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Pistols for Two, by Georgette Heyer – A Review

Posted in Book Reviews, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged Book Blogger, Book Reviews, Georgette Heyer, Pistols for Two, Regency romance on 25 February 2012 | 15 Comments »

Guest review by Laura A. Wallace

Pistols for Two is a collection of eleven short stories first published in 1960. Throughout her writing career, Heyer published her novels in serial form in various periodicals, and published short stories in them as well. This is the only collection published as a book; otherwise her short stories exist only in old copies of the various magazines. In researching her biography of Heyer, Jennifer Kloester tracked down bibliographic information on as many stories as she could find, and lists them in an appendix, but she states that there are probably more still undiscovered. This corrects a general and long-held impression that Heyer only wrote a few short stories, and that nearly all of them were included in Pistols for Two. But Heyer did choose the stories in this collection herself, so she must have considered them among her best.

These stories are delightful microcosms of Heyer’s work. They all feature the deft characterizations that Heyer always provides: she excels in summarizing a character in a few brief sentences. What is lacking of course is the layering that provides depth in a full-length novel. Each also necessarily features a very compressed timeline of action, often covering only a few scenes and a few hours, and since they are mostly love stories, several of them feature love at first sight. In short, their only real defects are the limitations of the short story form itself. For this reason, I strongly recommend the reader to resist the urge to gobble them up all at once: space them out instead, with something else in between to leaven them.

One particularly delightful aspect of these stories for the Heyer aficionado is the recognition that comes here and there. Heyer uses some names that appear in her novels, but, more importantly, there are identifiable germs of ideas, characters, and relationships that are developed later more fully in the novels. For example, in “A Clandestine Affair,” Lord Iver appears to be a prototype of Ivo Rotherham in Bath Tangle, and if that novel’s heroine Serena’s prototype does not appear, the broken engagement does. (Note, however, that in publication dates, Bath Tangle precedes the short story by five years.) More than one damsel is clearly related to Amanda, Eustacie, and Leonie; and more than one gentleman resembles Sir Waldo Hawkridge, the Duke of Avon, the Marquis of Alverstoke, or even the Earl of Worth. “Pistols for Two” includes a set of young gentlemen who must surely be the original sketches for the young set in The Nonesuch making cakes of themselves over Tiffany Wield. Discovering these embryonic (or sometimes revisited) characters and situations almost feels as if Heyer is sharing a special treat with her readers.

In “A Husband for Fanny,” however, Heyer visits a theme which I can’t remember in any of her novels, and wish she had. (Details omitted to avoid spoilers.) And in another story, there is a macabre twist that is all the more surprising for being surely unique in Heyer’s oeuvre. So in addition to the familiar characters and situations, there are a few stories that show Heyer exploring ideas that she never developed into novels and thus stand alone in her work.

Please avoid spoilers in your comments as these stories are new to many people, especially since the collection has been somewhat hard to find until being republished this month by Sourcebooks.

This concludes my last review of the Georgette Heyer re-issues by Sourcebooks for Austenprose. I hope that promoting these books has brought many readers to Heyer for the first time. She continues to give me joy, and I remain grateful for her life and her work. I’m also grateful to Laurel Ann for providing me with this opportunity to share Georgette Heyer with you.

5 out of 5 Regency Stars

Pistols for Two, by Georgette Heyer
Sourcebooks (2012)
Trade paperback (256) pages
ISBN: 978-1402256981
NOOK: ISBN: 978-1402257001
Kindle: ASIN: B006IBFW12

Laura A. Wallace a musician, attorney, and writer living in Southeast Texas. She is a devotee of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer and is the author of British Titles of Nobility: An Introduction and Primer to the Peerage (1998).

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April Lady, by Georgette Heyer – A Review

Posted in Book Reviews, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged April Lady, Book Reviews, Books, Fiction, Georgette Heyer, Historical Ficton, Laura A. Wallace, Regency romance on 29 January 2012 | 9 Comments »

Guest Review by Laura A. Wallace

Georgette Heyer’s April Lady is the last re-issue by Sourcebooks of Heyer’s novels. (The very last is Pistols for Two, a collection of short stories.) Originally published in 1957, it is comfortably set within the Regency period that she had made her own. The setting is London, and the plot involves money, love, misunderstanding, gambling, debt, and, ultimately, a famous heirloom, the Cardross necklace.

Lady Helen Irvine, the daughter of an improvident peer who has wasted most of his patrimony through addiction to gambling and high living, has been fortunate enough to marry the Earl of Cardross, an extremely wealthy nobleman some dozen years older than she is. A very dutiful daughter, she had previously faced the unappetizing prospect of being married off to a wealthy city merchant in order to repair the family fortunes, but the unexpected offer from Lord Cardross saved her from this fate.

Nell did not know just what Cardross had done to earn her parents’ gratitude. It all came under the vague title of Settlements, and she was not to bother her pretty head over it, but to take care always to conduct herself with dignity and discretion. Mama, declaring herself to be deeply thankful, had made it quite plain to her what her duty henceforward would be. It included such things as always showing my lord an amiable countenance, and never embarrassing him by asking ill-bred questions, or appearing to be aware of it if (perhaps) he was found to have formed a Connection outside the walls of that splendid house of his in Grosvenor Square. ‘One thing I am sure of,’ had said Mama, fondly patting Nell’s hand, ‘and that is that he will treat you with the greatest consideration! His manners, too, are so particuarly good that I am persuaded you will never have cause to complain of the sort of neglect, or — or indifferent civility, which is the lot of so many females in your situation. I assure you, my love, there is nothing more mortifying than to be married to a man who lets it be seen that his affections are elsewhere engaged.’

. . . Mama had been right. When Nell had met my lord’s half-sister and ward, a vivid brunette, not then out, but hopeful of being presented by her sister-in-law, that impetuous damsel had exclaimed, warmly embracing her: ‘Oh, how pretty you are! Prettier by far than Giles’s mistress! How famous if you were ot put her nose out of joint!’

Lord and Lady Cardross have now been married a year, and he has been extremely courteous, patient, and generous to her, but Nell has a soft spot for her high-spirited brother, Lord Dysart, who seems to have inherited his father’s penchant for gambling, and is always kicking up a lark. Naturally, he applies to his sister for money to pay some of his debts; naturally, she gives it to him; and naturally, Cardross forbids her to do it again. But she does.

So misunderstandings pile upon misunderstandings, with the way enlivened by an entertaining set of secondary characters, including not only Nell’s brother and Cardross’s sister, but that Pink of the Ton, Mr. Felix Hethersett, Cardross’s cousin and Nell’s most faithful ciscebeo, and a particuarly inarticulate friend of Dysart’s, Mr. Cornelius Fancot. While perhaps not the most spectactular of Heyer’s novels, this one doesn’t lack for entertaining moments, including a very funny scene with happy-drunk Dysart and Corny doing their inadvertent best to perpetuate as many misunderstandings as possible. Heyer’s style and wit raise what might have been a mediocre book in the hands of a less-skilled novelist to an enjoyable reading experience worth savoring and re-reading.

Since this is the last Sourcebooks novel re-issue and I have commented on the production values before, I want to mention that I’ve done some in-depth comparison of editions, and have come to the conclusion that Sourcebooks did indeed go back to the source books: the British first editions. Most of the differences in punctuation between my more recent American paperbacks and the Sourcebooks editions turn out to be in fact restorations of the original British punctuation which had been changed in American editions. This is particularly true regarding hyphenated words and colons. The principal difference in the text between the Sourcebook editions and the British editions (to be precise, the Uniform Editions, as I don’t own any British first editions) is that the new editions use single quotation marks (the British Uniform editions used double ones). The second thing of note is, as I have mentioned before, “scannos” introduced by scanning and OCR technology. These are perhaps unavoidable but they are also, fortunately, fairly rare; unfortunately, when they do crop up, they tend to be of the stealthy type that can change the meaning of a sentence. I also think that they are more common than traditional misprints. But overall the Sourcebooks editions are probably the best compromise possible and they are indeed very beautiful and well-made editions that I hope will stand the test of time, worthy of Heyer’s work.

4.5 out 5 Regency Stars

April Lady, by Georgette Heyer
Sourcebooks (2011)
Trade paperback (288) pages
ISBN: 978-1402238789
Nook: ISBN: 978-1402273858
Kindle: ASIN: B0068N4C2K

Laura A. Wallace a musician, attorney, and writer living in Southeast Texas. She is a devotee of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer and is the author of British Titles of Nobility: An Introduction and Primer to the Peerage (1998).

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Sprig Muslin, by Georgette Heyer – A Review

Posted in Book Reviews, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged Book Reviews, Books, Georgette Heyer, Historical Fiction, Regency romance, Romantic Comedy, Romantic Fiction, Sprig Muslin on 25 December 2011 | 9 Comments »

Guest review by Laura A. Wallace

Georgette Heyer’s Sprig Muslin is one of her most entertaining Regency novels. It is a “road book,” full of adventures, comical situations, and fun characters.

At the outset, I must beg anyone who leaves a comment to avoid spoilers. New readers should have the pleasure of discovering Amanda’s antics, their consequences, and who feels what for whom, on their own.

Sir Gareth Ludlow is one of society’s best-loved bachelors. We first meet him calling upon his sister, whose offspring consider his visit to be a high treat:

Watching him, as he contrived, while displaying over and over again for the edification of little Philip the magical properties of his repeating watch, to lend an ear to the particular problem exercising Leigh’s mind, Mrs Wetherby thought that you would be hard put to it to find a more attractive man, and wished, as she had done a thousand times before, that she could discover some bride for him lovely enough to drive out of his heart the memory of his dead love. . . but she had never been able to detect in his gray eyes so much as a flicker of the look that had warmed them when they had rested on Clarissa Lincombe.

