Last Christmas
£0.99
Price: £0.99
(as of Nov 27, 2025 05:51:56 UTC – Details)
It’s the most wonderful time of year. Isn’t it?
Discover the true spirit of Christmas with this seasonal treat for fans of Love, Actually and The Holiday. Contains a sneak preview of the sequel, A Merry Little Christmas.
Catherine Tinsall is gearing up for Christmas – in the middle of summer. As the Writer in Chief on Happy Homes magazine, she is putting together a ‘perfect Christmas’ competition, to remind readers of the festive season’s true meaning.
In the sleepy Shropshire village of Hope Christmas, Marianne Mistletan enters with the suggestion that her village’s nativity play be held in the ancient chapel of Fitzcross Manor, home to the St Nicholas family.
Catherine is completely entranced by the idea, and Marianne to her delight finds that she has won. Waiting in the wings to help Marianne organise the set design is the cool and charismatic Joe Carpenter, who may or may not be just what she wants for Christmas.
Meanwhile, for Catherine, the Happy Homemaker image is wearing thin, as her fifteen-year old marriage appears to be in trouble. Then tragedy strikes and Catherine is forced to reassess her priorities, and work out what the perfect Christmas really means.
And overseeing it all, is the figure of John St Nicholas, lord of the manor and perhaps, for some, a Christmas angel…
For anyone who’s wondered whether Christmas is over-priced hype, think again…
From the Publisher
ASIN : B002URYQ6K
Publisher : Avon
Accessibility : Learn more
Publication date : 29 Oct. 2009
Edition : UK ed.
Language : English
File size : 461 KB
Screen Reader : Supported
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 416 pages
ISBN-13 : 978-0007343751
Page Flip : Enabled
Book 1 of 3 : Christmas
Best Sellers Rank: 44,804 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store) 475 in Women’s New Adult & College Fiction 815 in Holiday Fiction (Kindle Store) 2,644 in Women’s Contemporary Fiction
Customer reviews: 4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 638 ratings var dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction; P.when(‘A’, ‘ready’).execute(function(A) { if (dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction !== true) { dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction = true; A.declarative( ‘acrLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault”: true }, function (event) { if (window.ue) { ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } } ); } }); P.when(‘A’, ‘cf’).execute(function(A) { A.declarative(‘acrStarsLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault” : true }, function(event){ if(window.ue) { ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } }); });
Customers say
Customers find this book to be a lovely festive read with a heart-warming sentimentality and a nice twist to the end. The story is well-written and easy to get into, with one customer noting it’s perfect for a winter read. They appreciate the character development, with one review highlighting that the characters are not all virginal 20-somethings.
korkeyta –
Heartwarming Read
Last Christmas is a heartwarming read which follows the lives of Noel and his wife Cat in London and recently single Marianne who moved to a Shropshire village with her then boyfriend and single dad Gabe, in the idyllically named Hope Christmas. The story is written well detailing the parallel lives of the main characters. The four lives are linked to the village and although parts of the story are obvious there is a lovely festive twist!Cat is a writer and Blogger under the alias of the Happy Homemaker and her alter ego is the perfect mom and wife, unlike her true self. Noel is an architect and is whirl-winded into a project he is not comfortable with.Marianne is a primary school teacher whilst Noel is a farmer who is struggling to raise his son since his wife left him.A Christmas competition draws the lives of these people together as the mystery of Ralph is uncovered.
Skaty Katie –
Full of Christmas and community spirit
The book actually starts with the run up to last Christmas, spans a whole year and finishes up with the next Christmas pulling all the strands of the story together – well, almost, as otherwise there wouldn’t be a sequel.I read it after A Merry Little Christmas so that I could be in on the story from the beginning. Here is where Julia Williams sets the scene for her series of books in the village of Hope Christmas, giving us some background about the three main female characters who are the cornerstone of the story and filling us in as to how they came to all be living in the village together and becoming friends. Cat, Pippa and Marianne are all very different with varying lifestyles and different concerns, but they meet up and bond over their experiences that led them to the village and the current issues going on in the village that they become involved in.Julia Williams explores a variety of themes concerning family, romantic relationships, illness, divorce, redundancy, community spirit and village life under threat. She uses the device of flashback to illuminate the current story with the background to what had taken place the previous Christmas in order to bring the characters to that point.There is a theme of magic hinted at, but I don’t think this is real and is put in there just for fun. A nice read to get you into the Christmas spirit and be thankful for your friends.
A. Douglas –
A really enjoyable festive read
Welcome to Hope Christmas! A little village with a big heart. The village is at risk from an eco town- can it be saved. This book is filled with festive cheer, romance and more. It’s a great book to read in the days before Christmas!
J. S. Bundy –
Sweetly Predictable!
