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The Mother of All Christmases cover art

The Mother of All Christmases

By: Milly Johnson
Narrated by: Colleen Prendergast
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Summary

The most perfect Christmas feel-good listen!

Eve Glace - co-owner of the theme park Winterworld - is having a baby, and her due date is a perfectly timed 25th December. And she’s decided that she and her husband, Jacques, should renew their wedding vows with all the pomp and Christmas ceremony that was missing from the first time round. But things keep going wrong in Winterworld - is it because the the usually competent site manager, Effin Williams, has lost his focus, or is there something more sinister going on? 

Annie Pandoro and her husband, Joe, own a small Christmas cracker factory and are well set up and happy together despite life never blessing them with a much-wanted child. But when Annie finds that the changes happening to her body aren’t typical of the menopause but pregnancy, her joy is uncontainable. 

Palma Collins has agreed to act as a surrogate, hoping the money will give her a helping hand out of the gutter in which she finds herself. But when the couple split up just after she finds out she is pregnant, she is left carrying the baby.

Annie, Palma and Eve all meet at the ‘Christmas Pudding Club’, a new directive started by a forward-thinking young doctor to help mums-to-be mingle and share their pregnancy journeys. Will this group help each other to find love, contentment and peace as Christmas approaches?

The brand-new novel from the Sunday Times best-selling author of The Perfectly Imperfect Woman; a gorgeous listen full of love, life, laughter - and crackers! 

©2018 Milly Johnson (P)2018 Simon & Schuster UK
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: Romance

Critic reviews

"Every time you discover a new Milly book, it’s like finding a pot of gold." (Heat) 

"A glorious, heartfelt novel." (Rowan Coleman)

"Absolutely loved it. Milly's writing is like getting a big hug with just the right amount of bite underneath. I was rooting for Bonnie from the start." (Jane Fallon)

What listeners say about The Mother of All Christmases

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Brilliant just brilliant!!!!

Oh dear what a rollercoaster of a book. You laugh you cry but most of all thoroughly enjoy it. I loved all the characters and hope to read about how their lives progress from here.

This must be my absolute favourite book by milly so far.

Roll on the next book ❤️

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7 people found this helpful

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Not feel good, but loads of problems with facts

I can not recommend this book.
It is all about pregnancy and I can only hope no baby will be hurt by the way things a portrayed in this book. And no couple stays childless. I also do not like portraying not taking birth control seriously as normal.
And nobody will think that you can put off getting pregnant until you are 48. Girls 30 is the limit, not 40!
There are just things that are so off:
A NHS paid group for mothers, based on the idea of a GP.
Right, A GP just will have to have an idea and the NHS will pay the midwives to do so.
Obviously this group is life changing, But I repeat: the NHS does not offer it.

And then the facts.
After one meeting about pregnancy myths a pregnant woman rushes home to stuff herself with cheese. There is no take home message which cheeses you should not eat in pregnancy and why (those made from raw milk, unpasteurised milk are the dangerous ones, for example brie or camembert).
And colouring your hair or taking several paracetamol as pain relief is done without a second thought. It is probably all right, but there a there are studies linking paracetamol use in pregnancy to behavioural issues and the rule should be, if in doubt, just do not take medicine or take any risks whilst pregnant.

Then there is the issue of poverty.
Where I also think the author's morals are wide off.
There are people so poor that the think toilet paper rolls are worth stealing.
Which is condemned.
Also condemned is taking benefits.
And you have to be very grateful for a minimum wage job. And very good at it, And do work that normally pays twice the minimum wage with great enthusiasm.
And taking overtime pay cash in hand is ok.
So basically it is ok for business owners to pay overtime cash in hand, which is most likely done to cheat the taxman, but truly poor people should never ever apply for benefits that they are legally entitled to.

The story is partially about getting out of poverty.
But since you cannot take benefits, you have to be a) lucky and b) take any job offered. Looking closer at the story the people making it have luck by meeting better off people giving them a helping hand, and this makes me angry, since this whole thing means, you are a bad person if you need to take benefits so you can not better yourself if you are not a lucky person who meets the right people at the right time.

Then the authors morals, It seems to be ok not to go to the police if you know something about a murder if the murder victim would habe been murdered at some point anyway and deserved to die. Gangs are a fact of life and you better keep you mouth shut about them. Do we want to turn UK into Italy? This is madness.

Then there is the issue of surrogacy.
If you still want to listen you might not want to read on (because you might judge this as a spoiler).
The surrogate is willing to carry a baby for 5000 Pounds to propel her out of poverty.
This makes me so angry.
It is described as against the law and a lot of money.
How on earth a one off 5000 Pounds can help you out of poverty when it means going through a pregnancy, getting to hospital, eating extra healthy is beyond me.
And it is described as against the law and partially as blackmail for making the people who are ordering the baby pay.
Again the author has her facts not researched.
Yes, You are not allowed to pay for surrogacy in UK (the rate in US would be 25 000 Dollars).
But you are allowed to pay expenses and they are set at 12 000- 20 000 Pounds.
So this whole story line is just wrong all over.
And who would do such a thing without a single line of written contract?

The narrator can not pronounce German. From other reviews I gather that the Welsh is also wrong. There is a lot of untranslated Welsh in the book. Presumably most of it swearing. But why write stuff, people will not understand?

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5 people found this helpful

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Great Christmas read!

Loved this story! Such w feel good, heart warming tale. Narration very good. Would thoroughly recommend. Will definitely read more books by this author.

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4 people found this helpful

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Too many storylines and characters

Milly Johnson always writes with great humour and has a great gift for making you sympathise with the characters. There were some heartwarming - and heartbreaking moments. I really felt for the principal character, Parma (Palma?) But I found the constant introduction of folk from previous novels and all the mini-themes a bit overwhelming. Would rather have read this as two or three different books than squashed into one.

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A busy story

At times I felt a bit lost or found it hard to follow with So many characters. There was always something going on with someone. However what a lovely story. Makes you laugh out loud and bawl your eyes out. Amazing welsh too!

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2 people found this helpful

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lovely story

Made me laugh and cry. lovely story of strangers coming together for a common purpose

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1 person found this helpful

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Bad language book - rubbish

No need for bad language or extreme swearing to write a wonderful and gripping story to hold the readerbto the end. Have removed it from my audible and would not, I repeat, would not recommend this book.

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1 person found this helpful

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Funny and poignant

This is one of my favourite Milly Johnson books. I cried when I first read it and cried when I listened to it.

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The mother of all Christmas

Another great book from !Millie Johnson she is one brilliant author her book's are bfeat

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Love love love

Another great audio book, read by Colleen Prendetgady She makes the characters come to life. I also love the way Milly Johnson brings the characters from her other books into most of her publications

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