All I Want for Christmas by Karen Swan

Book Blurb

Can she find love this Christmas?

Christmas in Copenhagen is a magical time of year but Darcy Cotterell isn’t feeling festive. Newly single, again, she’s not even going home for Christmas. Instead she will be spending her holiday finishing her art history PhD. Her best friend, Freja, has other ideas. She signs Darcy up to a dating app, determined that she won’t be lonely this Christmas.

Darcy agrees to three dates – but her mind is on work, not play: an unknown portrait by Denmark’s greatest painter has been found and she is tasked with identifying the woman in the painting. During her research, she encounters sexy, arrogant lawyer Max Lorensen – who happens to be bachelor number one! The attraction is instant but, knowing they must work together, they abandon the match. Or try to. But their feelings are undeniable – until Darcy discovers Max has an agenda . . .

My Review
This time of year not only do I enjoy the whole Christmas vibe but I also get excited because Karen Swan, one of my favourite authors, releases her Christmas themed book. Karen had a lot to live up to to this year as last years offering Christmas by Candlelight was one of my favourites so far. .All I want for Christmas is set in Copenhagen in December where Darcy is studying for her Phd in Art History at the National Gallery. She needs to finish her thesis but her flatmate sets her up on a dating app and chooses Darcy three possibilities. Max one of swipe rights, tall, handsome and rich and unfortunately the lawyer on a project she is working on. Can work and love mix, or is it more like oil and water?

Karen Swan is the Queen of Christmas fiction for me, getting the balance of the festive period, with an engaing story and memorable characters. People who read my blog regularly will know that I adore books with an art history theme so this was the perfect book for me. Karen has obviously done a lot of research around the artist Johan Trier, his works and style of painting, and of the legal world around art, its ownership and provenance. It’s not all art history though, there are Darcy’s dates, where she realises not to judge a book by its cover, or in this case man by the photo. I enjoyed learning about some of the Christmas traditions of Denmark and in particular Copenhagen’s St Lucia’s day of a precession of Kayaks on the river, which mad me laugh and the Christmas markets.

Darcy is intelligent, fun and warm character that everyone would want to be fiends with, although her love life has been a disaster, bringing a few witty moments to the plot. I loved her close relationship with her best fiend Freja, where they share confidences, clothes and good food, and are always there for each other. In the true format of romances Darcy falls for the arrogant yet gorgeous Max, and the sexual tension is electric. It was Max’s character that I found the most fascinating, he was like an iceberg, strong, confident and alone, but below the surface he is struggling with his past and Darcy is like the sun, bringing her own kind of warmth and light to his life, melting away at that icy exterior. I’m always excited to learn new things from a book and Karen Swan has piqued my interest in two artists that I had never heard of, Johan Trier and Joaquín Sorolla, whose works are beautiful.

For me, All I Want for Christmas is Karen Swan’s best Christmas book. My decision in probaly influenced by my love of Art History, and I admit that I was slightly jealous of Darcy and her research. As always Karen’s characters are vividly portrayed, for the whole amiable and they are natural in their interactions with each other, both the main characters and the supporting cast. The setting of a snowy Copenhagen was perfect and like a good mulled wine, this book left me with a warm glow and a fuzzy happy feeling. This is a perfect Christmas read.

I’d like thank Pan MacMillan for my copy of this book in return for my honest review.