I read this book over the Christmas period and thoroughly enjoyed its untaxing but heart-warming sentimentality! Every boy got his girl and vice versa! Every bad situation had a happy outcome and every cloud definitely had a silver lining!Set in Shropshire and London, over the course of a year, the book follows several families as they cope with loss in its many forms including broken relationships, jobs, mental faculties and trust. We see them progress from the unhappiness and chaos of last Christmas to the peaceful and hopeful outcome of this.Its a perfect feel good book for Christmas time, but would I feel have limited appeal at other times of the year!
Rebecca Kelly –
I pre sequel to the first book.
Did the character Michael’s mystery ways wanted you to delve deeper into what he had to do with the story? Then this book will answer all your questions. I was taken with Michael in the first book, how he communicated with the villagers and what part he had to play in their stories. So i hoped he would be part of this book. This book didn’t let me down. The real sense of community, respect and kindness is really brought out as well as how the characters we all have come to love and know start out and you get a better understanding of how they are feeling then in the first book. This is a great read and even though sent back int he past, won’t let you down.
GarnetLiz –
Better than most.
I must admit that a book with a nice glittery cover at Christmas is one of my weaknesses. However I’m often disappointed with the contents … This book was an exception because:1. The characters are not all virginal 20-somethings. Or tragically widowed 20-somethings.2. They have real problems and make real mistakes. None of them involved selecting the wrong footwear for a snowy walk and being rescued by an improbably handsome local man.3. The male characters are as sympathetic and interesting as the female ones. And they have real problems too.4. And it still ticked all of those warm and fuzzy Christmas boxes that such fiction should!
Mrs C –
A slow-burner but worth pursuing
I bought this in early December when looking for a festive read but really struggled to get into it – too many characters and plotlines are introduced at the start which I found hard to keep track of so I initially gave up on it. However I revisited it when I had more time to concentrate on it and immerse myself in the story, and found it much easier to engage with second time around. Although there is perhaps too many plot strands/characters (although of course they all ultimately intertwine in the end!) they are developed well. The Christmas link is not omnipresent therefore it’s readable at any time of year really. I’m glad I persisted with the book as I did end up enjoying it and will strongly consider purchasing the follow-up in the future.
R L B –
A Really Good Story.
This is the first time I have read any books by this author and I will be reading some more. I found the story line flowed very easily and it was just as easy to get into knowing all the people in the book. Set in London and Shropshire it follows the up’s and down’s of different people’s lives which you become part of, so much so, you feel you want to join in the conversations with them.A thoroughly good book, with a feel good factor at the end.
michele higgins –
It was a really easy read and a sweet story
Bogna G. –
I haven’t reviewed any books I purchased (and read) on Amazon yet, but as soon as I saw that ‘Last Christmas’ by Julia Williams had only an unenthusiastic one, I decided to change my habit. Frankly, I loved the book! And mainly because it’s real. Not that I don’t like ‘fairytales’ myself. I do occasionally, but it’s good to read a book about Christmas that doesn’t follow a quite boring pattern found in most of these ‘cheerful Christmassy’ books. ‘Last Christmas’ is about 3-dimensional people caught in the real-life situations around this specific time of year. The novel is intelligent and engaging and there is some magic in it, too. Don’t hesitate, if you want a satisfying read – something to remember long after it’s finished.
AnneB –
Se lit facilement, avec la chanson de Georges Michael en tête. Donne envie d’aller à la campagne.Les personnages et les évènements sont un peu (beaucoup même) prévisibles, ainsi que le dénouement pour chacun d’eux.
Christine Terrell –
I enjoyed my time with the residents of the small English village Hope Christmas. There are basically 4 protagonists and I connected with all 4 of them. I found Cat and Noel (a couple living in London), Gabriel and Marianne (a sheep herder separated from his wife and a school teacher, respectively) to be very real, making it easy to invest in them. I was expecting a traditional Christmas book, and though the story covers two Christmases, one in flashback, it actually encompasses over a year in the lives of these people. I had no problem with that.The main characters all have their issues and we are taken along on their individual journeys as they navigate the best they can. Along the way we meet a number of the villagers, including the almost larger-than-life Ralph Nicholas whose mission seems to be to help the floundering. I loved the village setting and felt absorbed into its fabric. I wonder if places like this still exist in Britain (and America). I can only hope so.Though much of the story takes place between January and November, the Christmas season is not ignored. The emphasis is on the true nature of Christmas and how simple and traditional is so much more than what Christmas how now become. Many people dread the Christmas holiday season. That’s really sad. I wish we could all go back to what Christmas once was long long ago. This little book gives us a taste of that.I was sad to leave Hope Christmas at the end of the book, but was pleased to see there are 3 novels and a novella in the Hope Christmas series. I was captivated enough by Last Christmas to want to immediately move on to book 2, A Merry Little Christmas. I can’t wait to see what is in store for the villagers next!
SeaReader –
This is not the book to pick if you are looking for something cheerful to read during the holiday season.