Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for a copy of this book.

I've read both of Janice Hallett's other books this year, and I really enjoyed the Appeal. While I appreciated that this was a short quick read and brought back the same cast of characters, I didn't enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the Appeal.

I think I was just not as invested in this as much as the previous book. One of the main things that contributed to this was the mystery itself. The body that was found was not a character we knew and I just wish I could solve the mystery along with Femi and Charlotte. Otherwise, there were plenty of twists for a short book that had me hooked. I also wish I had a reminder of the characters since there were so many but that's more of a me not remembering issue.

I do love how Janice writes her books though, so I am excited to read Alperton Angels as well. If you were a fan of Janice's other books, I would definitely recommend this! Also, this got me out of a bad reading slump, so that's always a positive as well.

This is the follow up to Hallett’s book, The Appeal, and I definitely recommend reading that first. Why? Because you’ll already know most of the characters in this novella and you’ll have a better understanding of their quirky personalities. I loved being back with the Fairway Players theater group and all of their drama! I think I enjoyed their interactions more than I did the actual murder part of this story. The ending was a little rushed for me, but for a small story it succeeded in packing a delightful punch!

The Christmas Appeal is a sequel novella to the uniquely popular book, The Appeal. In the novella, the cast of characters from the original novel once again find themselves in the midst of an investigation when their holiday season play doesn’t go exactly as planned. This is definitely a novella that needs the context of the original book to make sense, but it was great to jump back into the world of the Fairway Players.

The cast of characters that make up the Fairway Players never fail to disappoint. They are interesting and well developed, despite the fact that the only way to get to know them is through their emails and texts to one another. It was fun to see the drama unfold and try to figure out who was trustworthy, and who was double crossing everyone. The back and forth of the characters would have much less of an impact and would make little sense without a firm understand of everything that occurred in The Appeal.

As a novella, there was little time to fully develop a solid mystery, and that was apparent from the beginning. There was quite a bit of time leading up to the case itself, so that once it happened, it felt lackluster and rushed. This mystery was clearly more about the characters than the investigation. The unique presentation of the facts made it difficult to decide what was actually important and what was just being used to fill the blank spaces in the story. Despite the lackluster presentation of the actual mystery, it concluded itself in a manner that was satisfying enough, if not thrilling.

This novella is definitely worth a quick read for any reader who read the first book and wanted to see how the characters survived after the upset of the original.

⅘ stars

Thank you to Netgalley and Atria Books for the opportunity to read this eARC in exchange for my honest opinions.

This book was okay. The ending wasn’t as shocking as I would have liked. Thank you for letting me read this book!

It’s the Christmas season and the Fairway Players are getting ready for their holiday production to raise money for a new church roof. Although it’s the holiday season, the group is lacking goodwill and now there’s a dead body onstage.

The Christmas Appeal is a fun holiday murder mystery. This is my first Janice Hallett book and it did not disappoint. I am a fan of Agatha Christie and the writing felt similar. There’s a cozy familiarity to Hallett’s writing style that I enjoyed! I see this is part of a series and even though I haven’t read the first book, I did not feel lost at any time while reading this one. I will definitely be picking up more books by this author. If you’re a fan of Agatha Christie, I’m almost positive you’ll be a fan of Janice Hallett!

Thank you so much NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC and the chance to read and review it honestly.

Happy reading!

The Appeal is definitely my favorite of Janice Hallett's novels thus far. However, since it had been a couple years since I read The Appeal, it was a bit difficult remembering who the characters were and how past events unfolded.

I really love the format of these books, although others find it quite confusing. It's such a unique way to pen a murder mystery and allowed the twists to unravel in a great way. I was not sure what to expect going into The Christmas Appeal, but I was not disappointed. I look forward to what this author has to come.

The Christmas Appeal is a short follow-up to The Appeal, a completely unique and original mystery by Janice Hallett. You need to read The Appeal first to get a feel for the players and the format.

In the Christmas Appeal. the Fairtown Players are back putting on their Christmas panto. They are trying to move on from the scandal of the first book, but another dead body is in their future. Hallett is so skilled at telling the story of this small-town community theater through emails, text messages, and other unconventional texts. Readers need to decode the messages right alongside the lawyers/ sometimes narrators who are reading them.

Perfectly fun and seasonal little book! I recommend The Appeal to anyone who loves a cozy mystery and whimsical character studies. Great for fans of Thursday Murder Club!

