London stores
Fiction, romance,
HarperCollins UK
October 15, 2020
320
What do you do when your fake engagement starts to feel too real…
Aspiring clothes designer Victoria Scott spends her days working in a bar in Chelsea, and her evenings designing vintage clothes, dreaming of one day opening her own boutique. But these aspirations are under threat from the new department store opening at the end of her road. She needs a Christmas miracle, but one is not forthcoming.
Oliver Russell’s Christmas is not looking very festive right now. His family’s new London department store opening is behind schedule, and on top of that his interfering, if well meaning, mother is pressing him to introduce his girlfriend to her. A girlfriend who does not exist. He needs a diversion. Something to keep his mother from interfering while he focuses on the business.
When Oliver meets Victoria, he offers a proposition: pretend to be his girlfriend at the opening of his store and he will provide an opportunity for Victoria to showcase her designs. But what starts as a business arrangement soon becomes something more tempting, as the fake relationship starts to feel very real. But when secrets in Victoria’s past are exposed will Oliver walk away, or will they both follow their hearts and find what neither knew they were looking for…
There has been, it seems to me, a sudden rush of books about department stores. This is my 3rd in 2 weeks. All about renovations and the staff and machinations and…
This is nicely written book and as it happens Portobello Road is under renovation at the moment and under pressure from developers who are trying to buy up the area with the antiques – not for a department store though, but for flats. Small developments are permitted as we are so short of living accommodation here in London.
This is another warm book again. Victoria is a very giving person and Ollie comes across as someone who has been trained to the that English reticence and inability to express emotion that comes from the boarding school and rigid upbringing that older parents, with a very large business empire to manage, can impart.
I loved the closeness of Victoria’s friends and how they had all found he best life for them after their teenage tragedy. But small coastal villages are somewhat over romanticised in my opinion and lead people to think it is all happy living, when often it isn’t – too many people and no privacy and rather inbred. That said, I totally agree about Chelsea Physick Garden – it is a wonderful place.
As its name implied, it is all about medicine and was set up in 1673 as a botanical garden for the doctors of the time with a wonderful collection of plants for all sorts of uses from medical to dyeing to…
