Mr Dickens and His Carol A playful, festive imagining of the story behind A Christmas Carol

‘THIS CLEVER, ORIGINAL DEBUT BRILLIANTLY IMAGINES THE WRITING OF A CHRISTMAS CAROL . . . IT'S WILDLY MOVING, CHOCK FULL OF DICKENSIAN ATMOSPHERE AND WRITTEN IN A STYLE AS RICH AS A VICTORIAN CHRISTMAS DINNER’ DAILY MAIL Charles Dickens should be looking forward to Christmas. But when his latest book, Martin Chuzzlewit, is a flop, his publishers give him an ultimatum. Either he writes a Christmas book in a month or they will call in his debts and he could lose everything. Dickens has no choice but to grudgingly accept. Yet inspiration is slow to strike, and in his desperate search for ideas, Dickens becomes increasingly distant from his own family as his fascination with a mysterious woman and her young son develops. But all is not as it seems . . . In true Dickens style, this is a tale of ghosts and secrets, set in the heart of Victorian London. ‘CHARMING, COMIC . . . I READ IT IN A COUPLD OF EBULLIENT, CHRISTMASSY GULPS’ ANTHONY DOERR, AUTHOR OF ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE