Charming tale about an unlikely friendship is ultimate feelgood novel

Dot is a widow aged “north of 70, south of 80”, a retired nurse living in the Edinburgh house in which she grew up. Since her husband died, she’s been leading a lonely life, drawing comfort from the Christmas village of miniature figures she keeps in her living room all year round. She’s even resorted to shoplifting to alleviate the boredom. But she withdraws even further into herself after the night she’s mugged and knocked to the ground.

In the park one day, she sees a bunch of young offenders doing their community service. There’s one lad who seems more thoughtful and responsible than the rest. His name is Max and he was caught fencing stolen goods. The pair strike up a rapport, with something of the dynamic of a quirky aunt and her nephew. So, when Dot wins the lottery and doesn’t know what to do with all her money, it’s Max who takes charge, suggesting that she write a bucket list and using it to organise extravagant, memorable treats for her.

(Image: Polygon)

What Dot discovers, inevitably, is that it’s all very nice to sample every dessert on the menu of a posh restaurant, have the exclusive use of an amusement park and see an all-singing, all-dancing flashmob materialise just for you, but good fortune is best when it’s spread around. The real benefit of Dot’s windfall is the strengthened bonds in her neighbourhood. Though there remain some mean-spirited grinches moaning online about the giant festive tree she’s erected on the common, the miniature Christmas town in her living room has been replaced by a real community.

It’s a feelgood book, that’s for sure, but not entirely without grit, and that’s largely due to the characterisation of Dot. She first appears as an unhappy, lonely old woman who is petty enough to report two complaining “crones” for shoplifting from a garden centre when she has been doing exactly the same thing herself for months. Still, even before she meets Max and has her unexpected lottery win, she retains traces of the spirited, adventurous, fun-loving woman we see in flashbacks to when her husband was still alive. Later, even as items are ticked off her bucket list and joy returns to her life, we can discern flashes of a wilful, indulgent streak that prevent us from feeling too comfortable – as does the ease with which she can slip back into the fearful isolation that followed her mugging.

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We don’t get as much of a sense of Max’s interiority – though, to be fair, he is younger and comparatively unformed. There’s a glimpse of his childhood, in which his deadbeat dad cons him into picking pockets before disappearing from his life, leaving Max wary and pessimistic until he finds his confidence as Dot’s list-master. But Jones seems to struggle to find an authentic voice for him, and though Max’s love of old films gives him something to bond with Dot over, it never quite rings true.

It’s not without its flaws, but this story of a couple of misfits making the world a slightly better place while trying to do each other a good turn is the kind of book to reach for when the world, as it so often does, gets you down.