Thank you Milly Johnson for yet another fantastic book. I'm a huge fan and was delighted to get copy from Netgalley to review. Once I started reading I couldn't put it down, the housework could wait this book was just so good. But, as always the end came too soon and I wished I could know more about the lives of the main characters.

Life hadn't been good to Palma and she desperately wanted to move home and make a better life for herself but to do this she needed money. To get the money she became a surrogate for a couple unable to have a baby themselves but the couple split up and Palma had some decisions to make.

Eve and her husband ran Winter Wonderland theme park and when Eve began to feel unwell they were both overjoyed to find she wasn't I'll but pregnant. Annie and her Italian husband had always wanted children but failed IVF and a failed adoprion left them facing a childless future. Annie went to the doctors thinking she was going through the menopause only to find she was expecting a Christmas baby.

The GP had decided to run a club where pregnant women could meet and support each other. The club was called the Christmas Pudding Club. Here, together with other women, the three main characters met and for Palma it changed her life.

Milly Johnson is so good at bringing the characters to life. There are lots of laughs along the way and some tears. We meet nice and not so nice characters and we mustn't forget the typo errors of the Daily Trumpet. i will be buying more copies of this book to give as Christmas presents.

I always say I am going to savour the latest Milly Johnson and read a few chapters at a time but then I get a copy of the book and it’s like being reunited with old friends and I can’t bear to put it down!!! Hence why it’s almost 1am, I have just finished reading this book and I am writing my review.

In this book we get to meet Annie and Palma as well as being reunited with Eve, Cheryl and Violet. Not only do we get to meet them but, in that way Milly Johnson has, as you read the book and learn more about these ladies you feel that you are there and one of their friends.

As with all her books, I loved this book and am now at a loss since I finished it - I want to get back into the story and hear more about these lovely characters!!! A Milly Johnson book is like coming home and getting a great big warm hug.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced read copy of the book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

Milly Johnson has always been one of my favourite authors so I was thrilled when I was approved to receive an advance copy of The Mother of All Christmases. I read it over the weekend as I just couldn’t put it down.

Milly takes you on a rollercoaster of emotions following the lives of Eve, Annie and Palma as they all discover they’re pregnant at the same time. This book will make you laugh, take stock, possibly shed a tear but ultimately take you on a festive feel-good adventure as you join in with the friendships these women make.

A wonderfully heartwarming five star read that I can highly recommend. Thank you to NetGalley, Simon and Schuster UK fiction and the author for the chance to review.

The Mother of All Christmases is the perfect, cosy festive read! As with all Milly Johnson books, there is heart, humour, romance and drama.

The cast of characters is wonderful and rich. They are diverse but all have connections  kind of like 6 degrees of separation. It's great fun to untangle the threads and see who knows who and how!

The Cracker Yard factory is amazing and I want to work there! They seem such a lovely lot, especially Joe and Annie! And Winterworld sounds like a dream! I'd love to visit a place like that!

Whilst I struggle with books about pregnant women and motherhood, I can't resist a Milly book. This was beautifully written and touches on some difficult subjects with sensitivity. I didn't feel overwhelmed by it at all.

Oh  Milly, how I adore you! My first festive book of the year and definitely going on my Book of the Year list!

I really did not want this book to end. One becomes so involved with the lives, the emotions the sadness and gladness of the pregnant ladies and their men.
The beginning had me wandering back and forth a little trying to decide who was who and how they fitted in, but once that was past it was plain sailing all the way.
Such humour, but also such empathy for these ladies, all of whom had some issues in their lives, particularly Palma, to whom I really warmed.
It was a beautifully written book taking one through lives that had so many facets..
Thanks to NetGalley for a review copy.

Oh Milly Johnson, has done it again! My only regret is that I wish I could have saved this until Christmas..

It was an absolute to read and I found myself becoming so attached to the characters, that I was bereft when I had finished.

It was lovely to be reacquainted with characters and locations from some of her previous books and just reminded me of why I love her books so much.

We follow the now married and pregnant Eve and Jacques from A Winter Flame, Annie and her husband Joe who had all but given up becoming parents and Palma who is carrying a surrogate baby.

