Wednesday, December 30, 2020

"A Holiday by Gaslight" by Mimi Matthews

What a fun finale to my Christmas reading this year!  I polished off this novella in about a day, and it was like a nice dessert -- satisfying, but not over-satiating.  It has a little bit of a North and South flavor to it, intentionally, with a young lady falling for a man in trade.  I'm going to be rereading Gaskell's book in February, and this nicely got me in the mood for that.

In this case, the young lady is being courted by a merchant who is stiff and formal around her, causing her to misunderstand the level of his affection for her.  She breaks off their courtship, but has second thoughts and tries to get to know him while he spends the Christmas holidays with her family.  It was fun, generally clean, and I enjoyed it.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for some old-fashioned swear words, mentions of a man admiring a woman's figure, and a few detailed kisses.  Tiptoes along the line of clean or not, and mostly stays on the clean side.


This was my 5th Christmas book read and reviewed for the Literary Christmas reading link-up and my 57th book read off my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020!!!  I was really only hoping to read 24 off my shelves, and then I kept upping my goal whenever I hit my new one, and yeah... I am agog.  Now if only I hadn't bought nearly 50 books this year, this would mean I cleared off a couple of shelves!  But, there's always next year, right?

4 comments:

  1. Oooh North and South is one of my favorite of favorite books. :D

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    1. Kendra, I love it too. I'm going to be rereading it in February with a readalong on Instagram. If you're interested, you can check out #NorthAndSouth2021 on IG for readalong details.

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  2. I also read this for Christmas this year and enjoyed it as well! And...North and South is one of my favorite books of all time. I also read 5 Christmas books this season. I think that's the most I've ever read, and I enjoyed them all (including The Innkeeper's Wife, which I hadn't heard of until reading your review of it).
    Becky

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    1. Becky, glad you liked it too! I'm gearing up to reread North and South in February and really looking forward to it. I'm so glad you liked "The Innkeeper's Wife" and that I was able to point you to it :-)

      Happy New Year!

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