Leah Fleming, "Winter's Children"

A rather saccharine Christmas story, lifted from obscurity by a decent sense of place and a mildly diverting supernatural element. Following the death of her workaholic husband in a car crash, Kay takes her eight year old daughter Evie to the Yorkshire Dales for six months, to escape Christmas with the in-laws. Sadly their presence is resented both by their landlady's son (who, in an attempt to anchor the story to reality, has lost all his stock to foot and mouth disease) and by one of the two resident ghosts.

Fleming ambles through three hundred years of family history with some surprisingly accurate details (her Stuarts, for example, dance a Christmas carol) and only mildly infuriating period dialogue. This livens up the novel considerably; without it, Winter's Children would be reduced to the usual tripe about the innocent child who wins over the gruff farmer with a heart of gold.

http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/10070631