Review: Mary Christmas by Mary-Anne O’Connor

I do love historical fiction focussed on women and by Aussie authors, so Mary-Anne O’Connor’s Mary Christmas caught my eye right away when I spotted it in a publicity catalogue a little while ago (also how could it not with that cover!). Check out the blurb from the publishers website and then my thoughts on the book below.

What is Mary-Anne O’Connor’s Mary Christmas about?

It’s 1909 and Mary Richards has worked hard to gain an education and become a teacher in her close-knit, picturesque village in the Cotswolds, but not everyone approves of her modern ways.

When her sister Emily becomes engaged to David Christmas, it seems fate will intervene in the form of the best man: his eligible brother Johnathon. Mary finds herself in danger of falling for this handsome, almost too perfect stranger, only married women have to give up their careers as soon as they’re wed and there’s no way Mary is going to sacrifice her dreams for a man.

Yet the ancient village of Bibury has a way of weaving its enchantments over them all, and as the winter snows fall and Emily’s Christmas-Day wedding approaches, Mary isn’t immune to the romance of the season. In the end she must decide whether she’s ready to embrace love or not, and if she can truly have the best of both worlds on the eve of what could well be the most magical Christmas of them all.

My thoughts on Mary Christmas

Mary Christmas has 25 chapters and I had originally planned to read it a chapter each day as a Christmas countdown, but I found it a little slow and hard to really get into the story that way. Once I just let myself just read I found I was quite drawn into the story and enjoyed it a lot more.

The novel is set in three parts – at home in Bibury, in Oxford in the lead up to the wedding, then the wedding itself. My favourite part was when Mary and Emily were in Oxford – I found the plot moved along at a better pace for me there, and I enjoyed seeing Mary meet with suffragettes. The main theme in the book is women’s rights and the expectations put on them by society, as Mary wrestles with chosing between love and teaching – a career she is passionate about but will have to give up if she marries. Other issues in terms of womens rights were not just that women can’t vote but the fact that they were not eligible to be awarded degrees they studied for at Oxford – interestingly this bit about Oxford is also a theme in a historical fiction novel my daughter is reading at the moment.

Overall I thought this was a sweet story, but it did drag for me a little bit in parts, and I thought it was sometimes heavy handed and repetitive around the women’s rights messaging. I do think it makes a nice festive read to squeeze in around the busyness of December if you’re after something you can easily put down and pick up again later.

xo Bron
***

Mary Christmas by Mary-Anne O’Connor
Out now from Penguin Australia.
Source: The team at Penguin kindly sent me an early copy for review.
Category: Christmassy Historical Fiction

Mary Christmas on The StoryGraph and Goodreads

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