Genie isn't feeling very festive this December.
The frosty mornings and twinkling fairy lights only remind her it's been a whole year since she lost her adoptive mother, who took her in as a baby and raised her as her own.
She's never felt more alone - until she discovers her birth mother's identity.
And where to find her: New Zealand, half the world away.
Travelling there could be her one chance to meet the woman who gave her up.
But will she find the answers she has been looking for? Or something she could never have expected?
Review: This book just gave me all the feels and let me escape to a far off land for the time it took to read. This book was touching, it was an adventure and it was just so full of emotional it really did have it all.
Genie is a wonderful character because she is somewhat sheltered and a little set in her ways so when she decides to go off to New Zealand, you really know it is out of her comfort zone and there is a very good reason for this, Genie is also someone who is grieving and so instantly you have sympathy for her and really feel every emotion with her on her travels.
Bonnie is an interesting and very intriguing character. This is a dual narrative novel and so we get to hear a little from her as well as the sections from Genie. We don't really know who Bonnie is or why she is also on her travels but we get to learn the whole story as the book unfolds. I enjoyed Bonnie's sections because she is very reflective and in some ways she is just as unsure about who she is as Genie.
I loved the fact that this story unfolds slowly, oh so slowly, one fact at a time and so you literally don't find out everything about these characters and their tales until the very end of the book. The wonderful secondary characters in this book definitely help. Kit is a great tour guide to Genie and he brings lovely Tui along with him. The horses at the stables they work at also really help to bring Genie out of her comfort zone a little more and make for an interesting addition to the story. And then we have David, He was frustratingly closed with his emotions and is a real man of mystery but he is key to some of the facts that are revealed over the course of the novel.
I also really loved the setting of this book. We couldn't have had a better escapism during winter than New Zealand., There is wonderful scenery and some great wildlife to be seen and Kit takes us, as readers, along for the ride with Bonnie and Tui. If you love Paige Toon's escapism in her novels then you are going to love this one. If you go into it for the travel alone then you will stay for the feels. I loved this book and I am sure you will too.
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