ShortBookandScribes #BookReview – Christmas at Hollybush Farm by Jo Thomas

Christmas at Hollybush Farm is Jo Thomas’s 21st full length novel. It’s published by Penguin Transworld and is out now. I purchased my own copy.

Jemima Jones is driving home to her family’s magical hill-top farm for Christmas…

And on arrival, she soon learns that her dad has been keeping a secret – all is not as it seems, and Hollybush Farm is struggling to make ends meet! Worried about losing the childhood home she loves, Jemima must pull on her winter wellies and get stuck in.

Amid the chaos of chasing after escaping sheep and organising the Christmas tractor run, Jemima begins documenting her slice of farming life on social media. As she builds a supportive online following, she also forms an offline connection in the shape of charming, retired rugby player Llew, her very own Santa’s helper.

With a sprinkle of festive cheer and a dash of goodwill, might the community pull together to help save the farm in time for Christmas?

I don’t need to know what a Jo Thomas book is about, I just know I will want to read it. She’s taken me around the world to beautiful destinations and treated me to descriptions of mouthwatering foods. So reading Christmas at Hollybush Farm this festive season was an absolute no-brainer and what a beautiful and utterly satisfying book it truly is.

It begins with Jem and her boyfriend Matthew driving to see her father at his farm in Wales. Jem is high up in the hotel industry and so she’s grabbing a little time before Christmas to go back home. Lucky she does really as her father is unwell and the farm is failing. Matthew is pretty scathing about the farm but Jem realises that no matter how hard she has striven to reach her place at the hotel chain, it’s here on the farm that she truly belongs.

This revelation leads to new friends, new ventures, and maybe new love. What jumps out most in this book is the community spirit, the way that people who were feeling dispirited because of the decline of farms and the small towns and villages that relied on them, with a little enterprise and the power of social media could try to turn things around. It’s never that easy but pulling together and solidarity helps enormously.

I found Christmas at Hollybush Farm such a joy to read (I would expect nothing less from Jo Thomas). She transported me so effectively that I felt I was there in Wales on the farm for Christmas with Jem, Llew, Mae et al, and I felt excited for all of the ideas that could save the farm and the wider community from ruin. I also loved the little cameo from Beca from Summer at the Ice Cream Café and it warmed my cockles to think of her and Jem going on to do more together, along with the folk who supply jacket potatoes, knitted dog scarves and so much more. It’s an absolutely lovely story and it’s always a pleasure to have a Jo Thomas book in my festive reading pile.

Jo Thomas worked for many years as a reporter and producer, including time at Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and Radio 2’s The Steve Wright Show.

Jo’s debut novel, The Oyster Catcher, was a runaway bestseller and won both the RNA Joan Hessayon Award and the Festival of Romance Best eBook Award. Her book Escape to the French Farmhouse was a #1 bestselling eBook. Jo loves to explore new countries and discover the food produced there, both of which she thoroughly enjoys researching. Jo lives in Pembrokeshire with her husband and three children, where cooking and gathering around the kitchen table are a hugely important and fun part of their family life.