Mistletoe Gardens is a Victorian era park in the otherwise built-up Folkhornton, a fictional little town in South Wales, where The Gingerbread House in Mistletoe Gardens is set, and the story revolves around local baker Essie teaming up with builder Joss to build a life-size gingerbread house and save the only green space in their town after they hear that it’s to be demolished in favour of an apartment complex.
I was lucky enough to grow up in the 90s – an era before phones, screens, and the internet, and I’m eternally grateful for that. I can’t imagine being a child in the modern world! In my day, my friends and I spent our summers running around the village, swimming in the river, skimming stones in the lakes, and kicking a ball around in the park. Since then, every green space in the village has had a house built on it, the river has been re-routed to make way for a motorway, the lakes have been commercialised and now require a hefty fee to enter, and the park has been paved over and turned into a car park. This is something that’s happening everywhere you look in the UK, and something I really wanted to draw attention to in this book.
The residents of Folkhornton don’t realise how much Mistletoe Gardens means to them until it’s (almost!) too late, and as they start to remember their special moments there and share them with Essie and Joss, they come together to show the would-be developers how much the space matters to the town. It’s so much harder for a developer to take over a piece of land if it can be proved that it’s well-loved and well-used by locals, and the residents plan future things that the space can be used for and ways that money can be generated, because that’s the bottom line, of course.
One way the modern world helps is by using social media and getting the story of Mistletoe Gardens, the giant gingerbread house, and Folkhornton’s quirky residents to go viral, which gets people talking about it and creates a much-needed headache for the greedy developers and gives them good reason to think twice! A clear campaign, plans for the future of the site, and people who truly care about it… that’s all a green space really needs!
Make sure to pick up your copy of The Gingerbread House in Mistletoe Gardens here: https://mybook.to/Gingerbreadhousesocial