Saving Mr. Bell is a fluffy, snowed-in, only-one-bed seasonal romance featuring a burned-out concert pianist and a film-maker who decides it’s time someone stepped in to stop him going completely off the rails. It’s a quick and entertaining read with lots of snarky humour and two likeable protagonists; the inciting incident is a bit silly, but that tends to be par for the course with a lot of contemporary romances these days, and especially so when it comes to Christmas stories.

Twenty-three-year-old Rudolf Bell was a child prodigy and has gone on to have a top-flight career as a classical pianist. Widely known for his good-looks and rock-star attitude, he’s been on a non-stop and hugely demanding whirl of touring, recording and publicity for the last few years, and has reached the stage where he kind of hates all of it. Then, at a concert in Berlin, he just flipped when, for the first time in his life, he completely forgot the piece he was playing, stopped the concert, and simply walked off stage. He hasn’t played – in public or in private – since, and his name is appearing more and more frequently in the gossip columns for things he’s getting up to off the concert platform, the media buzzing with stories about his ‘hedonistic lifestyle’ of drugs, booze and anonymous sex. When the book begins, he’s at a nightclub in Salzburg getting smashed – it’s one way of numbing himself against the shitshow his life has become – when an angry call from his manager has him staggering outside and into the car she’s arranged to take him back to his hotel.

Six years earlier, film maker Arlo Thomas had been hired by Rudolf’s father to make a documentary about the seventeen-year-old wunderkind, and he’d been pleasantly surprised to discover his subject to be a sweet, funny young man rather than some brash, cocky diva, and over the couple of weeks they’d spent in each other’s company, they forged a friendship that might, had Rudolf not been so young, have developed into something more. But when Bell Sr. got wind of their growing closeness, he sent Arlo and his team packing. The documentary was never finished and Rudolf was never told why.

Arlo has kept tabs on Rudolf’s career over the years, and reading about the disastrous concert in Berlin has him truly concerned. Arlo can’t believe that nobody in the team of people that surrounds Rudolf can see what he sees, that he’s being pushed too hard, he’s spiralling out of control and that if he doesn’t get some help soon, he’ll break under the pressure. Knowing how focused Rudolf’s dad is on his son’s career, and that Rudolf is likely surrounded by a group of people who see him only as their ticket on the gravy train, Arlo decides it’s up to him to intervene. He has no idea as to how he will go about it, knowing only that a phone call or email won’t cut it. So he heads to Austria, thinking he’ll follow Rudolf to his hotel and take it from there – when a very drunk Rudolf stumbles out of a club and throws himself into the back of Arlo’s car. Without thinking too much about it, Arlo puts his foot down and heads out of town, taking Rudolf to the little cabin he’s booked in the forest in the middle of nowhere.

As I said, the premise is silly, but once you get past that, Saving Mr. Bell is a lot of fun with plenty of heart and humour. I liked Rudolf’s resilience and spunky attitude – he’s no dying swan, and isn’t above trying to make Arlo regret his choices by being a pain in the arse, but there’s a vulnerability beneath the prickliness that begins to emerge over the days they’re snowed in together. And I liked Arlo’s take-no-crap attitude – he knows he did a dumb thing and accepts that Rudolf has very good reason for wanting to make his life difficult – but he isn’t going to give up on getting Rudolf to see that he doesn’t have to play by someone else’s rules any more, that he can make his own decisions about his career and that he needs to surround himself with people who have his best interests at heart rather than their own. And he can’t help hoping that the funny and sweet young man he met six years ago might still be there beneath the layers of hurt, exhaustion and indignation.

Arlo tries hard not to fall for Rudolf, but it’s impossible. As his prickly façade falls away to reveal the witty and charming man behind it, Arlo is captivated all over again and realises he’s fighting a losing battle. It’s not too long before the two of them are exploring the chemistry fizzing between them and rekindling their friendship, discovering that the connection they’d felt before has never really gone away. The dialogue sparkles and they have some very honest conversations about who they are and what they want – and Rudolf has to admit that maybe he did need saving after all, and perhaps Arlo’s somewhat unconventional method of doing it was just what he needed. The big question is, once the snow melts and their time out-of-time comes to an end, is it the end – or a new beginning?

With plenty of snarky banter and an expertly realised setting with lots of snow, a Christmas tree that never seems to get decorated, and the cutest baby wolves ever, Saving Mr. Bell is a funny, sexy, low-angst romance that delivers a satisfying HEA and lots of festive feels.