A Christmas Hope

Anne Perry's "vastly entertaining" (Newark (NJ) Star-Ledger) holiday novels are "as delicious as mince pie and plum pudding" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel). A Christmas Hope is just as delectable, the gripping story of an unforgettable battle between goodness and evil in Victorian London—and a lonely woman's search for meaning in her life.

Claudine Burroughs, a volunteer in Hester Monk's clinic for sick and injured prostitutes, no longer expects closeness with her coldly ambitious husband and dreads the holidays. Then, at a glittering yuletide gala, she meets the attractive poet Dai Tregarron, and suddenly her spirits lift. But an hour later, this fascinating man is enmeshed in a nightmare—accused of killing a young streetwalker who had been smuggled into the party.

Even though she suspects that an upper-class clique is quickly closing ranks to protect the real killer, Claudine and the clinic's disreputable bookkeeper, Squeaky Robinson, vow to do their utmost for Dai. It seems, however, that hypocritical London society would rather send an innocent poet to the gallows than expose the shocking truth about one of their own.