Tuesday, 9 December 2025

#BlogTour A Christmas Caroline by K. L. Crear

 


I'm delighted to be taking part in the blog Tour for A Christmas Caroline by K. L. Crear

Synopsis

Caroline’s got frugality down to a fine art. She can make a tin of soup stretch for days, considers “reduced to clear” her love language, and thinks Christmas is just a daft excuse for people to throw their money away on tinsel trimmed tat. 

But Christmas Eve night takes a turn when her best mate, Marlene, drops in for a chat. Lovely, right? Except Marlene’s been dead for seven years and she’s got a message for Caroline, she will be visited by three spirits and if she doesn’t pay attention, her future’s looking bleaker than the contents of her fridge freezer. 

Caroline’s convinced she’s having a hallucination. Ghosts? Surely not! But as the night goes on, she starts to wonder if she might just learn something worth more than her latest discount voucher. And for someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing, this might be the wake-up call she didn’t see coming. 

Move over Ebenezer! This modern, laugh-out-loud retelling of the Dickens classic has a new Scrooge in town. Perfect for fans of Sophie Kinsella. 

Caroline Scroggins has a lonely Christmas ahead of her. She's shunned invites from family and friends and intends to be her usual miserable self, although she does plan to indulge herself with a jacket potato for her Christmas dinner. Will a few ghostly visitors make her realise what she's missing out on?

My Review

A Christmas Caroline by K. L. Crear is a modern retelling of A Christmas Carol, with the main character being Caroline Scroggins, the "Queen of Mean". Caroline is a thoroughly unpleasant character who takes frugality to the extreme; she can make a can of soup last for three days! Poetic licence has been used to great effect to exaggerate Caroline's behaviour to reinforce our understanding of how much she fits the Scrooge character. 

This is a quick and easy read, and at times it will make you chuckle. Set in Yorkshire, Caroline calls a spade a spade, and at times the descriptions are very near the knuckle. Caroline's unpleasant nature and caustic comments do nothing to endear her to the reader. It is only when she is visited by ghostly apparitions that her doubt and apprehension begin to show. In true Christmas Carol style, an epiphany takes place, with Caroline realising the error of her ways as she embraces the true spirit of Christmas.


Author Details

Karen (K.L. Crear) is an author, over-sharer, and walking cautionary tale. Think: a sweary teenager trapped in the body of a menopausal woman who can’t sneeze without risking a wardrobe malfunction. You’re welcome.

Once upon a time, she worked in banking, the Civil Service, and property management, or as she likes to call it, The Beige Trilogy. She spent decades being respectable (ish), responsible (occasionally), and quietly losing the will to live. Then one day she found herself broke, baffled, and built entirely out of biscuit crumbs and unresolved trauma. So she did what any sensible woman would do, she wrote it all down and flogged it in paperback.

Karen has battled cancer twice, and her coping strategy was to laugh at wildly inappropriate moments and shout “F*ck off!” at inspirational quotes. Spoiler: it worked. Her sense of humour is deeply questionable, but it’s kept her just about sane through grief, illness, love, lies, and the time she gave herself food poisoning with a dodgy prawn ring from Iceland.

After years of procrastination (and one too many vinos), she finally swapped Pinot for a pen. She now writes jaw-dropping memoirs and hilarious women’s fiction about women who’ve had enough, snapped slightly, and are thriving in spite of it all, usually with a glass in hand, some top mates, and a solid alibi.

Her hobbies include eating anything wrapped in pastry, shouting at the Real Housewives (“She’s definitely had something done - she’s melting!”), and threatening to adopt an axolotl because they look so absurdly cheerful. She once turned down hugging a sloth in Mexico, it dangles upside down, pees on itself, and honestly felt like a warning from the future.

Karen lives in a sleepy Northern town with her long-suffering husband (he’s partially deaf, which helps) and their cat Pickle, who looks permanently disgusted with their life choices and the ongoing Dreamies rationing.

A portion of every book sale goes to Women’s Aid, Great Ormond Street, the Epilepsy Society, and Macmillan. because she knows what it’s like to need help. The world’s a shitshow, but we can all make a little difference in our own way.

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#BlogTour A Christmas Caroline by K. L. Crear

  I'm delighted to be taking part in the blog Tour for A Christmas Caroline  by K. L. Crear ,  Synopsis Caroline’s got frugality down to...