The Last Christmas by Seelie Kay
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Joan Wright is a woman on the edge, on the edge of grief, loss and heartbreak, her husband David is in St Malcolm’s hospital in an induced coma and at death’s door, but she cannot bear to think about the fact that this will be his last Christmas with her, the cancer has eaten away at him until only morphine and machines are keeping him there with her. She is reminiscing with a nurse about how in love she has been with David, from the age of sixteen when they met until now and that love has only grown stronger, she says that they have celebrated the good and weathered the bad, as well as having three children together and that she is angry because they are not dying together and that it is a cruel thing to be in her situation, the nurse tells her to have faith and that Christmas miracles do happen when there is hope and love in the mix and that her job in the ICU has proven that many times over. As she thinks about what the nurse said, she slips around the wires and machines keeping him alive and into bed with David, there she has a dream that he is alive and well and wanting his Christmas miracle, he hasn’t finished what he needs to do and he hasn’t finished loving her, both emotionally and physically, when she is woken up by the doctor who wants to examine David, but adds that his heart was beating the strongest it has been while she was sleeping next to him, this is too much for Joan to hear and makes excuses for it and blames the cancer for giving her false hope, but he says the same thing as the nurse did earlier that David isn’t the type for giving up and when there is hope and love, that miracles can indeed happen.

As Joan is walking in the open air and surrounded by Christmas spirit, carollers and Santa’s, when she is suddenly being spoken to by someone and it is none other than Santa himself, a centuries old spirit who works with God to dispense advice and bring the Christmas spirit and love to those who need it, although she doesn’t believe it at first, when he invites her to sit down and talk to her, he reveals that it is not David’s time to die yet and even if it was, Heaven is full, St Peter is at his wit’s and and that there is a 5 year waiting list to get in, so unless she wants David to be stuck in a 5 year queue, she has to keep him alive. Joan finds it unbelievable that she is expected to keep him alive when that there isn’t even anything more that the medical staff can do, so he tells her that she needs to give him a reason to live, a reason to keep going as his work is not yet done and that he needs to know that she is on his side.

When she returns home and sees all their memories together and starts to remember them all, she knows what she has to do, she needs to remind David of all that they have shared together and what he has to live for, she needs to get her kids, their grandkids, their friends and even their church on their side and fight for his survival, so she arranges a family meeting and they devise a plan of action, but can Team Wright get their Christmas miracle and love save the day, or will everything fall through in the end? A gripping read which enthralls you as a reader right up to the end.

Reviewed by @roxsannel

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