Gas lamps and mistletoe!

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A Holiday by Gaslight: A Victorian Christmas Novella 
by Mimi Matthews    
A disarming romantic novella set in Victorian times exploring the trials of a young woman, Miss Sophie Appersett, daughter of a baronet, who has the role of the family 'sacrificial lamb.' As Sophie and her mother practice economies, her father outfits their ancestral home, Appersett House, with the latest rage 'gaslights'' with untrammeled visions of plumbing throughout. There goes Sophie's dowry!
Sophie is the one who has her clothes resown and turned whilst her beautiful (and selfish) younger sister Emily is given anything she wants. Emily is touted as the one who will save the family's fortune and allow her father to continue to develop Appersett House.
When a successful, wealthy businessman, Edward Sharpe, sues for Sophie's hand, all her spendthrift  father can see is more house improvements. As Sophie comes to see it, Ned and she don't have much going for them if their relationship is nothing more than a business transaction. So she determines to end the courting.
But a lady can change her mind!
The action takes place around the Christmas season completed with Yule tide logs and mistletoe.
I must admit I abhorred Sophie's father and felt quite antagonistic towards her sister Emily. Indeed, I wouldn't have given Emily the chance of coming around. I would have left her to make her unthinking, selfish and vain comments to her cat as she faded away into spinsterhood.
But it is Christmas!

 A NetGalley ARC

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