A Holiday by Gaslight

A Holiday by Gaslight - Matthews
3 stars

Simplistic, Victorian Christmas romance. An impoverished aristocrat must marry his eldest daughter to a rich commoner. Sadly, he has spent her dowry on expensive modern improvements to his estate. It’s a bit of a Cinderella story. Lots of traditional Christmas atmosphere and a predictable HEA. Easy reading to pass time in a doctor’s waiting room. ( )

This was such a short and sweet romance and I was all on board for this book and boy the Christmas traditions that came into play here were just short of perfection. I got such a kick out of this author and how she portrayed the setting here and she did such a job well done especially for a novella. Probably one of the best novellas I have read in a while to be honest. This story begins with our heroine and hero, who have been courting for a couple of months. But because of their class differences, the hero has been polite and courtly but not real with the heroine so she breaks it off not thinking he is truly interested, which is far from the truth. When she gets a feeling she needs to straighten it out with him, real honesty comes into play between them and their relationship begins to blossom between them. We get other conflicts, a romance between her sister and his business partner, financial drama with her father and much more. This story was charming, sweet and so endearing I couldn’t get enough. So if you love holiday/Christmas themed romances, this is definitely a book to grab up. It is available on Audible Escape if you have a subscription (which you should get in audio if you can, the narrator was fabulous) ( )

This was a bit subdued: Ned and Sophie took an extremely long time to warm up to one another and even then they were somehow lacking in joy - Emily, Sophie's sister, seemed to be having far more fun! ( )

A Christmas novella following Ned, a wealthy businessman, and Sophie, the daughter of a gentleman in financial straits as they try to buck the etiquette of Victorians times and actually get to know each other before deciding whether to marry. This was nice but never fully sparked for me. It didn't feel rushed, exactly, as I thought the pacing was good, but, ironically, I didn't feel like I got to know the characters well enough to care about them as much as I would have liked to. ( )

From the first chapter of this Christmas novella, I was rooting for Sophie and Ned :). I appreciated that they were both introverted, stoic characters, and yet those were never treated as being shortcomings. I also really liked Walter and Emily's subplot. Very cute! ( )