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Some Christmas gifts come wrapped in doubt…

Christmas 1892. In Lower Manning Christmas is a time for holly-strewn pews, steaming plum puddings, earnest carol rehearsals… and, this year, a brand-new Ladies’ Committee determined to host the most splendid Christmas meal the parish has ever seen. When an unexpected gentleman arrives in the village and offers his assistance, excitement quickly turns to fascination. He is generous yet reserved, helpful yet mysterious. He declines recognition, asks careful questions, and lodges with a local widow who is only too happy to report on his every movement.

Some call him charming. Others call him suspicious.

Then the Christmas Meal Fund goes missing.

Miles away at Francis Court, Alice, Duchess of Stortford, is attempting to enjoy a peaceful season of candlelight and evergreens — until something valuable vanishes from her own household shortly after a young relative of the staff is taken in for the holidays. The coincidence is difficult to ignore.

As whispers begin in both village and stately home, Alice and Mrs Thursby find themselves untangling two festive puzzles the only way they can — through a flurry of letters carried back and forth between Derbyshire and Fenshire.

With committee politics, kitchen gossip, unexpected lodgers, a meddlesome goat named Clementine, and Christmas pride at stake on all sides, the season of goodwill is about to be tested.

Because at Christmas, not everything—and not everyone—is as they first appear.

Told almost entirely through the exchange of letters, A Christmas Chap is Caught Out is a heart-warming Victorian Christmas mystery novella full of village life, gentle humour, festive bustle, gallons of tea, and the timeless danger of judging too quickly.

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