The second in Matt Haig’s Christmas trilogy, I correct myself slightly on what I said last year – the books are not completely separate. The boy in the first book is the adult Father Christmas in this book, but while there are a few call backs, it’s really not dependent on having read it, this stands alone well.
This is set in Victorian England, and as it’s a children’s book, of course we bump into Charles Dickens at one point, and crash into Queen Victoria’s bedroom in another (where she is sat up in bed wearing her crown – naturally).
The book follows the story of Amelia Wishart, a chimney sweep who early on loses her mother and is taken to the workhouse by a horrible man. This runs parallel to Father Christmas dealing with the lack of hope in the world and therefore lack of magic to power his sleigh, this is partly due a troll attack that stopped him from delivering last year at all!
So there’s a lot going on, the two stories obviously meet and overlap, and everything’s alright in the end.
ineke.co.uk 