The Mistletoe Seller

Another great contribution from Dilly Court. She really does know how to write a gripping story.

Angel does not have a great start in life, being abandoned on a doorstep by her mother on a snowy Christmas Eve. At this point Angel is a tiny baby but the next few years are happy ones as she is taken in by a local family and brought up in relative comfort. Her life takes another turn for the worse when Mr Galloway, the family solicitor comes into the picture and she ends up on the streets of London. With winter approaching and her only means of survival selling sprigs of mistletoe to passers-by, things look pretty desperate for Angel but there are more twists and turns to come.

Dilly Court is not only a master storyteller, she also manages to create characters that are both believable and real and, most importantly ones that I really care about. I want to find out what happens to them and I also care what happens to them. This, in itself, makes me want to read on. There is tension and there is suspense, but even when the story is just plodding on in its own inimitable way she somehow makes it a real page-turner.

My only reason for giving it 4 stars instead of 5 is that I didn’t think it was quite as good as the previous one I read, probably because there was not such an unexpected twist in the tale at the end. In all other respects it was a wonderful book and I would recommend it to anyone.

This book is set in Whitechapel where survival is harsh and poverty rife. A child, abandoned as a baby, is adopted by a loving family but harsh times overtake them on the death of her adoptive father and Angel finds herself in the workhouse. It is a short stay. She is a resourceful child and we find her selling nosegays and then mistletoe on the London streets and her life changes forever when a chance encounter leads eventually to the family of her birth.

I did, however, find this book over long but if a historical saga is your choice then this would be a book for you.

Dilly Court has strong feminine leads and I could well see that, if you enjoy period novels, you would be waiting eagerly for her latest offering.