Clarissa had been beautiful, vivacious, and headstrong. She and Gareth were considered a perfect couple—and so they were, until she managed to break her neck in a carriage accident, trying to prove her mettle by driving Gareth’s spirited horses without permission. Seven years later, he has never fallen in love again, and come to the conclusion that he must marry without it. So he decides to offer for one of his oldest friends, the Lady Hester Theale, who is as unlike Clarissa as it is possible to be.

But on his way to pay his addresses to Lady Hester at her father’s country seat, he encounters, quite by chance, a very young but resourceful and determined lady named Amanda, who has run away from home and has a remarkable facility for making up stories. She is obviously an innocent girl, and Gareth reluctantly takes charge of her, with the intention of restoring her to her family. Unfortunately, she refuses to tell him her name, so he resolves to take her to London and entrust her to his sister’s care until he can discover her identity. But in the meantime, he takes her to Lady Hester, knowing he can rely upon her kindness to allow her to stay overnight, and so she does. But Amanda runs away, and their highly entertaining adventures form the rest of the novel.

The people they encounter during their travels, from the Hon. Fabian Theale, Hester’s uncle, to Hildebrand Ross, a young gentleman who is a poet, enjoying his first Long Vacation on his own, to Barnabas Vinehall, who was a friend of Gareth’s father, the cast of secondary characters help them along in what would film (if only we could be so lucky and someone would write the screenplay) as a classic screwball comedy, or perhaps an Oscar Wilde play.

This novel shows Heyer’s skills at the top of her form, with a tight plot, delightful and deftly-drawn characters, plenty of wit and humor, and an ensemble ending second only to those in The Grand Sophy and The Unknown Ajax.

5 out of 5 Regency Stars

Sprig Muslin, by Georgette Heyer
Sourcebooks (2011)
Trade paperback (304) pages
ISBN: 978-1402255496

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A Civil Contract, by Georgette Heyer – A Review

Posted in Book Reviews, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged A Civil Contract, Book Reviews, Books, Georgette Heyer, Regency romance on 27 November 2011 | 32 Comments »

Guest review by Laura A. Wallace

A Civil Contract is an atypical Georgette Heyer novel. While the setting is firmly Regency, beginning at the time of the Battle of Orthez (February 1814) and ending with that of Waterloo (June 1815), it is neither lively nor witty. It is a quiet book, with a love story that grows gradually, without any sparkle or adventure. The eponymous contract is a marriage contract between an impoverished, newly-acceded peer and a wealthy “Cit” (Citizen of the City of London)’s daughter. It is an inauspicious beginning: the aristocrat is in love with someone else, the bride is homely, and the Cit is vulgar.

However, what follows is a sensitive, nuanced exploration of human relationships that from today’s perspective may seem almost quaint: commitment, respect, duty, honor, fidelity, civility, resentment, and generosity. I say “quaint” because the most cursory glance at current divorce and familial statistics show an absence of almost all of these qualities (saving resentment) to such an extent that a marriage and family where they prevail seems almost naïve, or even alien. Imagine a marriage where commitment, civility, and respect are more important than passion and romance, even at its inception, yet fidelity and appreciation are also central. This isn’t a “romance” novel: it’s an “intimacy” novel, in a non-sexual way. (The couple does have sex, though the only way you know this for certain is that they have a baby: Heyer almost never writes about sex directly.)

Money plays a big role in the novel, and a feminist reading would no doubt analyze the connection between money and sex. But I think that to reduce it to money and sex would fail to do it justice in almost every respect. Yes, of course the contract is an exchange of money for social position that is literally consummated on the body of the woman, but that is the least important aspect of the situation. The real story is how they grow together and create something new: a lifetime together based not in physical urges but in common goals and a determination to make it work and find contentment. When money comes to the fore, it is more usually (though certainly not always) a point of contention between the hero and his father-in-law rather than his wife: it highlights the differences of class and the meaning of nobility (which, in Heyer’s world, is not always exclusively associated with a character’s station at birth). With more time and space, I could take it a step further, and analyze the tension between money and power being played out over the pregnancy.

Despite the serious overtones, the novel does not lack for the comic relief or the masterfully-drawn secondary characters at which Heyer excels. The most notable is the Cit (the father-in-law), who is hopelessly vulgar, but also shrewd, generous, and kind. (In her new biography of Heyer, Jennifer Kloester describes him as “one of [Heyer]’s comic triumphs” and quotes her as saying that he continually “tried to steal the whole book, & had to be firmly pushed off the stage.”) The recently-widowed dowager peeress, on the other hand, is languishing but selfishly manipulative, and when these two strong-willed persons encounter one another, she is completely nonplussed, while her elder daughter cannot help but “regard him with much the same nervous surprise as she would have felt at being addressed by an aboriginal.” Even more entertaining is the clash of titans between the Cit and the hero’s aunt, who presents the bride at court. She routs him completely, leaving him in the unfamiliar circumstance of having nothing to say. Further amusement comes from the hero’s second sister, an irrepressible damsel not yet out who initially conceives the idea of saving the family fortunes by becoming a famous comedic actress, an ambition that survives (even after her brother’s marriage) until she encounters Kean’s performance in Hamlet, when she decides that she must become a tragic actress instead, in order to play opposite him.

Many Heyer fans name A Civil Contract as their favorite Heyer novel. I personally have found that my appreciation of it has grown over the years, and I did not always like it so well as I do now. I once thought it was a sad book, but I no longer think so: it is a hopeful book, and ultimately a very positive one.

The Sourcebooks edition is typical: a lovely (though Victorian) cover, good paper, and an easy-to-read typeface, with only a few “scannos,” one of which is “Playoff” for General Platoff.

4.5 out of 5 Regency Stars

A Civil Contract, by Georgette Heyer
Sourcebooks (2011)
Trade paperback (432) pages
ISBN: 978-1402238772

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Georgette Heyer: Biography of a Bestseller, by Jennifer Kloester – A Review

Posted in Book Reviews, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged Biography, Book Review, Georgette Heyer, Georgette Heyer: Biography of a Bestseller, Jennifer Koelster on 30 October 2011 | 11 Comments »

Guest review by Laura A. Wallace

I must acknowledge that it is well-nigh impossible for me to be objective when it comes to reviewing Jennifer Kloester’s new biography of Georgette Heyer which was released this month in the UK. Rarely have I looked forward so much to reading a biography. But be assured, gentle reader, that had I found it sub-standard, I would tell you so. Instead, I am delighted to report that it met or exceeded almost all of my expectations.

This is a more traditional biography than Hodge’s, which discusses each work Heyer wrote in some detail, creating a dual focus on the events of Heyer’s life and her works, occasionally feeling as though the biographical material is merely a bridge until the next novel. Kloester’s treatment of Heyer’s work places them firmly in the context of the events of her life, with emphasis most definitely on her life.

Kloester had access to more of Heyer’s letters than Hodge (and Hodge generously gave Kloester all of her Heyer research notes). The bibliography is divided in two: published sources and archival sources, and the latter is extensive, with letter collections located all over the English-speaking world. (Oklahoma? New Zealand? Who knew?) Heyer didn’t keep her own manuscripts, and very few letters, but private archives such as the Frere family’s provided Kloester with dozens of frequent, chatty letters over several decades that reveal Heyer’s personality clearly, as well as some of the more mundane details of her life.

Kloester reveals more details about the incidents of plagiarism that Hodge mentioned. The first copier was indeed, as Heyer fans have long agreed amongst themselves, Barbara Cartland. The second, some years later, was Kathleen Lindsay.

One point I found particularly interesting is Kloester’s treatment of Penhallow. Hodge reported that this was intended as a contract-breaking book. Kloester’s research revealed that this notion was, in fact, a family legend built up after the fact. At the time, Heyer had the highest expectations of the novel and hoped it would be well-received in the literary world— and in fact it was, garnering several positive reviews, but never high enough to satisfy her. She always yearned for more serious literary recognition, and never felt that she received it.

This biography is interesting (to me, at least) on so many levels, especially placing Heyer’s life in a chronological context. The Regency setting of her later novels was less than a century before her own birth in 1902. She personally experienced the transition of the world from Edwardian times— when carriages and servants and indeed much of social and even some technological norms of the Regency were still an ordinary part of life for the upper middle class of which she was a part— to the new world “after the war” (i.e., World War I) of the twentieth century. Numerous small details of Heyer’s early life, and even of her antecedents, inform incidents in her novels. For example, Felix’s obsession with steam engines and his trip up and down the Thames in a steam-boat (Frederica) comes directly from Heyer’s grandfather’s successful tugboat fleet.

Like other biographies of authors, including Hodge’s, this work provides insights into the author’s creative process that other writers will find interesting and informative.

The only minor criticism I have is that some of Kloester’s examples and quotations are the same as Hodge’s. This is completely understandable as they are perfect choices to illustrate certain points, but I found myself slightly (and unfairly) resenting any duplicate quotations, as I wanted more and new quotations! (Perhaps Kloester will publish an edition of Heyer’s letters!)

The book itself is produced beautifully. The pages are stitched, the paper is substantial, and the photographic plates are well-chosen and well-described. The cover is stunning: I literally gasped when I opened it, not having seen it online first. This is a fine book that is aesthetically an admirable complement to the most fastidious collector of Heyer first editions or uniform editions. And substantively it is just as pleasing. Congratulations, Ms. Kloester, on a job exceptionally well done and worthy of its subject.

