I received this book via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of this review.
Tim Cratchit's Christmas Carol by Jim Piecuch Published by Pocket Star on 2014-11-17
Length: 215 pages
Reviewing eARC from Netgalley
Rating:
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Tiny Tim is all grown up in this continuation of Charles Dickens’s beloved holiday classic A Christmas Carol, and this time, a certain ghost shows him the true meaning of Christmas cheer!
In A Christmas Carol, evil Scrooge was shown the error of his ways by three helpful ghosts and vowed to become a better person. Bob Cratchit and his family benefited most from Scrooge’s change of tune—but what happened after the goose was given, and Scrooge resolved to turn over a new leaf?
Tim Cratchit’s Christmas Carol shows us Tiny Tim as an adult. Having recovered from his childhood ailment, he began his career helping the poor but has since taken up practice as a doctor to London’s wealthy elite. Though Tim leads a very successful life, he comes home at night to an empty house. But this holiday season, he’s determined to fill his house with holiday cheer—and maybe even a wife.
It takes a brave author to write a sequel to a beloved classic that everyone knows, either because they have read the book or seen one of many film adaptations. It takes a great author to pull it off. Jim Piecuch is both brave and great! In Tim Cratchit’s Christmas Carol, Piecuch takes the character Tiny Tim and gives us a glimpse into his adult life.
Tim Cratchit is now thirty-ish, an accomplished physician and surgeon, working for the upper class in London, but also helping those who cannot afford care, much like himself when old Ebenezer Scrooge became a part of his life. However he isn’t happy, his life is not the full life Scrooge would have envisioned for him. He lives alone, save for his maid and gardener, in a large house in London. He works six out of seven days and on the seventh day he spends most of his time seeing patients with “emergencies.” Tim knows something is missing and that something is a family of his own.
But this Christmas that all changes. A young mother brings her very sick son to the doctor that treated her as a girl in the hopes he can help him. This case consumes Tim as he sees himself in the little boy. The compassionate, caring man he once was reemerges and new life is breathed into Tim. Everyone takes notice, including the young Jane, the daughter of one of Tim’s affluent patients.
What makes this story a wonderful sequel to Dicken’s classic is that the author really stayed true to the characters that the original built. Tim is still kind and compassionate, his family is still large and loving. Even old Scrooge shows up in flashbacks as Tim remembers his past and he stays true to the man he changed into that one fateful Christmas.
Tim’s story follows the same line as Scrooge’s. Tim has fallen off the path that Scrooge set him, now he needs a little direction, this time from a kind old gentleman. This old gentleman never interacts with Tim personally, but does speak to all the characters that support him. None know his name as he only introduces himself as “an old friend of the doctor’s,” but the young mother does notice his cufflinks. They are gold with the initials “E.S.” on them. I think we all know who that is 😉
Overall Piecuch has done something that few authors can claim. He’s taken a classic story, in this case Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, and expanded on it, giving the characters a life after the events of Dickens’s classic. What makes it great is that it is done in such as way that it is believable. This is an author to watch for and I plan to read more of his books!
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