Isak Magnússon is facing his loneliest Christmas yet. With his family abroad and his friends settling into domestic life, he finds himself wandering Reykjavik's Christmas market alone, searching for some holiday cheer among the twinkling lights and falling snow.
Emý is back in Iceland for the holidays, dog-sitting while her parents cruise the Mediterranean. After years of building a life in America, she's looking forward to a quiet few weeks at home with no expectations or complications.
When they run into each other, five years of distance dissolve in an instant as memories of their relationship come flooding back—the good, the bad, and everything they left unsaid when Emý moved across the ocean.
As they navigate Reykjavik's cosy cafés, wander the snow-dusted streets and embrace Icelandic Christmas traditions, those familiar feelings become impossible to ignore...
Victoria Walker has been writing romantic fiction since a visit to Iceland in 2014 inspired her first novel. As well as writing, she spends her free time dressmaking, knitting and reading an inordinate amount of contemporary romance, occasionally punctuated by the odd psychological thriller and saga.
In the past she has worked as a cinema projectionist, a knitting and sewing tutor and has owned a yarn store, all things which will no doubt appear in her books if they haven't already.
A short story about the younger brother, Isak, from Adrift in Iceland. The ship has been put up for the season and Isak is a bit adrift himself with his family away for the holidays. He wanders the Christmas market and bumps into an old flame Emy. She is from Reykjavik but has been living in New York (I found one scene really odd as he has Icelandic symbols for tattoos and he has to explain them to her - she should have at least known they were Icelandic and would have known what at least one or two were…). I did like the Icelandic traditions that the author shared - the book exchanging and the baking. Nicely paced and well described. The story was a bit dark w/the pasts - particularly Emy’s catching up to them but the future looks good.
A lovely romantic Christmas novella featuring Leifur's unreliable-but-come-good brother Ísak, bumping into an old flame at a Christmas market. It's a classic tale of burgeoning romance against a ticking clock, set amongst the gorgeous snowy and fairylit backdrop of Reykjavík at Christmas - as satisfying as a good, warming glass of glögg, as we know we can expect from Victoria - wonderful!
This was so magical and christmassy! The perfect read to get into the christmas spirit! This can be read as a standalone or part of the Icelandic romance series <3