While the characters and their predicaments are potentially interesting, as soon as her narratives begin to develop, Binchy catapults forward to disappointingly simplistic endings.
Several stories feature second wives whose husbands are oblivious to the machinations of their (always beautiful but selfish) first spouses. We meet women unable to spend Christmas with their married men, children from broken homes, aged parents for whom Christmas is an ordeal rather than a pleasure, couples trying to resolve the past, lonely souls looking for a future.
Unfortunately, however, these tales are formulaic and superficial. Here she presents 15 short stories that take place during the holiday season all display her deft rendering of family relationships and the stresses of contemporary life. Her wide audience enjoys the warmth of her fiction, the emphasis on the power of love to transform ordinary lives-even as she acknowledges that for some people, love is elusive or the prelude to frustration and heartbreak. That Binchy (Circle of Friends) would choose to enter the Christmas market should not be a surprise.
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