The way they all meet up is fantastic and very in keeping with the style of writing from Johnson.

Each character has their own story that could easily be a book of their own. Palma's story is particularly heartbreaking and had me in tears at times as did Annie and the links they had to each other,.

The backstory featuring Effin who works at A Winter Wonderland owned by Eve and Jacques was an added bonus for me and I loved reading about this and how people's actions had changed how he looked at people.

Another winner from Milly and I eagerly await her next book!

I have to say, that as a fan of Milly Johnson, this is her best book yet. It was so emotional, I cried tears of laughter and joy. Such a heartwarming and heartbreaking book all at the same time. Brilliantly written, with a strong story and even stronger characters. Some of the characters from previous books also pop up, but can be read as a stand alone. Loved it from start to finish.

Enjoyable book to read but didn’t really hold my attention to make me want to not put it down.

I got mixed up with the characters a few times and had to go back to the beginning to remember who was who!

The chicken joke was priceless, I’ll be keping that for my repertoire!

Thank you for an early copy from netgalley in return for an honest review.
As with All of milly's books an excellent Christmas read with lots of laugh out loud moment's, following the pregnancy's of the co workers times of sadness at the same time so tissues at the ready.
This was an excellent book and can highly recommend this book to friends.

Meet three women who through one common denominator are going to be friends forever - they are all pregnant. 

But that is the only common thing between them all. 

Eve, pregnant and due on Christmas Day owns and runs the Winter Wonderland theme park which was featured in a previous Johnson novel. You don't have to have read it to make any sense of this story, but it was lovely to meet back up with familiar characters. 

Having a baby is not really a problem, but when there are other distractions and some dangerous accidents going on, is Eve really safe to carry on working there? 

Annie, childless and now content with her life with her italian husband, Joe runs the cracker factory which specialises not just in the mass market ones but also handmade, bespoke ones too. But as she ages, the inevitable she thinks is happening that is until she is told that she is in fact pregnant and not going through the menopause. Utter joy fills both Annie and Joe.

Palma agreed to be a surrogate for a couple she thought could not have children. It was the way she was able to access money and get herself out of the life she found herself in. She wanted better and she was not afraid to work for it, but she needs to escape her past. Trouble is the couple split up and Palma is left with some very difficult choices.

Coming together at their Doctor's new Christmas Pudding Club the women forge a friendship and we get to see them as they go through the highs and lows of their impending motherhood. 

Add into that, some unsavoury character, cracker making, a wedding, an important boxing match and of course Christmas and there is much packed into this novel. It made me laugh out loud and it made me cry with joy and sadness. What more could you want or need from a novel?

I love Milly’s books but wholeheartedly think this was her best one! Following a group of ladies from different walks of life as they enter pregnancy and build friendships, romances, marriages alongside their regular meetings at the xmas pudding club. A group for women all expecting their babies over the festive period. Mix into that a back story and additional characters who built this story to a perfect xmas tale!

The snippets from the newspaper were the funniest thing ever and I actually burst out laughing many tines on my train commute to work! I aslso spent some time sniffing into a hanky as the emotional element was heartbreaking yet done with dignity.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. One of my all time favourite authors whose style of writing always has me in stitches. I know it is too early for a Xmas book but this was a great read. 5 stars

The Mother of all Christmases

Firstly I would just like to point out that this is not a shmaltzy fairy tale kind of Christmas book and is quite a lot darker than Milly’s other books but it is still a cracker of a read.

Although it does have its own Winter Wonderland with fake snow and reindeer, this is a hard hitting novel describing the grittiness of life for one of the characters called Palma who has hit her rock bottom and is trying to climb back up into a decent life.

When she becomes pregnant she joins the Christmas Pudding club which has been set up by her doctor to allow mums-to-be to meet up and who can then support each other through their pregnancies.

Through this club she meets Annie who’s the owner of a Christmas cracker factory and Annie and the other employees provide the light hearted and fun element of the story, especially Iris and Gill. I loved the parts were Gill was FaceTiming from Spain because it’s such a real thing we do in this age of technology we can still very much stay in contact with out friends and loved ones.

