A nice what if book, as it follows the life of Ebeneezer after that first Christmas.

I really liked this book. I liked the Dickensonian (is that a word?) style of writing the most - really made me want to go back and read some of Dicken's works. I thought the story was good and added to the characters we met in A Christmas Carol. The theology in this one is all wrong from a Christian viewpoint - we aren't saved by our works, but that is my only complaint with the book.

I continue my Christmas season reading of novels/books pertaining to Charles Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

Marvin Kaye's THE LAST CHRISTMAS OF EBENEZER SCROOGE was another take of what came next for Scrooge and the many indelible characters. I always enjoy seeing someone else's creativity put to work when establishing new plotlines or digging into the lives and events of characters from this classic work.

The novel opens up with a young street urchin named Paulie who is going about looking for ways to make money to buy his mother medicine for her ailments. Just when it seemed like too much time was being spent on this unnecessary character, Kaye reveals that Paulie was the 'turkey boy' --- or young man Scrooge paid on Christmas morning to go to the butcher's to buy the Cratchit's their prize goose.

At times, it seems like the novel was unsure what its aim was. Scrooge and Cratchit were now partners, but Scrooge (now 11 years removed from his own reclamation) is on a mission to complete some unfinished business. His travelling companions for this journey are young Paul 'Paulie' (who is revealed as a young Jewish lad that reminded Scrooge of his late partner Jacob Marley who was also Jewish) and Tim Cratchit (now years removed from his life-threatening illness).

The mission involves paying back Jacob Marley for his work in saving Scrooge's soul. Although I found parts of the latter section of the book a tad absurd, it was well worth it to spend some more time with these beloved characters.