Miss Marley

In my opinion...

I was delighted to receive this lovely looking book, which with its festive red & gold cover announces Christmas.

It is an interesting, atmospheric story imagining the story of Jacob Marley and his sister, Clara, prior to Dickens’ A Christmas Carol’.

It has all the traditional ingredients required for Christmas Eve reading- a ghost, a Victorian setting and offers hope of redemption. In addition it explains the back story to some of Scrooge’s dreams, all as told by Clara.

Nothing can replicate Dickens’ rich social commentaries, but both Vanessa Lafaye and her friend Rebecca Mascull, who finished the novel after Vanessa’s death earlier this year, adored Dickens, and it shows.

This is a story to complement ‘A Christmas Carol’ and would make a lovely stocking filler.

Want to know more?

Orphans Clara and Jacob Marley live by their wits, scavenging for scraps in the poorest alleyways of London, in the shadow of the workhouse. Every night, Jake promises his little sister ‘tomorrow will be better’ and when the chance to escape poverty comes their way, he seizes it despite the terrible price.

And so Jacob Marley is set on a path that leads to his infamous partnership with Ebenezer Scrooge. As Jacob builds a fortress of wealth to keep the world out, only Clara can warn him of the hideous fate that awaits him if he refuses to let love and kindness into his heart…

In Miss Marley, Vanessa Lafaye weaves a spellbinding Dickensian tale of ghosts, goodwill and hope – a perfect prequel to A Christmas Carol.

My rating...

A festive four glasses of fizz

Thank you Harper Collins for my copy of this lovely book