5 out of 5 Regency Stars

Georgette Heyer: Biography of a Bestseller, by Jennifer Kloester
William Heinemann (2011)
Hardcover (464) pages
ISBN: 978-0434020713

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The Toll-Gate, by Georgette Heyer – A Review

Posted in Book Reviews, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged Book Reviews, Books, Georgette Heyer, Historical Fiction, Regency Romace, The Toll-Gate on 9 October 2011 | 11 Comments »

Guest review by Laura A. Wallace

Georgette Heyer’s novel The Toll Gate is a little different from her typical Regencies. It is more of a mystery than a romance, and is told primarily from the point of view of the hero.

The hero, Captain John Staple, shares several characteristics with Hugo Darracott of The Unknown Ajax. Like Hugo, John is a former army officer who sold out after Napoleon’s defeat—though in John’s case, he sold out after Leipzig, and when Napoleon escaped from Elba and began the Hundred Days, he rejoined and thus (like Hugo) was present at Waterloo. Like Hugo, John is a large man, six-foot-four, with a gentle manner, a sense of humor, and a great deal of intelligence that he sometimes hides behind an intentionally bovine manner. And like Hugo, John prefers to travel cross-country on horseback rather than in a chaise with a servant and piles of baggage.

If you haven’t read this novel before, there is one thing you definitely should know before reading it. The first chapter seems not to fit. It is a large family dinner party where John’s cousin, the Earl of Saltash, has called his relations together to meet his fiancé. Thus the first few pages are full of characters that are hardly thought of again after John escapes the party in Chapter Two. The reason for this is that Heyer initially planned to develop the mystery to involve John’s status as his cousin’s heir presumptive. Instead she went in quite a different direction. So when you read it, don’t worry about keeping any of the characters straight except John, and enjoy the rest as vignettes of Regency life.

Captain Staple, traveling cross-country through Derbyshire to put as many miles as possible between himself and Lord Saltash’s country seat, is caught in rain and darkness and finds himself at an isolated toll gate attended only by a frightened boy. His dad, the boy explains reluctantly, went off saying he’d be back in an hour but hadn’t returned. John decides to stay the night, and look for the gatekeeper in the morning. And from there, finds himself in an adventure, which is much more to his taste than dancing attendance on Lord Saltash and his prospective in-laws.

There is a romance, but it is very lightly handled: quite sweet and satisfying, but not highly developed. There is quite a bit of thieves’ cant, but it is generally intelligible from context (and if it isn’t, provides a wonderful opportunity to delve into a cant dictionary, several of which are freely available online). There are entertaining secondary characters, as in every Heyer novel, including a highwayman and a Bow Street Runner. There are moments of comic relief, but they are not the focus.

Some have criticized Heyer for failing to excise or re-write the first chapter, which hangs unevenly and sets up the expectation of seeing some of the characters again, or at least of the relevance of their existence. But on re-reading, I find that there is very little that could be excised cleanly. John’s interactions with the various family members and guests reveal parts of his history and his own character which are important background for his later actions. So the chapter couldn’t just be chopped out without material loss. It would have to be rewritten, and I think that the labor involved wouldn’t be worth the return.

I give this novel four and a half out of five stars, not for any grievous faults, but because it does not sparkle as some of Heyer’s other novels. I still would rank it higher than most Regency-set novels by other authors, for its wonderful language and well-drawn characters, but for me—and I realize that this is a subjective opinion, but I am the one writing a review—it isn’t a top-tier Heyer novel.

The Sourcebooks edition is lovely, the only possible criticism of it being that the cover photo is eighteenth-century rather than post-Waterloo, but I am happy to report that I did not find a single printing error, not even a scanno!

4.5 out of 5 Regency Stars

The Toll-Gate, by Georgette Heyer
Sourcebooks Casablanca (2011)
Trade paperback (320) pages
ISBN: 978-1402238819

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The Unknown Ajax, by Georgette Heyer – A Review

Posted in Book Reviews, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged Book Blog, Book Reviews, Georgette Heyer, Historical Fiction, Historical Romance, Novel, Regency romance, The Unknown Ajax on 25 September 2011 | 16 Comments »

Guest review by Laura A. Wallace

The Unknown Ajax is one of Georgette Heyer’s funniest Regencies. It is populated with some of her more memorable characters, and ends with a protracted scene reminiscent of comic opera, with a dozen people coming in and fading out in a seamless composition that builds to a climax as funny as a Heyer fan could wish for. It might even be funnier than the ending scene in The Grand Sophy.

The setup for The Unknown Ajax is reminiscent of Downton Abbey—only the former came first, so it would be more proper to say that Downton Abbey is reminiscent of The Unknown Ajax. The heir to a peerage and a large estate has drowned in a boating accident, along with his only son. Everyone in the family thinks, therefore, the new heir is my lord’s youngest son, who has two grown sons of his own, but it turns out that this isn’t true. Unbeknownst to anyone except the old lord himself, his second son, who had made a shocking misalliance with a ‘weaver’s daughter in Yorkshire, and been cast off, managed to procreate before his untimely death in Holland (in the quagmire which occasioned “The Grand Old Duke of York”). So the story opens with Lord Darracott’s informing those of his relations who live with him that he has sent for his son and grandsons—and his heir as well. He had informed no one until now because he had hoped that the new heir—son of the despised weaver’s daughter—was already dead, or that there might be some way to sequester the estate to prevent his inheriting when Lord Darracott dies.

What ensues when the heir arrives is a comedy, not of errors but of pride and prejudice, to coin a phrase. Add in a set of Heyer’s wonderfully drawn secondary characters and you have a recipe for some highly entertaining scenes and dialogue.

There are the rival valets of the two brothers, who never miss an opportunity to turn the knife in each others’ bosoms. There is the would-be pink of the ton, whose sole ambition in life is to replace Brummell in society, and who likes to test his new ideas on the hapless residents of nearby Rye, while (being terrified of matchmaking mamas) trysting with any willing and personable female of a lower order. There is the serious-minded Customs’ Riding-officer, determined to stamp out smuggling along the Sussex and Kentish coast. There is the cantankerous, autocratic and ancient patriarch who keeps everyone dancing to his hornpipe.

And there is a truly magnificent grande dame whose well-modulated voice is never raised, whose countenance rarely smiles, whose behavior towards her irascible father-in-law is always perfectly correct, and whose dignity is never compromised. Even when she beats all of the young people to flinders in a lively game of copper-loo, her response to being asked if she always holds the best cards is merely: “I am, in general, very fortunate.” She expresses her opinions as pronouncements, and makes the most splendid (though dispassionate) speeches that render her auditors without a thing to say. Lady Catherine de Bourgh only wishes she could be as majestically formidable.

The final, hilarious scene begs to be produced as a play. Heyer clearly saw it as a tableau on a stage, and it makes me wonder why she never tried her hand at writing plays. The quotations and references to Ajax are all to the character in Shakespeare’s play Troilus & Cressida, which is based on the Trojan War.

This is a fun novel which would be a good choice to introduce Heyer to someone who hasn’t read her yet. And if you’ve read it before, re-read it, and let it become one of your favorites again (your favorite Heyer being the one you’re currently reading).

Appendix: As usual, I love everything about the Sourcebooks edition except for the “scannos,” some of which make nonsense of the text. Following is a list of the ones I found:

p. 44: reclining should be relining (Claud’s chaise).
p. 52: “. . . and he added with relish;” should end with a colon.
p. 85: long coats should be short coats, but this error is also present in my Berkeley 1977 printing.
p. 94: “the principal open” should be “one.”
p. 199: arm-in-armly should be arm-in-arm.
p. 230: la-amentable should be lamentable.
p. 252: “He had thought from the outside” should be “outset.”

5 out of 5 Regency Stars

The Unknown Ajax, by Georgette Heyer
Sourcebooks (2011)
Trade paperback (384) pages
ISBN: 978-1402238826

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The Private World of Georgette Heyer, by Jane Aiken-Hodge – A Review

Posted in Book Reviews, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged Biography, Book Blog, Book Blogger, Book Reviews, Georgette Heyer, Jane Aiken-Hodge, Jane Austen, Nonfiction, Nonfiction books on 14 August 2011 | 9 Comments »

Guest review by Laura A. Wallace

Jane Aiken Hodge’s 1984 biography of Georgette Heyer, reissued this month by Sourcebooks, was until very recently the only one available. Published ten years after Heyer’s death, it describes her life primarily from her letters to her publisher. An intensely private person, Heyer eschewed publicity, never giving an interview, and not keeping her papers for posterity. Thus a biographer has relatively little material available. Hodge interviewed Heyer’s editors, surviving family members, and a very few friends (all of whom loved or respected her), and then wove a narrative around the books themselves, using them to illustrate her life, and vice versa.

A lot of the criticism of this biography has focused on either errors Hodge made about the novels themselves, or some kind of personal disappointment the reader feels from finding Heyer “unlikeable.” I personally find whatever errors Hodge made to be minor and forgivable, and find Heyer herself to be witty, strong-willed, and very likeable. Her personality erupts from her letters, and makes me want to read more of them. Coupled with her friends’ descriptions of her immense style and charm, they make me wish I could have known her.

