Merry - by Susan Breen

Book Synopsis

A mother's valiant efforts to bring her family the joy of Christmas go haywire when she finds herself haunted by the angry ghost of Charles Dickens.

This sparkling, cozy novel is perfect for readers of Emma Straub's This Time Tomorrow and anyone who looks forward to watching It's a Wonderful Life each December!

Merry Bingham used to love Christmas--until she started worrying all the time about family, money, and death. The only thing that continues to bring her joy is reading from her heirloom edition of A Christmas Carol, autographed by Charles Dickens himself and passed down through five generations of her family. Now, as she waits for the results of the medical tests that will tell her whether this Christmas season will be her last, Merry prepares to give her book to the next generation. Except none of her three children wants it.

Merry refuses to surrender Christmas or Dickens without a fight, so she sells the book and uses the money to take her family to London. She will fill them with Christmas joy even if she has to cram it down their throats.

But the harder Merry pushes, the worse everything gets. Her children erupt into vicious arguments, her gentle husband stops talking to her, her deluxe rental apartment is not what was promised. Oh, and she keeps seeing the ghost of Charles Dickens around town--and he is not happy with her.

Fans of family stories, classic literature, Christmas novels, and holiday season magic will adore Merry.

Review Quotes

Praise for Merry
"I fell in love with Merry Bingham from the very first page. Breen has created the perfect recipe for a Christmas novel: part hilarious family squabbles, part exotic European location, and a dash of magic in the form of a ghostly literary icon. Yet the characters remain grounded and highly sympathetic. Laugh-out-loud funny and genuinely moving--this is the holiday book I've been waiting for."
--Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Stolen Queen

"All the joy and magic of a Hallmark holiday tale with the added depth and urgency of a modern family novel. Rare book dealer Merry Bingham is determined to fix her fractious family by taking them all to London for the best Christmas ever, even as she grapples with her own guilt and faces an uncertain diagnosis. This fresh and clever reimagining of Dickens's A Christmas Carol drew me in with its astute and empathetic exploration of the complex family dynamics at play between adult children and their imperfect parents."
--Kim van Alkemade, New York Times bestselling author of Orphan #8 and Counting Lost Stars

"From the opening page, the reader is in for a true Christmas treat. Merry is everything a Christmas novel should be--heartwarming and filled with endearing characters. There are many lessons to be learned but Susan approaches them with humor and great holiday cheer. I loved every minute of this wonderful book!"
--Anita Hughes, author of Christmas at the Lake and A Magical New York Christmas

About the Author

Susan Breen is the award-winning author of The Fiction Class and the Maggie Dove mystery series. She teaches novel writing at Gotham Writers and has been on the faculty of conferences from Cape Cod to Dubai. She loves stories about families, London, ghosts, guilt, atonement, dogs, Charles Dickens, and Christmas. She likes the idea of collecting rare books, though so far, she's only collected two, both of them being early editions of A Christmas Carol. For more info check out susanbreenauthor.com.