Bookish Buys: Merry by Susan Breen
Bookish Buys
Inspired by Merry by Susan Breen
Wearing a green wool coat over straight-leg jeans with blue Boston Birkenstocks, a practical black fanny bag, and—because no main character ever walks alone—a striking red coat for your dog is the very definition of Merry Bingham energy from Merry by Susan Breen. It’s cozy, a little whimsical, and quietly defiant: a look that says you’re carrying the weight of family, tradition, and holiday magic on your shoulders, but you’re doing it with style.
Merry Bingham used to love Christmas. These days, she’s weighed down by family tension, looming medical test results, and the feeling that joy is slipping further from her reach. But instead of giving in, she digs in. She sells her treasured heirloom—an autographed edition of A Christmas Carol—and drags her reluctant family to London for a Christmas they’ll never forget. It’s messy, chaotic, even haunted (hello, Charles Dickens’s very opinionated ghost), but Merry refuses to stop trying.
This outfit channels that same determination. The green coat captures the classic spirit of Christmas, while the blue Birkenstocks bring in an unexpected touch of practicality and individuality. The fanny bag signals you’re prepared for anything—family meltdowns, ghostly apparitions, or just navigating crowded London streets. And the red coat for your dog? That’s pure Merry: equal parts festive and stubborn, finding delight in the details even when everything else feels like it’s falling apart.
Slip into this look and you’re not just dressing for winter—you’re dressing for resilience, humor, and hope. Because like Merry, sometimes the real magic isn’t in the perfect holiday, but in showing up, flaws and all, and insisting on joy anyway.
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Bookish Buys: Merry by Susan Breen
About Merry by Susan Breen:
A mother’s valiant efforts to bring her family the joy of Christmas go haywire when she finds herself haunted by the angry ghost of Charles Dickens.
This sparkling, cozy novel is perfect for readers of Emma Straub’s This Time Tomorrow and anyone who looks forward to watching It’s a Wonderful Life each December!
Merry Bingham used to love Christmas—until she started worrying all the time about family, money, and death. The only thing that continues to bring her joy is reading from her heirloom edition of A Christmas Carol, autographed by Charles Dickens himself and passed down through five generations of her family. Now, as she waits for the results of the medical tests that will tell her whether this Christmas season will be her last, Merry prepares to give her book to the next generation. Except none of her three children wants it.
Merry refuses to surrender Christmas or Dickens without a fight, so she sells the book and uses the money to take her family to London. She will fill them with Christmas joy even if she has to cram it down their throats.
But the harder Merry pushes, the worse everything gets. Her children erupt into vicious arguments, her gentle husband stops talking to her, her deluxe rental apartment is not what was promised. Oh, and she keeps seeing the ghost of Charles Dickens around town—and he is not happy with her.
Fans of family stories, classic literature, Christmas novels, and holiday season magic will adore Merry.
