Published By: Zaffre
Pages: 384
Released On: 09/10/2025
Ebenezer Scrooge wants to be a good man. He wants to be remembered. He wants to be loved. And he never, ever wants to see a ghost again as long as he lives.
But changing your ways on Christmas day is easy. Changing your ways for the rest of your life is a little trickier. Almost a year on from his haunting, Scrooge is slipping. Only fundraising attempts with the formidable Mrs Tassell and his growing bond with Tiny Tim are keeping him on the straight and narrow.
Scrooge feels he is doing Christmas right. He is decorating his house, buying gifts, entertaining his neighbours and planning a Benevolent Feast for the Poor. So when a lucrative business opportunity comes his way he jumps at the chance to make some quick money… to give to the poor, obviously. But maybe just keep some – OK, most – of it for himself.
But then Scrooge sees her. Another ghost, silent and terrifying. And in order to be free of this haunting he must solve her murder. It leads him to investigate the connections between the upstanding men of business he used to admire and London’s criminal underworld.
As Christmas draws closer, and with it Scrooge’s Benevolent Christmas Feast for the Poor, he begins to realise there’s more at stake than his own soul.
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Zaffre for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
As of August 2025, I own 48 copies of A Christmas Carol, including ones published in the mid-1880s (still awaiting that first edition), the Muppet’s version, an adaptation involving guinea pigs, and German and Italian translations, so you could say I’m a little protective of it and am a bit iffy when people adapt it or its characters, but I know Andreina is a huge talent so I’m willing to forgive her this time.
This keeps the heart of the original story but adds enough of an extra spark to make it feel new and fresh.
As well as giving us the story from Scrooge’s perspective, we also get the odd chapter from the ghost/s perspective, which was an interesting addition.
There’s nostalgia there, but it’s all wrapped up in a murder mystery, which was an interesting take on the story as it puts the characters in a different light.
Considering how many copies of A Christmas Carol I own, and how many times I’ve read it, I don’t think I’ve ever given any real though to what happens next, as to whether Scrooge kept his promises or not, but now I’ve read this, it seems like such an obvious thing to do.
I believe Andreina has written three Christmas books – The 12 Days of Murder, Murder at the Christmas Emporium and now this one, and I’ve read them all. They remind me a bit of Alexandra Benedict’s books, festive offerings with a thrilling edge and I love them all.
I don’t know if she is planning any other stories in the Scrooge vein, but I’m intrigued to see. It doesn’t necessarily warrant a sequel or a series, and I think you could only go too far without it feeling a bit like a parody, but I’m interested to see what she produces next, Scrooge or otherwise. But I love Christmas books and I love thrillers so she’s already on to a winner.
I was a little concerned about this given my aforementioned obsession with the original, but it gave me just enough of everything I wanted and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Books By Your Bedside 