The Christmas Cafe

By Amanda Prowse

Head of Zeus (RRP €8.99)

Heart-warming and inspiring, The Christmas Cafe by Amanda Prowse is the perfect read to shake away those winter blues and get you in the festive mood. Set in Sydney, this book tells the tale of Bea, a widow at 53, who must now accept that she will be forever alone.

She buries her grief with hard work and trying to make a success of the cafe she runs in Surry Hills. It’s not long before she has a reputation for making the best carrot cake in Sydney. Bea joins an online forum for café owners worldwide, where a friendship blossoms with Alex, another cafe-owner from Edinburgh, who invites her to take a trip to Scotland with her granddaughter Flora in the depths of winter.

There, transported by the twinkling lights and falling snow of a traditional Christmas, Bea is drawn back to a secret past that she has tried long and hard to forget. Amanda Prowse writes with a genuine warmth for her characters and their lives, making it almost impossible to accept that these people are only in the imagination. Her descriptive wording is magical, transporting you to the wintery streets of Edinburgh, where Bea and Flora’s adventure turns out to be a real life-changer. This book is about family, love, and timing, and how important all these things are, especially at Christmas.

The Little Red Chairs

By Edna O’Brien

Faber & Faber (RRP €18.99)The Little Red Chairs by Edna O’Brien is a complex and emotional story of the heartbreaking journey of Fidelma McBride and how she has to find herself again after a series of traumatic events that leave her homeless, landless and with no self of sense.

Fidelma is from the small, west-coast village of Cloonoila, and is one of many locals to fall under the spell of Dr Vlad, a mystery stranger from the Balkans who sets up as a healer. She becomes so besotted that she begs him for a child, but her world is shattered abruptly when Vlad is arrested and his identity as a war criminal is revealed. In this novel, O’Brien charts the consequences of that fatal attraction.

Fidelma, disgraced, flees to England and seeks work among the other migrants displaced by wars and persecution. But it is not until she confronts Vlad at the tribunal in The Hague that her physical and emotional journey reaches its breathtaking climax. The Little Red Chairs is a story about love, the artifice of evil, and the terrible necessity of accountability in our shattered, damaged world.

I’ll be home for Christmas

By Roisin Meaney

Hachette Books Ireland

(RRP €17.99)

In her latest novel, best-selling author Roisin Meaney tells a feel-good tale of magic, sparkle and new beginnings. I’ll be home for Christmas is centred around Tilly Walker, a 17-year-old girl from Australia who boards a plane for Ireland, via Singapore and London, just three days before Christmas.

The young girl is bound for the tiny island of Roone off the west coast, where she hopes to learn more about a past she has only just discovered. She carries with her this troubling secret and is in search for Laura, a woman she has never met, who might be the only one who can help her. It’s a stressful time for Laura, a native of Roone, who is recovering from cancer. The bad weather is coming in and with five children, one husband, a farm full of animals, and a mother-in-law stuck on the island for Christmas, the last thing she needs is a surprise visitor on Christmas Day. Meaney is a real storyteller, writing about ordinary people you can identify with, and every character is like a familiar face. A heart-warming and truly remarkable story, I’ll be home for Christmas is the perfect stocking-filler for those who like to lose themselves in a good book.