Carmen has worked all her life in her local department store, so when its doors close for good she is thoroughly lost. Her sister Sofia, who is expecting another baby, offers the spare room in Edinburgh and a job in a bookshop. Carmen has never been good at accepting help, but with few options she arrives in the snowy city a month before Christmas. What Sofia failed to mention is that the shop is on its last legs, and unless Carmen can turn things around by Christmas the owner will have to sell. Along the way a charismatic and famous author takes an interest in both the shop and Carmen, and a university lecturer named Oke turns up without a proper winter coat. There is a children’s reading of The Little Match Girl that goes badly wrong, and a mother who longs to see her daughters get along. It is a cosy, snowy read, and the sisters’ relationship carries as much of the love story as any romance.