I read this novella with the hopes of getting in the Christmas spirit mixed with my favorite genre, mystery/thriller. However, this missed the mark. This one failed to get my interest. 2 star rating.

This was an enjoyable revisit to the Fairway players of Lockwood. The story is set at Christmas and is a mini mystery with many of the characters from The Appeal, plus some brand new characters. I love stories with multimedia and this was an interesting story.

Author Janice Hallett has made a name for herself of late as a master of modern epistolary mysteries. She doesn’t create a straight narrative. Rather, she tells the story through email exchanges, text messages, and notes between the characters. Readers of The Appeal will recognize some of the same names have returned for the latest amateur play.

The Fairway Players are once again desperate to put on a fabulous production (however improbable), this time to raise money for a new church roof. What could be more charitable than that? Their plan is a panto mashup of “Jack and the Beanstalk” with a surprise Santa. But the real surprise comes when dress rehearsal reveals a dead body hidden inside the long-forgotten beanstalk prop.

Message from the Rev. Joshua Harris to Sarah-Jane MacDonald on December 23, 2022:
6:32pm Rev. Joshua Harris wrote: My goodness, Sarah-Jane! Mother and I just heard that scream in the vicarage. The panto must be going down a storm. Bravo to the Fairway Players!

The result is a smart, funny short novel taking cues from the bustle of the holidays while capturing the essence of something so very British — The Pantomime. Even as much of an Anglophile as I am, I don’t entirely understand this very campy, slapstick tradition. There are stock characters in recognizable stories (like “Peter Pan,” “Cinderella,” or “Jack and the Beanstalk”) but the plots often take wide deviations from the source material. These Pantos encourage audience participation like booing and shouting “It’s behind you!” They’re raucous, colorful performances filled with sensory overload.

In The Christmas Appeal characters trade barbs, share secrets, and point fingers through their various communications, acting out their caricatures in daily life. All of these documents have been gathered as a case file for later review. The reader gets to see these competing narratives unfold and follow the various red herrings (chuckling) until the mystery is solved.

For fans of the Appeal, this plops you right back into that world in this quick little novella in which someone is found dead in a beanstalk after the Christmas pantomime. The same attorneys are trying to solve the case in the same format. This can be read in one sitting and even if you haven't read the Appeal you could read this as a stand alone as the references to The Appeal are minimal. This cast of characters is so quirky, and Hallett has really perfected the mixed media mystery.

"𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒌 𝒊𝒔 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒈𝒊𝒄 𝒐𝒇 𝑪𝒉𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒎𝒂𝒔, 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝒘𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒚 𝒘𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒅𝒖𝒄𝒆, 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒅𝒓𝒂𝒎𝒂... 𝒊𝒕'𝒔 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒂𝒍𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒎𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒈𝒆."

"𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒓𝒖𝒕𝒉 𝒊𝒔, 𝒘𝒆 𝒅𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒊𝒕. 𝑵𝒐𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒂𝒅 𝒎𝒆𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔. 𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒇𝒐𝒄𝒖𝒔 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒈𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 - 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕'𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒆."

The Fairway Players are back at it again, with chaos, gossip and murder! This novella sequel to The Appeal is so much fun.

Janice Hallett continues to use the modern epistolary novel, told mostly through emails, text messages, and transcripts, to great effect. Knowing the characters of the Fairway Players means that it was easy to dive back into this format; I thoroughly enjoyed the chaos that surrounded them as they try to put on a Christmas pantomime - the snark between Sarah-Jane and Celia once again remain a highlight, alongside the drug mix-up as Kevin attempts to make things right. Hallett naturally introduces new characters, as new housing developments come to Lockwood; I especially liked Dustin. Once again, I loved that we didn't know who was dead and were piecing it alongside Charlotte and Femi. The short form allowed things to move at a brisk pace, and the clues didn't get convoluted. The mood is delightfully festive, even if the story leans more on the humour side than the mystery side.

The Christmas Appeal is a story of jealousy, control, status, gossip, and funny disasters. I loved reuniting with the Fairway Players (and getting an update on a certain convicted murderer). I wouldn't mind Hallett coming back to Lockwood again! Thank you to Atria and NetGalley for the ARC!

This was such a fun follow up to the Appeal. I loved the Christmas setting. What I love so much about Janice Hallett's writing is how funny she makes these characters and their interactions. Everything is so quietly funny in such a real way, because she's created these quirky characters that are incredibly realistic. The overall murder mystery was fun as well. I'd love to stay in this world with these characters and their plays.

