Happy publication day to ‘The Christmas Appeal’ – 26th October, 2023.
I absolutely loved Janice Hallett’s ‘The Appeal’ so it was a joy to be given access to ‘The Christmas Appeal’ – a chance to rejoin the Fairway Players as they grapple with a pantomime, plus an unexpected dead body!
As with ‘The Appeal’, we’re given access to emails and messages that fly between members of the amateur acting society, with occasional commentary on the documents by Charlotte and Femi, the lawyers we met in the first novel who are tasked with unravelling the case. It’s fair to say that I missed a lot of clues – but the documents are a joy to read as there is a much more humorous (and obviously festive) focus to this book.
This story follows the Fairway Players as they prepare for a Jack and the Beanstalk charity panto evening in aid of repairing the church roof. There is definitely a power struggle at the helm of the group – the way that Celia undermines Sarah-Jane is cleverly-written and often hilarious (bat patty made me snort out loud!) Throw in a few misunderstandings, some very quirky characters, outlandish rumours and this is the perfect recipe for a fun, festive read. Yes, some of it is kind of incredible and played for laughs (a bit like the panto itself!), but I absolutely loved it. Janice Hallett presents the different voices and perspectives brilliantly – and with a real comic touch.
A lot of the characters will be familiar to fans of ‘The Appeal’, but there is also fresh blood for the Fairway Players from the new housing estates in the area – cue a lot of snobbery from Celia, of course. Events from ‘The Appeal’ are referred to, but I don’t think you would necessarily need to have read it first – ‘The Christmas Appeal’ does work as a standalone (even if it would provide spoilers if you then wanted to go back and read the first book).
If you’re looking for a fun, Christmassy read, then this is the book for you. It lacks the depth of mystery of the first book (as this is quite short in comparison at about 200 pages), but it makes up for it with Janice Hallett’s clever skewering of characters’ pretensions and hidden motivations.
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Header photo by Rodion Kutsaiev on Unsplash.