Her private nature prevented her from discussing her books with her friends. She would talk about everything else in the world with them, but when the conversation came around to her work, she would remain silent on it, leaving any discussion to her husband, or changing the subject. It is hard to tell from this remove (of both time and culture), but it seems to me that this was, at its core, a very large dose of British reticence and self-deprecation. The idea of self-promotion was simply repugnant to her, and since her first novel (written as a serial to amuse a sick brother when she was seventeen and published before she was twenty) had sold well, and a later novel had come out during a general strike with no publicity and yet sold 190,000 copies, she was convinced that she had no need to promote her work. She referred requesters of interviews back to her novels. Hodge reports that she would say: You will find me in my work.

So this biography focuses on her work, and how it informs us about the author. And in that regard, it is particularly interesting to writers. There is advice to new authors (she sometimes read other people’s manuscripts for her publisher) and there is the long incubation and development and experimentation with her own style and various settings before she settled into the Regency period. It took her twenty years, and twenty-four novels, before she did so. For many years she wrote a historical novel and a thriller every year. It was an intense pace. And her meticulous research is always highlighted.

I was surprised by the size of the Sourcebooks edition, which was smaller and thinner than I had expected. The comparative sizes of this trade-paperback-sized edition and the original hardcover edition are deceptive, however. The new edition runs to 256 pages while the original is only 216. The new edition has a new sentence at the end of the Acknowledgements stating that some new material has been incorporated into the text; but while I did not make a word-for-word comparison of the two editions, I did not find any additions or corrections. The most significant difference between the editions appears to be the lack of color illustrations in the new one, and the omission of as many as half of the total number or illustrations that were in the original. The hardcover edition is one of the best-illustrated books about the Regency anywhere, full of large color and black and white plates of photographs, portraits, caricatures, fashion plates, and paintings, with something on nearly every page. Many, perhaps most, of these are missing in the new edition, and of course the smaller format and plain paper reduces the beauty, and even the utility, of many of those that remain. It is still well-illustrated, just no longer exceptionally so. This is the only thing that restrains what would otherwise be an enthusiastic recommendation of this book to all Heyer and Regency fans. Even so, it is still well worth reading for anyone who enjoys Heyer or who is interested in the development of a successful author’s career.

4 out of 5 Regency Stars

The Private World of Georgette Heyer, by Jane Aiken-Hodge
Sourcebooks (2011)
Trade paperback (256) pages
ISBN: 978-1402251924

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Bath Tangle, by Georgette Heyer – A Review

Posted in Book Reviews, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged Bath Tangle, Book Blog, Book Review, Books, Georgette Heyer, Historical Romance on 24 July 2011 | 18 Comments »

Guest review by Laura A. Wallace

One of the things about Georgette Heyer is that the question “which of her books is your favorite?” tends to invoke a response corresponding to: “whichever one I am reading now.” Every time I reread one of her novels, I am always amazed at how fresh it is, even though I already know the plot; how exquisite the writing; how beautifully delineated the characters; and, perhaps most of all, the breadth and depth of understanding of the manners, customs, and language of the world she wrote about.

So it is with Bath Tangle. The plot is well crafted, sometimes with the intricacy of a country dance, but if one didn’t know that Heyer was writing a century and a half after Austen, one might be forgiven for mistaking them as contemporaries. She clearly drew from Austen, but her treatments always feel original.

To take just one example, from a scene early in the novel: a single nobleman of immense fortune (ten times the consequence of a mere Mr. Darcy) indulges his female relations by yielding to their persuasions to escort them to a country Assembly. He has done so with the ulterior motive of flirting a little with a naïve young miss he has recently met, but after standing up for the first two dances with her, and finding her conversation to have descended from artless confidences to monosyllables, he turns, bored, to the card room, and then slips away (hoping to avoid the notice of his sister) to go pay a duty call of leave-taking on an old friend, because he is going away the next day. But this friend takes him severely to task for his behavior:

“It would have been bad enough to have danced only with the ladies of your own party. That would have made everyone say merely that you were disagreeably haughty! But to single out one girl, and she not of your own party—Ivo, it is the height of insolence, and a great piece of unkindness to [her] besides! . . . Depend upon it, you have now raised the most absurd expectations in her [mother’s] breast, turned that unfortunate child into an object of envy and speculation, all for sport! . . . I could name you a dozen girls, all, I daresay, at the Assembly tonight, as worthy of your notice as [she]! But no! You have been playing the great man, condescending to grace a country Assembly. . . . I believe it to be a kind of unthinking arrogance. . . . If you went to a public Assembly, you had no choice but to behave with civility towards all! You might have danced with no one, since your excuse for going there was only to indulge your younger guests with a ball, but for a whim to single out one girl—and she the loveliest!—and then to stroll away, as though you thought yourself above the rest of the company—oh, no, Ivo, how could you? Every feeling is offended!”

Ivo’s old friend—herself a lady of consequence who has never considered attending this Assembly in the town near her own home—has known him all her life, and, when she is not quarreling with him, is usually his partisan. As she explains, when she finds out some days later that (after leaving her presence in a fury) he returned to the Assembly and danced not only with his young cousin but with “some girl who had no partner”:

“When he does such things it is not from any conscious idea of his own consequence, or a contempt for persons of inferior rank, but from a sort of heedless arrogance, as I told him. . . . He was never taught to think of anything but his own pleasure, but his disposition is not bad, nor does he mean to offend the sensibilities of others. It is all heedlessness! If he can but be made to see that he has behaved badly, he is sorry for it at once. . . . He knew what I said to be true, and that is what wounded his pride, and made him smart so. . . . Don’t imagine that he instantly set about mending the matter because his conduct had given me an ill opinion of him! He did it because it gave him that ill opinion.”

Now, to be fair, there is a lot of text missing in all of the ellipses in these two excerpts (including a description of Ivo’s upbringing where he was given good principles but left to follow them in pride and conceit), but it shows how Heyer can, in a few sentences, not only give a decided impression of a scene that takes place off-stage, so to speak, but still manage to illustrate perfectly the niceties of the code of behavior of the time to a degree not found in your average Regency romance novel. Naturally it evokes the Meryton Assembly in Pride & Prejudice, where Mr. Darcy refuses to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men, but it does so with an elegance of language that adds substantially to our understanding of the characters and their relations with each other.

I love this novel. It seems to be deeper and richer than some of Heyer’s other novels, perhaps because it takes place over the course of a year rather than of a few days or weeks. Developing and unraveling the tangle that takes place when some of the main characters remove to Bath takes three-quarters of the novel, and every bit of it is a treat to be savored.

The Sourcebooks edition is, as usual, a pleasure to hold and read, but there seemed to be more “scannos” than usual in this one, mostly of punctuation. Missing italics, added italics, and missing dashes are the most noticeable. My other copy of this novel is the Heinemann Uniform Edition, in which the type is only very slightly smaller, but heavier, and includes dashes three times as long as are currently fashionable, which I prefer as it makes for easier reading. But these are quibbles that are hardly new, and I only mention them for the benefit of those other pedants out there who, like me, care deeply about such details.

But for everyone else, if you love Austen, or even if you just love Austen film adaptations and you haven’t yet read Heyer, do yourself a favor and read this book.

5 out of 5 Regency Stars

Bath Tangle, by Georgette Heyer
Sourcebooks (2011)
Trade paperback (368) pages
ISBN: 978-1402238796

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The Quiet Gentleman, by Georgette Heyer – A Review

Posted in Book Reviews, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged Book Blog, Book Reviews, Books, Georgette Heyer, Gothic Mystery, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Regency romance on 26 June 2011 | 6 Comments »

Guest review by Laura A. Wallace

“To own the truth,” replied Miss Morville candidly, “I can perceive nothing romantic in a headless spectre. I should think it a very disagreeable sight, and if I did fancy I saw such a thing I should take one of Dr James’s powders immediately!”

Thus Drusilla Morville sadly disappoints her more romantic-minded friend, Marianne Bolderwood, on the subject of potential hauntings in Stanyon Castle, where both young ladies are staying before a ball. Miss Morville has been staying at Stanyon rather longer than Miss Bolderwood: her parents are away, and the Dowager Countess of St. Erth, who has a kindness for her, invited her to stay with her while they are gone.

And so Miss Morville is present to witness the homecoming of the seventh Earl of St. Erth to take up his patrimony. He had been estranged from his father from the unfortunate elopement of his mother when he was a small boy; on her death the sixth Earl had married again and produced two more children. But the elder son hardly ever visited his ancestral home, spending his school holidays with maternal relations, and later serving in the 7th Hussars at Waterloo— an event which happened shortly after his father’s death, and perhaps excused his failure to attend his obsequies, but he then chose to delay his return until the mourning year ended.

The other residents of Stanyon include the Honourable Martin Frant, half-brother to the seventh earl; Theodore Frant, who serves as estate agent, and is son of the sixth Earl’s reprobate younger brother; and the Reverend Felix Clowne, the late Earl’s chaplain, who remains in that capacity for the Dowager Countess.

Having recently re-watched the 1995 production of Pride & Prejudice, the similarities between the Dowager Countess and her chaplain to Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Mr. Collins were striking, and perhaps Heyer originally intended to develop the parallels more closely; but despite his rather unfortunate name, Mr. Clowne is not nearly so entertaining as Mr. Collins: instead he recedes into the background, while Lady St. Erth dominates all conversation with self-referential pronouncements. Among these is a tendency to deplore the ways of Providence, which unaccountably saw the seventh Earl safely through all of his military endeavors in the Peninsula and on the Continent, so that he, and not her own son, should succeed to the sixth Earl’s honours. Martin, indeed, has been brought up to think of himself as the heir, and thus is rather resentful of his half-brother’s survival, considering him almost in the light of an usurper.

