The tagline on the cover for One Family Christmas asks ‘What’s Christmas without a little chaos?’ and in this hilarious, heartfelt novel, Bella Osborne depicts a Christmas that readers will thoroughly enjoy. Lottie’s Nana Rose dies a couple of weeks before Christmas leaving each member of her family with a Christmas card and a note from her giving some of her sage advice. Lottie is devastated to lose the one person she can rely upon to be there for her and when she discovers that her Nana’s home, Henbourne Manor is up for sale, she invites her family to join her for one last family Christmas. Most of them aren’t that keen but she’s determined they will hold their festivities at the place where they’ve always celebrated them before the manor is lost to them forever. Although Lottie is aware her cooking and entertainment skills will never match her beloved grandmother’s she gives it her best shot. What she doesn’t foresee is that her ex, Joe has returned to the village from America after nine years away. She’s not pleased to see him especially as she believes he let her down, but when he is invited to join the rest of them she has no choice but to make the best of things.

Bella Osborne has a wonderful array of characters from Great Uncle Bernard, who also lives at the manor house and is soon to be made homeless by the sale; Lottie’s mother, Angela who’s always been more interested in her latest boyfriend than her children and this time is no exception except that he’s younger than they usually are and a vegan; and her brother Zach’s girlfriend Emily who is the first woman he has brought to meet his family since the death of his wife, Melissa several years before. Despite her family’s behaviour, a stray dog called Dave, and her grandmother’s temperamental cat, Duchess, Lottie gets out her grandmother’s cookery books and tries her best to replicate past Christmases resulting in several dramas, some unveiled secrets, a few misunderstandings, a bit of chaos, and a whole lot of fun.

If you are looking for a book to get you into the Christmas spirit, then look no further than One Family Christmas.