“ Authors often take the lives of their minor characters for granted. Dickens didn’t. He seemed to have a backstory for everyone, or at least knew where they came from: the world, the home, the family, the food, the loss, the love.

Hunt takes one of those characters and immerses us in their world. And it is magical! The attention to detail in setting and characters utterly charms us and there’s enough doubt and poverty to keep things from becoming saccharine. Hunt gives us a holiday confection made from the finest traditional ingredients. Ah Dickens! ”