A Holiday by Gaslight: A Victorian Christmas Novella
By: Mimi Matthews / Narrated By: Alex Wyndham
Length: 4 hrs and 4 mins
Such sweetness! Such romance! …and then there’s Alex Wyndham…
Oy!
There’s nothing grander or more touching and light than a Mimi Matthews story. UnFORtunately, ‘twould appear that aaaaallll her audiobooks have A. Wyndham taking the narrating helm.
And that blows, m’ friend. Here’s why:
Annoying rhythms to his sentences which esPECially turn up during dialogue. There’s a certain sort of emphasis on syllables when he comes to the end of a sentence that makes it sound like a character is finishing off, glaring at whomever they’re speaking with, with an AHA! So THERE! Like they’ve just made a super strict point, or a withering judgment. I know, it blows. THEN there’s the fact that the poor man canNOT fashion a female’s voice to save his life… or to charm a listener’s ears. He comes out with a gravelly ticked-off whisper each and every time.
I know, it blows.
But, heavy sigh, it’s Christmas, and I do SO love festive… and romantic…! audiobooks this time (Heck! ThroughOUT!) of year. So I gave A Holiday by Gaslight a go. Cuz truly? Mimi Matthews crafts fine romances that don’t have my toes curling, and there’s soooo much to be said for that!
The book opens with Sophie kicking Mr. Sharpe to the curb. They’ve been doing the courtship thing, and Sophie is really rather fed up with being the one doing all the talking as the man just sorta stiffly nods and utters nary a word. She tells him they wouldn’t suit. Taken aback for, like, all of three seconds, Ned, Mr. Sharpe, coldly says that’s just fine and dandy with him, and he’s somewhere to go, so see you later. Now Sophie was expecting coldness, but even she’s surprised with how unfeeling he is and with how quickly he’s moving on.
After she tells her folks, and her father blows a gasket (He’s a spendthrift and neeeeds Sophie to marry well, marry money as he used her dowry to fix the estate up for gas and gaslights), Sophie gives the jilting a second thought. Plus, Ned’s already been invited to the estate for Christmas, so she meets with him again: Let’s see if we can, not give it a try again, but get to know each other, as in: The man has GOT to learn how to talk to her, show him who he is.
There’s the death of Prince Albert putting a damper on a house party, leading Sophie to invite people who “are not of their class” for Christmas. And there’s the whole getting to know each other stuff, where Ned realizes that the book he purchased about how to properly woo a gentlelady of Sophie’s class is supposed to be carried out is all bunk. If he’s to honestly show whom he is, Ned must not treat Sophie with kid gloves, and must start actually talking to her, maybe of things she’s interested in, like Charles Darwin (A book out that NO proper female should be reading!).
Another reviewer knocked SEVeral stars off their review because apparently it doesn’t snow enough in England, even Derbyshire, for sleigh rides to happen. And oh I dunno, p’raps I’ll take them at their word, but maybe it was colder and more wintry in Victorian England. After all, Matthews does a great deal of research to make her Historical Romances authentic to their periods, so would she make such a gaffe? But truly, there’s nothing I like better during this time of year than listening to groups of people doing exACTly what I’ve always heard groups of people do whenst feeling all festive and cheery. Trust me, I’m wearing flip-flops here in our Central Texas winter, so I’m TOTally up for snow (I hear tell we’re due for a front before Christmas… fingers crossed)!
This charmer of a tale is rich and sweet, without a convoluted plot. Cold man must find and show his warm heart to get the woman who’s enchanted him blah blah blah and all that. But Ned is just rather fearful, he’s not a Scrooge or anything, so it’s perfectly reasonable that a thaw could occur within the timeframe of this short novella.
It’s just that OY! Alex Wyndham… No, he didn’t make me wanna jam ice picks in my ears, but he had me wincing a great deal…
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