So, or, is this Christmas? [A Magical New York Christmas by Anita Hughes]
It’s Christmas week when 26-year-old Sabrina Post knocks on the door of the Vanderbilt suite at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, ready to accept the ghostwriting position for the memoir of Grayson Westcott—a famous art dealer.
A struggling journalist, Sabrina can't believe her luck: a paycheck and six nights in her own suite at the Plaza. She feels like Eloise, the heroine from her favorite children’s books. To make the job even more exciting, Grayson recounts how he worked as a butler at the Plaza sixty years ago for none other than the author of the Eloise books, Kay Thompson.
What promises to be a perfect week is complicated when Sabrina meets Ian Wentworth, a handsome British visitor, at the hotel bar. When Ian assumes Sabrina is another wealthy guest at the hotel, she doesn’t correct him —a decision she doesn’t regret after learning that Ian is a member of the British aristocracy. But, things are not what they seem. The truth is: Ian is not a wealthy lord; he’s actually the personal secretary of Lord Spencer Braxton.
As the week unfolds, will Sabrina and Ian learn the truth about one another?
Filled with the magic that can only be found at the Plaza Hotel during the holidays, and revealing facts about the author of the Eloise books, Anita Hughes's A Magical New York Christmas is both a holiday treat and a heartwarming story that reminds us that falling in love is the greatest miracle of all.
This might be my first time reading a Christmas themed novel. And I kind of got what I was expecting, a saccharine, overly cliched romance tale set against a holiday landscape. So, it met my minimum requirements. Where I think a lot of my eye squinting and eyebrow furrowing came from was a combination of character believability and endlessly repeated phrases. Because you can say that the Plaza Hotel at Christmastime is magical too many times, no matter how differently you phrase it
Sabrina, our female lead, falls in love with Ian, the male lead. Ian is British and while in proximity to nobility is just a staff member. When Sabrina makes erroneous assumptions he ends up having to roll with them because of circumstances. The same can be said, in lesser degree, about Sabrina, a ghostwriter, also in proximity to luxury and thereby wealth, who, better said, puts on airs, or exudes a higher status than she has, also rolling with it because, while no assumptions were spoken, convenience and reality. So the two leads are essentially in the same boat but instead of a meeting where all truths are spoken one player in their game for two takes the brunt of the blame. Sure. So, for me, the general ending and resolution of the conflict, which I also found ridiculous and overblown, was rushed, unbalanced, and too convenient.
In terms of character believability, the British tropes were much. The name dropping was much. And then we come to Sabrina. Sabrina, who essentially could live comfortably at home with her parents, but instead wants to rough it in New York City, exaggerating her play poverty. She's so dainty and could never afford things that are generally affordable. On the other hand, she lives with a roommate with access to sample sales. So, sure. She also has somewhat regular writing work, again, in New York City. So I barely believed her character story as I read.
Overall, did I smile at cheesy things? Sure. Did I get that holiday movie feel as I read? Absolutely, because holiday movies. The whole tie-in with Eloise had its cute moments but was also kind of pointless? Take out that franchise and change some names and this either could have been set anywhere else or it wouldn't have mattered. Also, for a Christmas romance, the majority of the story took place after Christmas. Nonetheless, I did enjoy myself overall, so Anita Hughes' A Magical New York Christmas gets 3 stars from me.
A Magical New York Christmas (ISBN:9781250774521) was published September 2021.
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