Mr. Dickens and His Carol
Samantha Silva
2017, 276 pages
Holiday fiction
Charles Dickens is not feeling the Christmas spirit. The public didn’t like his new book, the critics have turned against him, relatives want money and his wife has just had yet another child. His wife wants to continue their traditional Christmas (lavish) and Dickens is thinking of the poor house. But when his publishers try to blackmail him into writing a Christmas book to save them all from financial ruin, he refuses. And that’s when a very serious writer’s block sets in.
Filled with self-doubt and frustrated, Dickens seeks peace in his great palace of thinking, the city of London itself. On one of his many long walks around the city, he meets the mysterious Eleanor Lovejoy, who might just be the muse he needs. With deadlines looming, and Dickens’s children waiting for a magical Christmas, Eleanor propels him on a Scrooge-like journey that tests everything that Dickens believes about generosity, friendship, ambition and love.
He changed Christmas forever.
With humor, rich historical detail from Charles Dickens’s life and clever winks to his work, Mr. Dickens and His Carol is an irresistible new take on a cherished classic (also on audiobook).
Holly Tripp Concord Public Library
Visit CPL at concordpubliclibrary.net.
