Book Talk with Susan Breen: Merry
Susan Breen will be joining us in the bookspace for a talk with community members Tom Breen and Lucy Gellman. This beloved trio will be discussing Susan’s new book, Merry, about a woman who may be facing her last Christmas. The main character is aiming to bring holiday cheer by any means necessary, despite the fact that she is being haunted by the angry ghost of Charles Dickens. Join us for this sweet, cozy, holiday-on-the-horizon new release!
More about the book:
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.
More about Susan:
SUSAN BREEN is the award-winning author of The Fiction Class and the Maggie Dove mystery series. She is the 2024 winner of the Margery Allingham Short Mystery Competition. She teaches novel-writing at Gotham Writers and has led workshops in Cape Cod, Dubai and many other locales. Her new novel, MERRY, is forthcoming from Alcove Press in Fall 2025. She is proud to be Tom Breen's mother, Lucy Gellman's mother-in-law and Avi's grandmother.