FREE: A Midnight Carol: A novel of how Charles Dickens Saved Christmas: Patricia Davis

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Poor Charley Dickens! Things are not going well for him as he turns 30. His close friend and fellow club member, the eminent historian Thomas Carlyle, enjoys Charley's windy hokum as a journalist but thinks he has no future in literature; besides, hes living above his means, especially with four children and a fifth on the way. Charley's venomous, bloodsucking father, John Dickens (no Micawber he), hits on his sons empty pockets and whines about falling into debtor's prison. Charley's wife, Catherine, who keeps the family's books, doesn't have the heart to tell him before their dinner of moldy potatoes, stale bread, and stretched mutton that the bills can't be met. Royalties are overdue from his publisher, Ledrook and Squib, Charley declares, but when he goes to see Squib he's told that, well, in Hollywood terms, he's lost his edge. Theres only one problem with his books, Squib tells him: ``They don't sell. They haven't sold in a year. They are dead. There