Review of 'Miracle on Christmas Street' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Lovely story with great mix of characters and a budding romance resolved fairly late in the book (with another one merely hinted at). Jess's personality develops heart-warmingly.
The edition that I read is a "Mass Market Paperback" 978 1 3987 0048 2, typeset in Lymington.
373 pages of story and one each of acknowledgments and credits. (How can we tell goodreads about an unlisted edition?)
Cover picture is inconsistent with text; e.g. several details of number 24. Not unusual for cover pictures!
Punctuation a bit inconsistent but above average for modern works I have read although many misplaced apostrophes and some "who" that should be"whom" and more than one definitely wrong comma ("a very, merry, Christmas to you") or omission of a comma ("... in particular Martha who ..." - clearly a non-defining relative clause starting)
Some unusual (maybe even novel) words such as holly-sprigged, assault-y, It'd, catastrophising, div (not …
Lovely story with great mix of characters and a budding romance resolved fairly late in the book (with another one merely hinted at). Jess's personality develops heart-warmingly.
The edition that I read is a "Mass Market Paperback" 978 1 3987 0048 2, typeset in Lymington.
373 pages of story and one each of acknowledgments and credits. (How can we tell goodreads about an unlisted edition?)
Cover picture is inconsistent with text; e.g. several details of number 24. Not unusual for cover pictures!
Punctuation a bit inconsistent but above average for modern works I have read although many misplaced apostrophes and some "who" that should be"whom" and more than one definitely wrong comma ("a very, merry, Christmas to you") or omission of a comma ("... in particular Martha who ..." - clearly a non-defining relative clause starting)
Some unusual (maybe even novel) words such as holly-sprigged, assault-y, It'd, catastrophising, div (not in the Scrabble dictionary), comradery, squirmy (meaning uncomfortable rather than moving oddly), strangley (tending to strangle), goldfished (meaning stood with mouth open, not the Urban Dictionary meanings), shushed
North Americanisms: "off of"; kvetching. Same with "they arrived outside of Jess's house"?
Misused words or typos:
swotted for swatted
attending for attended
those kind of
peel for peal
they'd couldn't play
taking for talking
"comprised of" for "comprising" or "composed of"
p 37 "across the road Drea's" needs "from" inserted.
p 197 "By throwing herself at Mr Winters' mercy, ... he'd forgive her ..." - is that three errors in one sentence? Definitely one misrelated participle.
p 247 "arrival of Gemma in a ... saucy ... outfit. A couple of the Rob'n'Bobs wolf-whistled and were promptly shushed by ... the protective glare of Gemma's husband" - NO; he was one of the Rob'n'Bobs, explained on p 40.
p 274 "steamer trunk with a sticker on it for Timbuktoo" - unlikely in real world as Timbuktu is 18 km from port.
p 324 "and he was stranger" should insert "a".
Poor Jess may have paid for the time the removals men spent joining in the snow-fight, but the time saved by the neighbours' help could have negated that.
On her walk back from number 24 she would not have seen the florists' house close up as soon as the text implies.