Palma is a very flawed character but mostly born out of survival skills that she had to develop to see her through a rough patch in her life. Whilst it’s easy to judge Palma for some of the actions she took, at the time she just thought it was the right thing to do and I found I understood her reasoning and quickly warmed to her.

Although she often felt very much the outsider in the group the others all clucked around her like mummy ducks protecting their young and I think this was special for Palma because she had never had any self worth.

There is a heartbreaking tragedy which puts everything into perspective for many of the characters but the lovely thing that shines through from this story is the love that grows between a mother and her unborn child and the same with the man that she chooses to be a father to that child.

There were some very touching scenes involving a man called Tommy which truly brought a tear to my eye.

The book although quite dark at times does have a silver lining and ends with a really lovely positive glow.

Many of the characters from Milly’s previous books feature in this one and it was lovely to see how they were doing and especially lovely rob visit the sunflower cafe once again.

I cried again when reading the acknowledgments because Milly talks about her own rollercoaster of a ride with motherhood which I can totally relate to and it becomes obvious right there how much passion has gone into writing this book.

It’s really nice to get back to Winterworld and catch up with Eve Glace and her husband Jacques not to mention the cracker factory and the Pandoros. We also get to meet Palma Collins who is trying to desperately escape the rattrap and make a life for herself away from the people who are trying to bring her down. They all meet at the Christmas Pudding Club where they get a chance to bond and share their hope and dreams. This is another cracker from the queen of storytellers. Loved it.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Milly Johnson does it again! A great read with just the right amount of comedy and tragedy. This book follows a group of pregnant women through their pregnancies, having all joined the Christmas pudding club. It tells the story of them and the people around them, about family, friends and foes. Even though it’s not much of a Christmas story it has that element of excitement mixed with family/friend relationships that you feel on the run up to Christmas. Highly recommend

What a brilliant book!!!! I always loved Milly Johnson's books and this one is no exception! Just a little disclaimer here, for those you are waiting for a book full of Christmas things, this one is not the one for you. This book is about a group of women who are pregnant and expecting for Christmas period. THis book can be read anytime of the year and not only during winter time. It's a lovely story 500 pages long. Don't be afraid of those 500 pages because the story is so good, so well-written and so full of events that I promise you that those 500 pages will fly by! IN this book we are following different person's lives and I liked that a lot because you never have time to be bored. Also usually I am not very interested in stories about pregnant women but this one is so much more! It's about pregnancy, friendship, loss, love, second chances and trust. I highly HIGHLY recommend this book to every women out there! 5 stars out of 5 for me!

Another winner for Milly Johnson. Wonderful characters, wonderful story that will have you laughing and crying.

Have your hankies at the ready yet another brilliant book by MillyJohnson, a real page turner and i read this in a day.

I don't know where to begin with this review. This book stole my heart, broke it and fixed it back together again with gold! It was a wonderful story of people coming together in and being the best they could be for each other. It's beautifully written and has huge amounts of witty moments followed straight up by some proper belly laughs! There are plenty of "aww" moments and a few blasts from the past. This book was twisty and turny in all the right places and keeps you guessing, and when you think "well that's so obvious!" you find you're wrong, and you'll be delighted to be wrong! This is another one of Milly's masterpieces and I can't wait for the world to enjoy it as much as I have!

I received an early preview of this book by Netgalley.

I have read all of Milly's books and I was looking forward to reading this one. It certainly didn't disappoint. I would say that this is one of my favourite books by Molly so far.
The book brings together characters and locations from several of Milly's books, although it is not really a sequel .It could be enjoyed as a standalone novel. The book was very cleverly written to integrate the previous characters, while introducing the reader to new characters.
The book certainly grips the reader with a roller coaster of emotions, there are happy moments, comedy, romance, deceit, friendship and sadness. 
The theme of Christmas, and the preparations of businesses for the festive season work well with the characters. It's very festive, and enjoyable to read. A great book to curl up and lose yourself in on a cold day.