To this collected company, Gervase Frant, seventh Earl of St. Erth, arrives at Stanyon Castle. He is exquisitely dressed, exquisitely mannered, and finds himself saved from dreadful tedium of sojourning in the country alone with these persons only by the discovery of the local beautiful heiress (Miss Bolderwood), to whom everyone—particularly Martin—is devoted, and by the arrival of his close friend, Lucius Austell, Viscount Ulverston.

Two things set this novel apart from the rest of the Heyer canon. One is the pragmatic nature of Miss Morville, whose quiet common sense seems rather dull to Lord St. Erth, and the second is the mystery element, which is in the gothic tradition, yet not gothic: someone appears to be trying to do away with Lord St. Erth. Unlike Cousin Kate, there are no histrionics, madness, or any gothic horrors. Without providing spoilers, it’s fair to say that the horror is provided by the crime itself, with all of the romantic trappings stripped away. The story gently satirizes the (eighteenth-century) horror genre by placing the perfect setting, an ancient country seat inhabited by the aristocracy, against the foils of a lack of the supernatural, a gently bred but unsqueamish lady who keeps her head in the face of danger, and a nobleman who appears to be a delicate fop but instead possesses extraordinary strength of mind, character, and body. Little is actually as it seems.

Georgette Heyer’s characterizations and sense of time and place are all, as usual, beautifully rendered, and fans of the era (and of good writing) will enjoy the details of its setting, manner, and speech. This edition was truly a pleasure to hold and to read, the occasional “scanno” notwithstanding. The cover art, while not Regency, is otherwise appropriate. If you can’t afford the 1951 first edition (as I cannot), be grateful (as I am) that these new editions by Sourcebooks now are available.

5 out of 5 Regency Stars

The Quiet Gentleman, by Georgette Heyer
Sourcebooks (2011)
Trade paperback (368) pages
ISBN: 978-1402238833

Laura A. Wallace a musician, attorney, and writer living in Southeast Texas. She is a devotee of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer and is the author of British Titles of Nobility: An Introduction and Primer to the Peerage (1998).

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Venetia, by Georgette Heyer – A Review

Posted in Book Reviews, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged Book Review, Books, Fiction, Georgette Heyer, Historical Fiction, Historical Romance, Regency romance, Venetia on 29 May 2011 | 15 Comments »

Guest review by Laura Wallace

“I know! She was the delightful creature who cut up her brother, and cast the pieces in her papa’s way, wasn’t she? I daresay perfectly amiable when one came to know her.”

—Venetia on Medea.

Venetia is about soul mates. Two people who, despite completely dissimilar life experiences, recognize in each other a mind that works the same way, a shared appreciation of the absurd, a fundamental decency toward others, and to some extent, a disregard for convention. The eponymous heroine is not quite so willing to flout convention as her new friend Lord Damerel, who has a reputation as a rake, but as she comes to know him, she becomes more willing.

Our heroine is a victim (though not a bitter one) of the selfish behavior of others. Owing to her father’s obstinate reclusiveness after the loss of her mother when Venetia was young, she has hardly gone out in society, except among her sparse neighbors near her Yorkshire home. Her father’s death a few years earlier, rather than setting her free, left her in a situation that is in some ways worse. She manages the estate for her army officer brother, whom everyone expects home at any moment (since the defeat of Napoleon three years before) but who hasn’t shown any remote interest in taking up his inheritance and merely writes that he is sure Venetia knows best what to do. Her younger brother, who is preparing for Cambridge, is a brilliant scholar with a deformed hip that causes him to retreat into the world of books as much as their father ever did—but they at least hold each other in affection.

Venetia makes the best of things. She suffers no illusions about the selfishness of the men who control her life, but she does not bear grudges. She remains amiable and cheerful, taking people at face value; and her naïveté is natural, without guile, while not preventing her from knowing her own mind or seeing people clearly. She resists the efforts of anyone to manage her life, beyond what she perceives as her duty to people she acknowledges have a right to control her. These include her father and brothers, possibly one uncle, and no one else. If she has a failing it is her inability to force those about her to take her seriously. It is not so much that she cannot stand up for herself as it is her unwillingness to force an issue when she knows it will lead to conflict and hurt. It is all the more remarkable because no one in her entire life has ever provided her with a model of self-immolation: indeed, the members of her family are almost without exception egoists who care only for their own comforts. But it is not in Venetia’s nature to repine or to hold their faults against them. Even when she acknowledges that there was no love lost between herself and her father, she is not resentful.

So when Lord Damerel rides into her life, and they discover an affinity of minds that neither has ever experienced before, she is grateful to have found a kindred spirit. “I always wished for a friend to laugh with,” she says to him.

For Austen fans, it isn’t difficult to find familiar character archetypes, though of course they are well developed, as Heyer’s characters always are.

Edward Yardley, Venetia’s worthy suitor, is similar to Mr. Collins in both his capacity for self-delusion and his supreme confidence in his own qualities even in the face of a firm refusal. Instead of acknowledging his object’s capacity to think for herself, he attributes her refusals to his proposals to various excuses that comport with his rigid notions of propriety and mistaken view of her character.

He also represents the option of the loveless but comfortable marriage that will give a gentlewoman her own home. Venetia seriously considers marrying him, but knows how unfulfilling she would find life as his wife.

Lady Denny, a neighboring matron, fills a similar niche to Lady Russell, though Venetia has never allowed her judgment on an important matter to supersede her own. But she has Venetia’s interests at heart and tries to take care of her protégée, and Venetia generally values her counsel and her society.

There are others, of course, but no space to delineate them all. And the plot itself, beyond this introductory set-up, deserves no spoilers. Suffice to say that it is highly satisfactory to see everything work out in the end. Indeed, for many Georgette Heyer fans, the final scene is their favorite from her entire œuvre.

One final and remarkable aspect of Venetia is the sprinkling of quotations throughout the novel. Lovers of the Elizabethan poets will find their favorites, as well as references to classical mythology, and, perhaps most entertainingly, choice biblical bits from Venetia’s old nurse when she is strongly moved.

5 out of 5 Regency Stars

Venetia, by Georgette Heyer
Sourcebooks (2011)
Trade paperback (384) pages
ISBN: 978-1402238840

We are rather fond of Venetia and you can find two additional reviews of it here on Austenprose:

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Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle, by Georgette Heyer – A Review

Posted in Book Reviews, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged Book Blogger, Book Review, Books, Fiction, Georgette Heyer, Historical Fiction, Regency romance, Regency-era Fiction, Sylvester or the Wicked Uncle on 23 April 2011 | 16 Comments »

Guest review by Laura A. Wallace a musician, attorney, and writer living in Southeast Texas. She is a devotee of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer and is the author of British Titles of Nobility: An Introduction and Primer to the Peerage (1998).

Our hero is 28, wealthy, with vast estates and dependents, and head of his house, having come into his inheritance at a young age. He was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit; but to be fair, he is no more villainous than any other young man of large fortune used to getting his own way. He needs an outspoken heroine to teach him a lesson about his self-consequence and pride. Sound familiar?

Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle is one of Georgette Heyer’s most delightful novels in the genre she invented. Set in 1817-18, for Austen aficionados it provides not only engaging characters, period manners, and lively dialogue, but what could be considered an exploration of one of Austen’s most beloved characters: Mr. Darcy.

Not that this is fan fiction: Sylvester’s character, though clearly inspired by Mr. Darcy, is fully developed, arguably more so than his literary progenitor. The novel explores how a young man in such circumstances could be anything other than arrogant. And Heyer heaps the (dis)advantages on Sylvester to the limits of possibility: Sylvester is a duke. This rank elevates the story from Austen’s genteel world to Heyer’s mostly aristocratic one, firmly in the London social scene as well as country house drawing rooms.

The novel opens with a leisurely exposition showing Sylvester in his natural setting: at his country seat. How delightful would it have been to be introduced thus to Mr. Darcy: to see first not his selfishness, but his kindness to his servants, his cheerful undertaking of duty above pleasure, his childhood memories of playing across the vast demesne visible from a window? He visits his invalid mother, with whom he has a relationship based in mutual and genuine affection, and here we learn the difficulty: he has never been in love, but has decided to take a wife. He has a short list of candidates (which he presents to the appalled duchess) and no doubt that any one of them is his for the asking. And sadly, he is probably right: not many young women would refuse the Duke of Salford.

But if Sylvester is a story-book hero, Phoebe is anything but a story-book heroine. She is neither beautiful nor accomplished: she is small, thin, awkward in company, and looks her best on horseback, where she is intrepid and nearly fearless. But she is afraid of shouting and remonstrating, and she is also an ugly duckling who doesn’t fit in, the child of her father’s first marriage who finds no sympathy or understanding from her father, stepmother, or stepsisters. Her one solace is writing: she has written an absurd gothic novel in the style of Mrs. Radcliffe, peppered with caricatures of people she encountered in society during her first London season. The roman-à-clef novel-writing heroine has become a trope of Regency fiction today, but Heyer may have invented it here.

Heyer sketches in these characters and their respective milieux deftly, and then plunges them into adventure. Much of the rest of the novel is a “road book,” with encounters while traveling providing opportunities for the characters to meet and get to know each other within a comparatively short period of time. There are also scenes set during the social season, including a pivotal one in a London ballroom. How Sylvester and Phoebe come to an eventual understanding is as well-crafted and satisfying as that of Mr. Darcy and Lizzie.

