A time for families, a time for love, a time for. . . coming home. So reads the cover of Patricia Scanlan's latest book, a Christmas-themed novel that looks at the bright side of the global financial meltdown.

Surprisingly, this new book from Scanlan is not the usual big, fat paperback. Instead, it's a small hardback. Following the success of Cecelia Ahern's The Gift, it is safe to say that for ever more the run-up to Christmas will be a time for packaging successful authors in cutesy, handbag-size hardbacks to capture the Christmas-stocking market.

In her acknowledgments, Scanlan thanks her editor Francesca Liversidge (what a great name for a chick-lit heroine! Francesca Liversidge would take no nonsense and accordingly ensure her plot resolved itself sensibly. I want to read her story!) for commissioning the book and so well she should. It is sure to be a very productive undertaking for both parties and certainly should end up in at least as many Christmas stockings as Ahern's 2008 offering.

And whoever chose the artwork for the cover is also due a pat on the back. It is deliciously old-fashioned, and suggestive of a nice, wholesome old-time Christmas in the days before rampant consumerism infested our shores. A time when every house in Ireland had a copy of the Holly Bough, the Christmas RTE Guide and Ireland's Eye on the kitchen table, otherwise known as the good ole days.

The story isn't half bad either. The plot centres around two sisters, Alison and Olivia, aka chalk and cheese. The latter is a working wife and mother, who lives close to her parents and elderly uncle, and has assumed the weight of the world on her shoulders.

She envies the former's New York lifestyle as a high-flying financial executive with a rich high-flying boyfriend and is somewhat bitter, to say the least; unaware of the fact that her little sister has, in fact, lost her job in the recession.

A surprise 70th birthday for their mother brings Alison back to Dublin -- and the sisters back together -- to resolve their under-the-surface resentments. And Alison swaps the high-flying New York ponce for a nice, wholesome, blue-collar Irish lad from the wesht of Ireland.

Like all of Scanlan's books, the characters are intelligent and believable, the story is compelling and the resolution satisfactory. It is the kind of book you want to read lying on the couch in front of the fire as you dig into the tin of Roses. The perfect stocking filler. -- YH

The debut novel by Anna McPartlin, Pack up the Moon, was a bestseller both here and abroad a few years ago. Since then, she has written a few more novels and a TV drama but somehow she remains relatively unknown. Which is strange because she is one of the most interesting popular-fiction writers around; funny and romantic, but also realistic, even dark. It helps as well that her writing is so accomplished.

McPartlin has an interesting back story, which includes time as a stand-up comedienne in the early '90s -- although, before that, it was darker.

Her parents separated when she was five and her mother was diagnosed with MS when she was six. She cared for her until the age of 12 and was then fostered by relatives.

At the age of 14, she was introduced to her half-sister. At 17, she lost her mother, and a few years later, she lost a close friend to suicide, as well as her father to cancer, though she had never really known him.

At 21, she nearly lost her own life when she was hit by a car.

Surviving all this inspired McPartlin to write about the darker side of life, but her books are also brimming with hope and laughter and unusual insights into the varying ways people deal with both stress and opportunity.

So What If I'm Broken is the writer at her best, the story of four strangers in search of a missing person who first have to find themselves.

It begins in Dublin in 2007, when a woman called Alexandra leaves home, gets on a DART and then disappears, leaving behind a distraught husband Tom who devotes himself to finding her. When Alexandra disappeared she was on the way to pick up tickets for a Jack L concert and later Tom goes to the concert to hand out leaflets asking for information about her.

But then there's a power cut and he gets stuck in a lift with three women, one of whom happens to have been a teenage friend of the missing Alexandra. The three women, all of whom have problems of their own -- one is a recluse, another bipolar -- end up helping Tom, but in the process they have to sort out their own lives.

It's an intriguing, moving and very contemporary story. -- SO'N

Values, priorities and dreams, not to mention relationships, change when a baby is on the way, whether it is planned or not and, conversely, not being able to have one can put a strain on even the best relationship. This is exactly what happens in Positively Yours -- the stories of three very different Irish women, whose lives briefly touch during pregnancy.

Beth is a high-powered businesswoman having an affair with her boss, Tom. When she discovers she is pregnant, Beth is delighted, but Tom is not interested. Grace, from a modest Irish background, is married to American Ethan and living the California dream. She fears her perfect life will be ruined by her surprise pregnancy, while Erin is so desperate to have a child that her happy marriage is in jeopardy.

With lives turned upside down and huge obstacles to overcome, the women discover what's really important in life. Sensitive and heart-warming, with a guaranteed happy ending, this perfect antidote to the recession is the second novel by Amanda Hearty, who is the daughter of well-known author Marita Conlon-McKenna. -- AD

Irish Independent