Cute Christmas mystery with the same characters as the book The Appeal. I think it would make more sense if you read the appeal first. Good Christmas mystery though.

First I want to thank NetGalley, the publishing agency, and Janice Hallett for this e-arc! I’m a slower reader so I finished this after the publication date but nonetheless, this was a cute Christmas murder mystery novella! I didn’t realize before reading that there was a first book in the series but it didn’t matter too much! I really enjoyed the characters and plot of this book and the format was quite unique! After reading, I will definitely be picking up the first book in the series!

4.5 Stars rounded up I really enjoyed Janice Hallett's The Appeal and The Christmas Appeal was a delightful story. We are back in Lower Lockwood and the Fairway Players are preparing for the Christmas Pantomime of Jack and the Beanstalk. Not being from the UK, I am not completely sure what a pantomime is, but it is really looked forward to by the residents, especially the children. The gist of the story is that during the performance, the beanstalk breaks open and a dead man in a Santa suit falls out. The audience thinks it is part of the show, but it is not. Lawyers Femi and Charlotte are tasked with a chore to examine Christmas letters, emails, and police transcripts to identify both the victim and killer before the curtain closes on their holiday production. This will put their deductive skills to the test, keeping them sharp for their jobs.

This was another enjoyable and entertaining story from Janice Hallett. Although it was only a novella, it was a perfect story to read and/or listen to in an afternoon. In The Appeal, there were a lot of characters and using the epistolary format, I was confused at times. There were just the right number of characters and pieces of information to make this one easy to follow and fun to try and figure out. Of course, it was almost the end before I did that. With humor, interesting side stories (Illegal Sweets might be involved), missing actors and jealousy, it all comes together in a great Christmas read.

Thank you NetGalley for the e-arc!

The Fairway Players are back at it! I found this book to be a bit hilarious compared to The Appeal lol communication between Kevin and Sarah-Jane really got funny at times!

This was a quick mystery read!

I wanted to wait to read both The Appeal & The Christmas Appeal as close to the holiday as possible. I thoroughly enjoyed both of them. The Christmas Appeal is much shorter and funnier than the original. A bunch of the original characters returned in this book and it’s written in the same epistolary format of texts, emails, etc., with Femi and Charlotte trying to identify the victim and the killer.

This time, The Fairway Players are performing Jack and the Beanstalk to raise money to repair the church roof. There are, of course, rivalries and drama going on backstage, including a rumor that the old beanstalk is filled with asbestos. But everything is mostly kept under wraps until the performance…when a long dead body appears on stage, wearing a Santa suit.

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing me with an advanced copy of this book.

The Christmas Appeal follows the Fairway Players as they put on their Christmas play. Someone is found dead and the goal is to figure out who is dead and who did it.

I love Janice Hallett's take on murder mysteries. She gives us the evidence and the goal is to try to solve it along with Femi and Charlotte. This makes for a fun, unique reading experience. I fell in love with her writing style in The Appeal and was so excited to be able to follow some of the same characters in another of her books.

The plot was enjoyable and funny. There were several points in the book where I laughed out loud. Though I had a fun time reading The Christmas Appeal, I didn't enjoy it quite as much as The Appeal. I found this storyline to be too rushed and chaotic. There was so much going on and not enough time to delve into all the different aspects of this book. I wish the book was a little bit longer with some more of Femi and Charlotte's discussions. Everything wrapped up very nicely in the end and all the evidence came together well.

I definitely still recommend reading it if you liked The Appeal and want to spend more time with those characters.

The Christmas Appeal is a fun Christmas-themed mystery novella.
It is told through the suspects' correspondence (texts/emails/etc..) while Lawyers Femi and Charlotte investigate what had already happened. The best part is that you the reader investigate along with the "detectives". If you have ever played one of those investigative mystery party games with some friends, it feels just like that. Femi and Charlotte pop in a few times to offer theories and guide you the reader but it's so fun to try and figure out what's happening along with them.
It is a spiritual sequel to the Appeal, but I did not read it before this and I was able to follow along pretty well. As long as you can accept that something happened before that gets alluded to onalu you will be fine. The events get referenced but they overall do not affect this story. Overall get all the information you need and to me, Hallett did a fantastic job of giving just enough information for you to solve but not too much that it was overwhelming and gave the ending away.
I had a great time and loved discovering and solving the mystery of the play. It was especially fun to not fully know what the crime was. I had fun and look forward to now reading the appeal, possibly even with my "book group" and spitballing off each other.
Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for an honest review