But it is the cast of secondary characters that make this book a truly delightful read. From Phoebe’s childhood friend, Tom Orde, to her stepmother, Lady Marlow, to Alice, the landlady’s daughter at an inn (who tells Sylvester that he is more important than a gobblecock), to Sylvester’s vain and stupid (but beautiful) widowed sister-in-law, Ianthe (Lady Henry Raine), with her six-year-old son, Master Edmund Raine, who is Sylvester’s ward, and her dandified suitor, Sir Nugent Fotherby, every character is well-rendered, memorable, and often very funny. They, with Heyer’s skill, elevate the novel from being merely a love story to highly developed comedy, with elements of melodrama sneaking in to poke fun at genre conventions, all showing Heyer to be a mistress of her craft whom many have tried to emulate, but none equaled.

Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle is the latest re-issue of Georgette Heyer’s oeuvre by Sourcebooks Casablanca. It is the first one of these which I have read, and overall it was a pleasurable experience: nice size, lovely cover art (which actually resembles Phoebe!), smooth paper, and easy-to-read typesetting. My only complaint is that I found half-a-dozen “stealth scannos” (as they are termed over at Project Gutenberg’s Distributed Proofreading site), most of which are new errors that were not present in my 1995 HarperPaperbacks edition. Although I suppose this is inevitable, it is still disappointing.

5 out of 5 Regency Stars

Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle, by Georgette Heyer
Sourcebooks (2011)
Trade paperback (400) pages
ISBN: 978-1402238802

Read Laura’s excellent article on etiquette and forms of address in Downton Abbey

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Lady of Quality, by Georgette Heyer – A Review

Posted in Blog Events, Book Reviews, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged Book Reviews, Books, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, Fiction, Georgette Heyer, Historical Fiction, Lady of Qulaity, Regency romance on 31 August 2010 | 49 Comments »

Guest review by historical romance author Elizabeth Hanbury

Lady of Quality was Georgette Heyer’s last book before her death in July 1974. She suffered chronic ill-health in her later years and fractured her leg in a fall in January 1972. Despite this, she began work on another book and by April had sent the outline to her agent. Lady of Quality was published in October – an amazing achievement and a tribute to Georgette Heyer’s talent and dedication to her craft.

The heroine is Annis Wychwood and the title sums her up nicely. Annis is twenty-nine and unmarried (an old maid in Regency terms), but she’s no dowdy spinster. She’s intelligent, rich, beautiful, elegant and charming, with a sense of humour and an independent spirit. She lives in Bath with an impoverished cousin, Miss Maria Farlow, as her chaperone.

The book opens with Annis travelling home with Miss Farlow after a visit to her brother and his family. In spite of her comfortable lifestyle and independence, Annis is bored. Her future holds no promise of excitement and the well-meaning but prosy Maria only adds to her gloom. Unsurprisingly, then, when Annis encounters a young couple arguing beside an overturned gig, her curiosity is aroused. She alights from her carriage to investigate and discovers orphan and heiress Lucilla Carleton is running away from home in the company of her childhood friend Ninian Elmore. Ninian’s parents and Lucilla’s aunt have been urging them to marry, but it’s a match that neither want.

Much to the jealous Miss Farlow’s dismay, Annis invites Lucilla to stay until her affairs can be sorted. Annis enjoys introducing her protégé to Bath society and things go smoothly until Lucilla’s uncle and guardian arrives. Rakish Oliver Carleton is the rudest man Annis has ever met and sparks fly from their first meeting. He’s blunt, sardonic and unheeding of society’s rules, but he’s also honest about his flaws, makes her laugh and is never, ever boring …

Lady of Quality is a truly delightful read. Annis is a Regency heroine that modern women can easily relate to and the way her ordered, independent life is thrown into confusion by the arrival of Oliver Carleton lies at the heart of this story. Oliver is less well-drawn than some Heyer heroes, but I love how he is honest with Annis from the outset and treats her as an adult, and his equal. Their sparkling exchanges are one of the highlights of the book and their mutual passion oozes off the page. In a contemporary review, journalist Phillipa Toomey coined Evelyn Waugh’s phrase ‘the bat’s squeak of sexuality,’ to describe the frisson of sexual attraction between Annis and Oliver.

The older secondary characters are unusually interesting too. Maria Farlow’s annoying traits are masterfully displayed (she’s up there with Mr. Collins as the most irritating secondary character ever!) and family relationships are examined with a knowing and critical eye. A vein of realism runs beneath the light hearted surface of Heyer’s romances.

In many ways, Lady of Quality is strikingly similar to Black Sheep, but, as Toomey pointed out, ‘Did anyone ever complain of being given another pretty little present by Fabergé?’ A fitting analogy and I highly recommend Lady of Quality, the last literary gem that the inimitable Georgette bestowed on us. Her books have entertained generations of readers and will continue to do so. She always delivered on style, wit and elegant prose, but above all, she was a consummate storyteller, one of the few able to recreate an entire world away from everyday life into which the reader could joyfully escape. So if you’ve never read Georgette Heyer, what are you waiting for? Read, enjoy, then spread the Heyer love – she’s too good not to share!

Lady of Quality, by Georgette Heyer
Sourcebooks (2008)
Trade paperback (304) pages
ISBN: 978-1402210778

Elizabeth Hanbury lives in a village in the heart of England and writes historical romance whenever she can find time to sneak away to her shockingly cluttered desk. Her introduction to Georgette Heyer came in her teens when she discovered a battered paperback edition of Devil’s Cub in the bookcase. Reading it sparked an enduring affection for Heyer’s work as well as a wider interest in the Georgian and Regency periods. Elizabeth’s latest Regency romance is Ice Angel and her short story collection, Midsummer Eve at Rookery End is also available. You can follow her blog posts at Elizabeth Hanbury and For Romance Readers.

Celebrating Georgette Heyer – Day 19 Giveaway

Enter a chance to win one copy of Lady of Quality, by Georgette Heyer (Sourcebooks, 2008) by leaving a comment stating what intrigues you about the plot or characters, or if you have read it, which is your favorite character or scene by midnight Pacific time, Monday, September 6th, 2010. Winners will be announced on Tuesday, September 7th, 2010. Shipment to continental US and Canadian addresses only. Good luck!

Upcoming event posts

Day 19   Aug 31 – Heyer Heroes, by Teach Me Tonight
Day 19   Aug 31 – Event wrap-up
Day 20   Sept 7 – Giveaway winners announced
.

Celebrating Georgette Heyer • August 1st – 31st, 2010

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Charity Girl, by Georgette Heyer – A Review

Posted in Blog Events, Book Reviews, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged Book Reviews, Books, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, Charity Girl, Fiction, Georgette Heyer, Historical Fiction, Regency romance on 30 August 2010 | 26 Comments »

Guest review by Dana Huff of Much Madness is Divinest Sense

Georgette Heyer’s novel Charity Girl, originally published in 1970, is the story of Ashley Carrington, Viscount Desford’s entanglement with Charity “Cherry” Steane. Desford’s father wishes Desford, who is approaching thirty, had married family friend Henrietta Silverdale, known affectionately as Hetta, but Desford and Hetta insist, rather too much, that they were not in love. At a party where the Lady Bugle schemes to help her daughter catch the eligible Desford, Desford spots Cherry watching the party from upstairs. He learns through conversation that Cherry is a virtual Cinderella in the Bugle household. The next day he sees her walking toward London with a suitcase, determined to run away from her Aunt Bugle. When Desford cannot persuade her to return to her aunt, he takes her to London to find her grandfather, the notoriously nasty Lord Nettlecombe, only to learn Nettlecombe is not in London. Desperate to help Cherry, Desford takes her to his friend Hetta, where the Silverdales take care of Cherry while Desford searches for Lord Nettlecombe. Tongues start wagging—why is Desford so interested in helping the girl? Can it be that he has fallen in love with a charity girl?

I have to confess myself disappointed with this novel. I know many consider one of Georgette Heyer’s strengths her facility with Regency slang, but I found much of it incomprehensible, even with my Kindle dictionary. While the language does lend authenticity to the story, it did curtail my enjoyment. I think most readers will guess the ending by the end of the first chapter, which is not necessarily a bad thing, and the fun is in how the characters will figure out what they already know. Desford spends much of the novel traipsing all over England trying to help locate Cherry’s grandfather. He’s a gentleman to be sure, but he went to an awful lot of trouble to help a girl he barely knows. Cherry is never fully fleshed out as a character. Somewhat dull and submissive, she never emerges as a likeable character in the same way as smart, kind Hetta does. However, Heyer’s most brilliantly drawn character is Cherry’s long-lost father, Wilfred Steane, who shows up late in the novel demanding Desford marry his disgraced daughter. The storyline moves mainly through dialogue, and while it wasn’t a long novel, I had a difficult time maintaining interest in the characters. However, it is a light story with a happy ending and authentic Regency period details for which Heyer is justly regarded.

Charity Girl, by Georgette Heyer
Sourcebooks (2008)
Trade paperback (282) pages
ISBN: 978-1402213502

Dana Huff teaches high school English and is currently a grad student in Instructional Technology at Virginia Tech. She lives in the Atlanta, Georgia area with her husband Steve and their three children. She started her blog, Much Madness is Divinest Sense, in 2004, and began focusing the blog’s content on books, reading, and book reviews in February, 2008. She also writes about education at huffenglish.com and genealogy at Our Family History. You can also follow her on Twitter as danamhuff.

