Festering Festivities

What links childhood Christmases on the county’s coast, quarantine from a deadly epidemic and a Normal for Norfolk reality television star? The setting of a new Christmas novel seems strangely familiar

- Rowan Mantell

A COSY family Christmas in the rambling ancestral hall on the north Norfolk coast might sound idyllic – until a deadly disease, a dodgy engagement, bickering sisters, an unexpected brother and cancer crash the party.

For her first novel, Francesca Hornak has taken her real-life happy childhood Christmases, and stirred in a potent mix of modern make-belief.

Festive is transformed into festering as the family gather to spend the Christmas week amid the clutter and decay of a crumbling house, in quarantine from an Ebola-type virus. Francesca will be spending Christmas in Norfolk too – but is expecting a much jollier time.

“Until I got married I had never spent Christmas anywhere else!” she said. “Our house is on the border of Wiveton and Cley, so the nearest towns are Blakeney and Holt. Every year we go to a candlelit carol service on Christmas Eve in Cley church, and walk on Cley beach on Christmas morning.

“I’ve been spending holidays in Norfolk since I was born. I have lots of family on my mother’s side on the north coast, including my cousin Desmond MacCarthy from the BBC series Normal for Norfolk.”