Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for this ARC.

Jolene, a naive, wide-eyed but warm-hearted young woman starts in the Accounts Team of Bermondsey Council shortly before Christmas. She is there through a graduate training scheme and isn't given too much to do. But Jolene is tenacious, and she loves Christmas. She cannot understand the lack of decoration, Christmas party and festive cheer. There isn't even a Secret Santa because everyone is strapped for cash. 

So she suggests a Secret Santa Project that shouldn't cost anyone anything bar a good deed to make Christmas the best for someone else in the team. To be honest, I would have laughed her out of the room, but her colleagues reluctantly agree, probably to shut her up.

The team consists of married manager Diane who had a career in theatre once and now has the unenviable task to axe one of her team before Christmas, Jerry who is American, gay and pining after his "coffee shop man", Stacey who is single Mum to 7 year old Grace and desperately wants a date for Christmas, Yang who is Chinese and secretly in love with Stacey, and Barney, the oldest, who lost his beloved wife three years ago and has not recovered yet.

Slowly we learn more about the characters and why most of them can't muster too much Christmas spirit - they are lonely, grieving or feeling worthless of love.

I love how interconnected some of them turn out to be but Grace is too precocious. She is obsessed with donkeys, which is fine, but no 7 year old talks like she does.

This book is as London-centric as it could be, which as a Londoner I totally appreciate because it doesn't actually happen that often in Christmas books. 

For some reason the action concentrates on Diane, Stacey, Yang and Jerry and leaves Jolene and Barney just with scraps of background and plot. I would have wished for them to be fleshed out a little more.

I don't think it's spoilering to say that because it's Christmas everyone gets their Christmas miracle and the Secret Santa Project is a resounding success.

I've long loved Tracy Bloom's books and this is no exception. It's an extremely funny, festive and feel-good story about ordinary people at Christmas, which we all know can be a trying time for many. If you want to know how a donkey and some elves end up on the London Eye, you need to read this!