Celebrating Georgette Heyer – Day 18 Giveaway

Enter a chance to win one copy of Charity Girl, by Georgette Heyer (Sourcebooks, 2008) by leaving a comment stating what intrigues you about the plot or characters, or if you have read it, which is your favorite character or scene by midnight Pacific time, Monday, September 6th, 2010. Winners will be announced on Tuesday, September 7th, 2010. Shipment to continental US and Canadian addresses only. Good luck!

Upcoming event posts

Day 19   Aug 31 – Review: Lady of Quality
Day 19   Aug 31 – Essay: Heyer Heroes
Day 19   Aug 31 – Event wrap-up
Day 20   Sept 07 – Giveaway winners announced

Celebrating Georgette Heyer • August 1st – 31st, 2010

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Cousin Kate, by Georgette Heyer – A Review

Posted in Blog Events, Book Reviews, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged Book Reviews, Books, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, Cousin Kate, Fiction, Georgette Heyer, Historical Fiction, Regency romance on 30 August 2010 | 29 Comments »

Guest review by Chris of book-a-rama

Kate Malvern just lost her job as governess and is staying with her old nurse Sarah until she gets a new situation. Sarah doesn’t like the idea of her Kate, whose father was a gentleman despite being a soldier and a gambler, hiring herself out to anyone who asks. Kate lived under all kinds of circumstances all over Europe so a little hard work doesn’t bother her. Still, Sarah can’t let it go so with the help of her crusty father-in-law, Mr. Nidd, she writes to the only relative Kate is aware of, Lady Broome of Staplewood.

At first, it looks like Lady Broome, or Aunt Minerva, is an answer to Kate’s prayers, offering her a place to stay for the summer. Kate starts to feel uneasy when Aunt Minerva gives her lavish gifts. There must be a catch. Lady Broome doesn’t seem like someone willing to give something for nothing. When she offers Kate a way to pay back her generosity, involving her handsome but unstable son, Torquil, Kate knows she has to get out of Dodge. Can she enlist the help of her other cousin Philip who thinks she’s a gold digger? Or rely on her own wits to disentangle herself from Staplewood?

Every Georgette Heyer novel I read becomes my new favourite and Cousin Kate is no exception. I loved Kate right from the beginning. She’s a practical girl with a sensible head on her shoulders. Plus, she’s sassy. She can go toe to toe with Lady Broome and her machinations. She also manages to charm just about everyone in the Staplewood household. Lord Broome treats her like a daughter and Torquil is calmer in her presence. Lady Broome is sufficiently nasty without becoming cartoonish. The dialogue between Philip and Kate is the best I’ve read from Heyer yet. Their back and forth is a lot like Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. Philip never really gets the better of her.

Cousin Kate is a fun story with an engaging plot. I wanted to know what the deal was with Torquil and what scheme did Lady Broome have up her sleeve. A cast of engaging characters added some humour to the story. There was nice mix of suspense and romance. Of course, I was never really worried that things wouldn’t work out for Kate. This is Heyer after all!

*****

I had written this review over a year ago. I still feel this way about Cousin Kate. Looking back, I can see that it’s a darker book than some of her others. This was one of her later works, the third last to be published before her death in 1974. Kate is fiercely independent, unwillingly to be beholden to anyone, particularly financially. Considering how Heyer tended to be in financial trouble herself often enough, I wonder if she saw herself in Kate.

I can certainly see the appeal of a strong, independent heroine to women at the time, women themselves struggling for independence in the workforce. I still count this as one of my top Heyer reads.

Cousin Kate, by Georgette Heyer
Sourcebooks (2009)
Trade paperback (384) pages
ISBN: 978-1402217685

When she’s not reading, Chris is wrangling husband, child and various pets in Nova Scotia, Canada. The 30-something blogger of book-a-rama, her most loved books are often classics. Her favorite book of all time is Jane Eyre. Chris has been sharing her thoughts on a variety of books in numerous genres on her blog since 2007. She also helps administrate the Spotlight Series blog and hosts The Daphne du Maurier Reading Challenge. You can follow her on Twitter as Chrisbookarama.

Celebrating Georgette Heyer – Day 18 Giveaway

Enter a chance to win one copy of Cousin Kate, by Georgette Heyer (Sourcebooks, 2009) by leaving a comment stating what intrigues you about the plot or characters, or if you have read it, which is your favorite character or scene by midnight Pacific time, Monday, September 6th, 2010. Winners will be announced on Tuesday, September 7th, 2010. Shipment to continental US and Canadian addresses only. Good luck!

Upcoming event posts

Day 18   Aug 30 – Review: Charity Girl
Day 19   Aug 31 – Review: Lady of Quality
Day 19   Aug 31 – Essay: Heyer Heroes
Day 19   Aug 31 – Event wrap-up

Celebrating Georgette Heyer • August 1st – 31st, 2010

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Black Sheep, by Georgette Heyer – A Review

Posted in Blog Events, Book Reviews, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged Black Sheep, Book Reviews, Books, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, Fiction, Georgette Heyer, Historical Fiction, Regency romance on 29 August 2010 | 32 Comments »

Guest review by Katherine of November’s Autumn

Twenty-eight year old Abigail Wendover arrives home in Bath after having helped one of her sisters. The poor dear; all was an uproar at her home; all three children had the measles, the nurse fell down the back-stairs and broke her leg, and she’s due to have her fourth child at any moment! After order is restored by Abby’s level-headed nursing and reassurances she treats herself to a visit to London. She shops and enjoys herself until her lecturing brother descends upon her with the news that her niece, Fanny is being courted by a ‘gamester and gazetted fortune hunter,’ Mr. Stacy Caverleigh.

Abby lives with her sister Selina, her senior by sixteen years, and the two of them are doting old maid aunts who’ve had the care of Fanny since she was two-years-old. Selina is ready to believe the best of everybody but perhaps no the most perceptive of creatures, and a bit of a hypochondriac,

“The melancholy truth, my love, is that single females of her age are almost compelled to adpot dangerous diseases, if they wish to be the objects of interest.”

Stacy Caverleigh has done his best to charm her and his decided air of fashion puts him in her good graces. Fanny who will make her debut in London within a few months is a precocious young lady who knows her own mind but still has romantical school-girl notions, which makes her ripe for all kinds of outrageous folly. Abby hopes for an opportunity to speak with Mr. Caverleigh without Fanny’s knowledge and the perfect opportunity happens when while writing a note to acquaintances that are arriving in Bath at fashionable York House she hears “Carry Mr. Caverleigh’s portmanteaux up to No. 12.” She is surprised when she looks up and sees a gentleman older than she and in clothing too loose-fitting to be considered even remotley fashionable. She introduces herself to him in a humorous scene of cross-purposes and mistaken identities. The Mr. Caverleigh to whom she is speaking is no other than the black sheep of that family, Miles, who was not only expelled from Eton but had done such extravagant follies he was packed off to India.

“His mind moved swiftly… he could make her laugh even when she was out of charity with him, and… a dozen other attributes which were quite frivolous… but which added up to a charming total, outweighing the more important faults in his character.”

Will Fanny elope with Stacy Caverleigh? And will Abby ever be able to stop laughing at something Miles Caverleigh says when she is really most vexed with him? This is my third Georgette Heyer read, her novels have such incredible plots and humor I love her style of writing dialogue; It’s playful and witty and her characters come alive with it. Miles Caverleigh is like a mixture of Henry Tilney and Mr. Bennet but in latter’s case he’s met his intellectual equal.

Black Sheep, by Georgette Heyer
Sourcebooks (2008)
Trade paperback (280) pages
ISBN: 978-1402210785

Katherine blogs at November’s Autumn. She lives in the Seattle area and has a great love for English literature, the arts, and period dramas. She was introduces to Jane Austen six years ago after watching the 1980s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and has been a Janeite since she read Sense and Sensibility shortly thereafter. Her friend Laurel Ann recently introduced her to Georgette Heyer who she’s found entertaining and delightful! You can follow Katherine on twitter as NovembersAutumn.

Celebrating Georgette Heyer – Day 17 Giveaway

Enter a chance to win one copy of Black Sheep, by Georgette Heyer (Sourcebooks, 2008) by leaving a comment stating what intrigues you about the plot or characters, or if you have read it, which is your favorite character or scene by midnight Pacific time, Monday, September 6th, 2010. Winners will be announced on Tuesday, September 7th, 2010. Shipment to continental US and Canadian addresses only. Good luck!

Upcoming event posts

Day 18 Aug 30 – Review: Cousin Kate
Day 18   Aug 30 – Review: Charity Girl
Day 19   Aug 31 – Review: Lady of Quality
Day 19   Aug 31 – Essay: Heyer Heroes

Celebrating Georgette Heyer • August 1st – 31st, 2010

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Frederica, by Georgette Heyer – A Review

Posted in Blog Events, Book Reviews, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged Book Reviews, Books, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, Fiction, Frederica, Georgette Heyer, Historical Fiction, Regency romance on 29 August 2010 | 32 Comments »

Guest review by Nicole Bonia of Linus’s Blanket

Lord Alverstoke is a stylish and wealthy bachelor – bored with his sisters, their families and their perpetual ploys to get him to fund their already lavish lifestyles. Cynical to the core, he is skeptical when he meets Frederica, the charming head of the orphaned Merrivale clan. Frederica has brought her family to London to ask the assistance of relatives of her late father in launching her beautiful sister, Charis, into society with the hopes of finding her a husband. The right match will make all the difference in the family fortunes, and save Frederica and her family from genteel poverty. Needless to say Alverstoke’s sisters are less than pleased with the appearance of their distant relatives and are proprietary about not only Alverstoke’s time and attention, which is newly directed at the young family, but also of his money.

