Melanie Karsak

'Hauntings and Humbug' was a perfect Christmas read. It is a gender inverted retelling of Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol' with a steampunk twist, although I think that description undersells it. This more than a retelling with women playing the male leads pantomime style. It's a complete reimagining of the ideas behind 'A Christmas Carol' which starts by thinking about what it would mean if Marley and Scrooge had been women working in a partnership in Victorian England, which immediately prompts three important changes to the story.

The first change is that the story has to be told in an alternative version of Victorian England in which women were allowed to own and operate businesses and, if you're going to have an alternative Victorian England, why not make it a Steampunk one and have Marley and Scrooge working as tinkers creating automata that start as fairground rides and, as the money becomes tight, evolves into the manufacture of automated weapons platforms.

The second change is that the events that have shaped Ebony Scrooge and led her to become a woman who has locked herself away from the world all relate to being a woman: the accidental death of her parents, the death of her daughter, the death of her sister in childbirth and the failure of her marriage, have all mauled Ebony and left her crippled by grief and anger. I found Ebony's traumas and her reaction to them far more engaging than Scrooge's mild regrets for loss of an early romance in favour of a career and his distress at how few people turned up at his funeral.

The third change is to how the three Spirits of Christmas manifest to Ebony. They serve the same purpose as the ones in 'A Christmas Carol' but these Sprits embrace both who Ebony is and the Steampunk creations that inhabit her imagination. I found the changes refreshing. They kept me engaged with the story and they told me more about Ebony.

'Hauntings and Humbug' kept the almost fairytale tone of 'A Christmas Carol' but still managed to deliver an emotional punch that was more powerful than the original story. I thought Melanie Karsak did a great job and depicting grief and what it does to us and seeding the hope that it can be something that we can prevent from tyranising us and stopping us from living a full life.… (meer)

I quite enjoyed this story.
The town is very atmospheric, with beautiful vividly described landscapes, and this story covers a very original mix of themes. The format, shifting between each character’s every chapter also made it very dynamic.

I think a lot of the story was devoted to the romance aspect, which is a shame in my opinion.
Kate the mermaid is a character with such potential. She is a mythical creature, with her own unique mermaid lore partly inspired by Native American myths, she has lived through a lot of history, experiences the town being built up and thriving til this day, has experienced life with native Americans, with European colonists, and all of these themes are explored in just a few lines.

The main male character was quite flat, and his storyline being around his battle with a terminal illness, quite triggering and vivid. It’s a shame he wasn’t used to explore his childhood ties to chancellor, his family, possibly his ties with Kate, it would have been so fun for him to tell a story from his grandmothers childhood including Kate, unbeknownst to him.

I’ll have to agree with other reviews, there is a lot of repetition, the story moves on very quick and it could have greatly benefited from a slower build up and more backstory.… (meer)