Christmas novels I have read so far, this one shocked me and not in a good way. It was anything but a warm holiday read and made me wince and wonder whatever possessed the author to mix all of this together and call it a Christmas novel. For within the story Colgan wrote a lengthy chapter wholly devoted to a sexual encounter and ended with a depressing death of an islander from cancer. In spite of the Christmas themes that fill the story, the cheery spirit I was hoping to encounter on the remote northern Scottish island of Mure was also overshadowed by wartime misery and violence. I was not in a good mood when I read this book.
The story takes place on a small island which, judging from the cover image, could not possibly justify the need for such densely packed multi-storey buildings. The cover photo reminded me more of Copenhagen than the outer Hebrides. Mure is a tiny place where everyone knows each other’s business, so there are no secrets among the islanders. They seem to be able to know what is going on as they observe glances and lingering looks. The Murians are mind readers.
The main story revolves around Flora MacKenzie, who finds out she is pregnant by her new boyfriend Joel. Joel is not thrilled when he finds out. Amidst the tension that runs between them, we are introduced to a doctor named Saif Hassan, who has fled the war in Syria with his two young sons. The whereabouts of his wife are unknown. To make matters more complicated for the young doctor, Flora’s friend Lorna found him irresistibly handsome the moment she first laid eyes on him, and has been harbouring a crush. The feelings are mutual and Saif is torn between his lustful urges and the loyalty he still feels for his wife.
Thus we have the dramas of a confused new mother-to-be and her uncertain future with the father, plus a sexual interplay between two people who know for the better that they shouldn’t be together. Meanwhile Flora’s brother Colton is dying of cancer and succumbs on Christmas Eve–not happy news to share with others on Christmas morning. Still, the Christmas magic goes on, with a bit of comic effect in Lorna pulling her hair out organizing a nativity play. I enjoyed how Colgan got into Lorna’s mind as she fretted over how to cast the Muslim doctor’s two sons. Should she include them in the Christian play, to make them feel integrated and welcome at the school? Or would that be insensitive? Should she even give them Christmas presents?
One character I found highly annoying was Flora’s four-year-old niece Agot, who always spoke in capitals and whose dialogue made me think of her as an older girl with developmental deficiencies and a speech impediment.
I did like the line about American tourists who called up Flora’s restaurant:
“Instead it was an international number and she assumed it was what it generally was–American tourists coming for a visit who wanted to know if the Seaside Kitchen was gluten-free. She would kindly and patiently explain that no, they weren’t, but everything was locally sourced, and for a surprising amount of people this amounted to more or less the same thing and they came anyway.”
It would have been a fine passage if Colgan had used the correct word, thus “for a surprising number of people”. That she used the verb amounted in the same sentence only four words later made it sound awkward.
I get it that Christmas themes can be incorporated into the whole range of fiction–there are plenty of Christmas murder mysteries, for example–yet I was so perturbed by this novel as it was uncharacteristic of what I have come to expect of Colgan. She may be trying to expand her genres of writing and that is commendable, yet rather off-putting if you picked up this book expecting it to be another Christmas at the Cupcake Café.