Book Review: The Christmas Appeal by Janice Hallett

  Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this ebook, free of charge, from Simon & Schuster Publishing via edelweissplus, for review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it. All opinions are my own.

This immersive holiday caper from the “modern Agatha Christie” (The Sunday Times, London) follows the hilarious Fairway Players theater group as they put on a Christmas play—and solve a murder that threatens their production.

Synopsis:

The Christmas season has arrived in Lower Lockwood, and the Fairway Players are busy rehearsing their festive holiday production of Jack and the Beanstalk to raise money for a new church roof. But despite the season, goodwill is distinctly lacking among the amateur theater enthusiasts with petty rivalries, a possibly asbestos-filled beanstalk, and some perennially absent players behind the scenes.

Of course, there’s also the matter of the dead body onstage. Who could possibly have had the victim on their naughty list? Join lawyers Femi and Charlotte as they investigate Christmas letters, examine emails, and pore over police transcripts to identify both the victim and killer before the curtain closes on their holiday

Review:

The gang from The Appeal is back- there are changes in the Fairway Players, thanks to the matters that occurred in the first book, and the new leaders have taken on a traditional English Christmas pantomime, complete with extremely large beanstalk, that may have it's own story to tell. This is a quick read (seriously, you'll be laughing so hard, you won't realize you've read 5 chapters!) at just over 200 pages, and it's a fun look at shenanigans aplenty for the holiday season. Can't wait to read the next book with these hilarious characters, and you won't either! So pick this up for some light weekend reading, you won't regret it!

About the Author:

Janice Hallett is a former magazine editor, award-winning journalist, and government communications writer. She wrote articles and speeches for, among others, the Cabinet Office, Home Office, and Department for International Development. Her enthusiasm for travel has taken her around the world several times, from Madagascar to the Galapagos, Guatemala to Zimbabwe, Japan, Russia, and South Korea. A playwright and screenwriter, she penned the feminist Shakespearean stage comedy NetherBard and cowrote the feature film Retreat. She lives in London and is the author of The Appeal, and The Twyford Code.