Janice Hallett’s The Christmas Appeal is a holiday-themed novella that returns readers to Lower Lockwood and updates them on the goings-on with The Fairway Players roughly three years after the action of Hallett’s debut novel, The Appeal.
First it must be said that while The Christmas Appeal can certainly be enjoyed as a standalone experience, the action within will most definitely spoil some of the surprises contained in The Appeal. Readers wanting the full experience should therefore read the novel before jumping into this light-hearted and delightful novella.
The Christmas Appeal wastes no time in orienting readers. The Fairway Players are in the process of casting and rehearsing their holiday pantomime, Jack and the Beanstalk. Needless to say, nothing is going to plan and with multiple agendas behind the scenes, it will be a Christmas miracle if they can pull off this one-night benefit performance designed to help fund the replacement of the church roof.
As with the earlier novel, The Christmas Appeal unspools as a series of email exchanges between members of The Fairway Players, the townsfolk, and various outside entities. Turns out that both a Public Housing development and a new high-end Estate property have sprung up on the outskirts of town and no one can agree on who should be targeted as potential new members of the theater trope or as an expansion of the viewing audience for the production.
Roderick Tanner has once again enlisted his colleagues Femi and Charlotte to scour the various written documents to explore some inconsistencies he has noticed. As in The Appeal, he doesn’t tell them (or the reader) exactly what is troubling him, so everyone is left to examine the multitude of correspondence looking for evidence of a crime. The cover of the novel reveals the presence of a dead Santa Claus, so it isn’t too much of a stretch to know there is a mystery embedded in these communications.
The Appeal novel certainly had many instances of humor, but The Christmas Appeal novella really ratchets up the comedy with laugh-out-loud moments every few pages. The way Janice Hallett understands written communication and the subtle intricacies and complexities within is simply masterful. Every reader will recognize moments from their own communications where things just didn’t quite go as expected or intended. All “closed communities” are like this, and Janice Hallett nails all the passive aggression, clueless input, rumor-inducing, and gossip-laden realities of such exchanges and miscommunications.
The Fairway Players’ production of Jack and the Beanstalk—and The Christmas Appeal itself—eventually devolve into hilarious farce perfect for a break from the stresses of modern life. Janice Hallett does a lovely job of leaving readers with an enlightening and inspiring message to cling to during what is no doubt going to be a very challenging holiday season for all the world.
The Christmas Appeal makes for the perfect spur-of-the-moment holiday gift and readers are sure to hope that Janice Hallett decides to visit Lower Lockwood again in the future. These citizens have become family and it is nice to be reminded that sometimes things don’t change—and don’t need to.
BUY LINKS: The Christmas Appeal by Janice Hallett
Disclaimer: A print edition of this title was provided to BOLO Books by the publisher. No promotion was promised and the above is an unbiased review of the novel.
