This was everything I wanted it to be. Nice mix of stories, of varying lengths and ages. And such a pretty cover, too.

At Christmas it can be hard to,find the time or peace to settle into a book and so this volume of excerpts from longer works was ideal. Not all of them captured me but I now have a long list of new (to me) books to try.

*thank you to Netgalley and Random House UK, Vintage Publishing for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

2 stars.

Unfortunately this was of no real interest to me. The stories bored me and it was a struggle to get through. Being apart of the vintage classics range I did expect more. The reason that I am giving this 2 stars and not 1 is because I do like the cover and I do like some of the authors who were chosen to have their stories included in here. Also, another reason is because my rating of this is not based on it being poorly written or anything like that, it was simply just not for me and I can see how it would appeal to others. For me I will add that it didn't feel Christmassy enough. It didnt have that magic though the only story for me that did get close to that was "'A Conscience Pudding’ from The New Treasure Seekers by E. Nesbit". Hopefully people will enjoy this more than I did.

Would make a great Christmas themed read. Enjoyed some parts more than others. Something for everyone so long as they’re a little bit festive!