Charles Dickens at the Helm

Michelle Griep is contributing to the "Once Upon a Dickens Christmas" series with A Tale of Two Hearts.  Mina Scott loves to read, but rarely has the time because she is helping her father with his inn/ale house.  For a bit, I thought that O Henry was going to show up in the book in the Gift of the Magi, but she turned a corner and kept true to her Dickens theme.
. 
Mina met Will Barlowe through the ale house and he had a need she could fill.  He needed a wife for a dinner with his uncle.  Uncle Barlowe was going to name the heir to his estates and it was going to be between Will and his cousin Percy.  Percy can only see the dollar signs and he and his wife have plans to put Uncle Barlowe in an asylum once they are named heirs.

Uncle Barlowe reads as much as Mina does and tries awfully hard to catch her not knowing a Dickens' quote.  She can always name the book, to his amusement.  The more Will is around Mina, the more he likes her, and the more Percy and his wife, Alice, want to find her weak spot to discredit her in front of Uncle Barlowe. 

This is a quick little read, with ogre-ous villains, likable heroes, and interesting sub-plots.  Michelle writes engaging novels that capture the reader's imagination from beginning to end.

Five Stars, Two Thumbs Up, and a bowl of oyster stew

Barbour Books provided the galley I read through NetGalley.com and the opinions I expressed here are solely my own.