This is by far my favorite of Georgette Heyer novels. While so many of them have been enjoyable to me, here she strikes just the right balance with her charming and engaging plot and characters. I love Alverstoke’s dry wit and interaction with his family, and it was fun to see him question the way he has been living his life as he becomes more involved in the always interesting antics of the Merrivales. I have to say that I shared his impatience with Charis – beautiful and well-mannered though she might be; the girl was a bit of a dim bulb. Frederica and Alverstoke are wonderful together and I love that she is such a determined, smart and capable heroine.

One of the things that I have really come to appreciate about Heyer is her fabulous detail to the period – the food, clothing, furnishings and language. She doesn’t fail here, and brings the same wonderful sense of time and place that has been present in her other novels. The characters are vibrant and I enjoyed the pacing and the way that Alverstoke and Frederic gradually came to know each other better and managed their feelings for one another. A vibrant cast of characters kept me wondering what they next antics would be as Frederica’s brothers Jessamy and Felix are fully developed, mischievous and constantly getting into things that Frederica and then, of course, Lord Alverstoke would have to get them out of. I rationed the chapters so that I could savor this lovely romance.

Frederica, by Georgette Heyer
Sourcebooks (2009)
Trade paperback (448) pages
ISBN: 978-1402214769

Nicole Bonia writes the book blog, Linus’s Blanket, focusing on literary fiction book reviews and recommendations from a wide variety of genres. An active member of the book blogging community, Nicole created the weekly Blog Talk Radio show- That’s How I Blog! in 2009, featuring candid conversations with book bloggers and authors on reading habits, book blogging experiences, trends and best practices. In addition to being an avid reader Nicole is co-founder of online publicity company, Winsome Media Communications, and also enjoys traveling, hosting dinner parties, and playing league bocce on Sunday afternoons. You can follow Nicole on Twitter as NicoleBo.

Celebrating Georgette Heyer – Day 17 Giveaway

Enter a chance to win one copy of Frederica, by Georgette Heyer (Sourcebooks, 2009) by leaving a comment stating what intrigues you about the plot or characters, or if you have read it, which is your favorite character or scene by midnight Pacific time, Monday, September 6th, 2010. Winners will be announced on Tuesday, September 7th, 2010. Shipment to continental US and Canadian addresses only. Good luck!

Upcoming event posts

Day 17   Aug 29 – Review: Black Sheep
Day 18 Aug 30 – Review: Cousin Kate
Day 18   Aug 30 – Review: Charity Girl
Day 19   Aug 31 – Review: Lady of Quality

Celebrating Georgette Heyer • August 1st – 31st, 2010

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False Colours, by Georgette Heyer – A Review

Posted in Blog Events, Book Reviews, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged Book Reviews, Books, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, False Colours, Ficton, Georgette Heyer, Historical Fiction, Regency romance on 27 August 2010 | 39 Comments »

Georgette Heyer had the fortunate knack of selecting catchy titles for her novels that were a perfect match to what would unfold inside: The Convenient Marriage, The Unknown Ajax, Bath Tangle, Devil’s Cub, Sprig Muslin, The Nonesuch, and on and on. Each title is short, evocative and intriguing. False Colours is a perfect example. Anyone with a modicum of military knowledge will recognize the term ‘flying false colors’ or flying a flag of a country other than one’s own to deceive the enemy into believing that a ship or fort or field banner is of a friend or allies until they are trapped. That is exactly what transpires in Heyer’s Regency-era novel False Colours. The Honorable Christopher “Kit” Fancot is pressed into operating under a false flag by impersonating his identical twin brother Evelyn, Lord Denville, who has inconveniently disappeared at a critical moment in the Fancot families lives.

Two years after the close of the Napoleonic Wars, Kit returns to England from diplomatic service in Vienna to meet his widowed mother Lady Denville distraught over the disappearance of his older brother Evelyn on the eve of an important introduction to his future bride and her family. Because of his mother’s mounting debts Evelyn must make a quick alliance so he will have access to his family trust. Their future depends upon Evelyn marrying the Honorable Miss Cressida Stavely, an heiress whose formidable grandmother the Dowager Lady Stavely must approve the marriage or the betrothal is off. Lady Denville begs Kit to impersonate his brother for just one evening to win time to locate his wayward brother. He agrees and the masquerade begins.

When Lady Denville invites Evelyn’s fiancé and her family to their country estate for a small gathering the hoax must continue. Kit soon discovers that Evelyn’s alliance with Miss Stavley is a marriage of convenience for both of them. His trust will be available to him upon his marriage and she will be free of her imposing step-mother. As Kit and Cressy are thrown together they are attracted to each other. By careful deduction and a few blunders by others, Cressy is able to discover that Kit is impersonating his brother. But, she has fallen in love with him of course and keeps his secret. When the prodigal son finally resurfaces with a wild story of where he has been and news of finding true love, the two brothers must either face the scandal of their deception, or depend upon their mother to devise an alternate solution that suits them both.

Originally published in 1963, False Colours has its charms and foibles. Heyer is in true form excelling at historical detail, but the plot, though surrounded by memorable characters finely drawn, was predictable and so formulaic that I was wracking my brain trying to remember other famous brother or look-a-like swapping stories: The Prince and Pauper, The Master of Ballantrae, and a vague recollection of Shakespeare using this device too. Because Kit holds back his feelings for Cressy, the romance really takes a back burner until the very end. The most dominate relationship in the book, which took up a chunk of dialogue, was between Kit and his mother. He was noble and admirable. She on the other hand was vapid, silly and careless. Happily, in true Heyer fashion, the two most sensible characters do end up together. But that was telescoped from the beginning. It was just a joy to watch her craft in getting us there.

False Colours, by Georgette Heyer
Sourcebooks (2008)
Trade paperback (352) pages
ISBN: 978-1402210754

On a whim, Laurel Ann Nattress created Austenprose, a blog celebrating the brilliance of Jane Austen’s writing and the many offshoots that she has inspired. As a bookseller at Barnes & Noble she delights in selling her favorite author’s works to the masses and in her spare time, she is currently deep into her editing duties for a Jane Austen short story anthology to be published in 2011 by Random House. An expatriate of southern California she lives in a country cottage near Seattle, where it rains a lot. You can follow Laurel Ann on Twitter as Austenprose.

Celebrating Georgette Heyer – Day 16 Giveaway

Enter a chance to win one copy of False Colours, by Georgette Heyer (Sourcebooks, 2008) by leaving a comment stating what intrigues you about the plot or characters, or if you have read it, which is your favorite character or scene by midnight Pacific time, Monday, September 6th, 2010. Winners will be announced on Tuesday, September 7th, 2010. Shipment to continental US and Canadian addresses only. Good luck!

Upcoming event posts

Day 17    Aug 29 – Review: Frederica
Day 17 Aug 29 – Review: Black Sheep
Day 18    Aug 30 – Review: Cousin Kate
Day 18    Aug 30 – Review: Charity Girl

Celebrating Georgette Heyer • August 1st – 31st, 2010

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The Nonesuch, by Georgette Heyer – A Review

Posted in Blog Events, Book Reviews, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged Book Reviews, Books, Fiction, Georgette Heyer, Historical Fiction, Regency romance, The Nonesuch on 27 August 2010 | 40 Comments »

Guest review by Marie Burton of The Burton Review

Synopsis:

An impetuous flight…

Tiffany Wield’s bad behavior is a serious trial to her chaperone. “On the shelf ” at twenty-eight, Ancilla Trent strives to be a calming influence on her tempestuous charge, but then Tiffany runs off to London alone and Ancilla is faced with a devastating scandal.

A gallant rescue…

Sir Waldo Hawkridge, confirmed bachelor and one of the wealthiest men in London, comes instantly to the aid of the intrepid Ancilla to stop Tiffany’s flight, and in the process discovers that it’s never too late for the first bloom of love.

The Nonesuch is one of Georgette Heyer’s many Regency romances novels with a wide range of characters. It was my very first Heyer read, therefore this review is from my first impression of Georgette Heyer’s work, and stands as my introduction to the Regency world.

While the text is somewhat dated to non-Regency readers, it is done so that we truly feel we are reading something written in that time period yet we can understand the old-fashioned dialect. It reminded me of reading Margaret Mitchell and Louisa May Alcott. There were quite a few words that were ‘new’ to me, although the words I am sure were quite old. Such as sennight, which I looked up: a week. And the line “O my God! thought Sir Waldo. Now we are in the basket!” I also have seen the phrase “on the shelf” for those unmarried girls past their prime (at age 26!).

This novel has a simple storyline: The main character is the nonesuch (the talented and popular guy who was at the top of his social game in all ways). He is the very likeable Sir Waldo Hawkridge who comes to town to settle an estate he has inherited. We are introduced to those he crosses paths with along with some of his own family who may or not have his best interests at heart. Miss Ancilla Trent is a governess to the spoiled Tiffany Wield within the social circle of butterflies around the nonesuch, but it is the nonesuch and Ancilla, the governess, who fall in love from afar. Of course there are obstacles to that endeavor being from two different social classes, and we chuckle along the way as the younger set in the story supplies enough antics to keep us occupied.

The characters are well-defined and at times hilarious, and I often found myself feeling that I was watching a black and white movie in my head while reading it. There was a lot of dialogue going back and forth and it would have played really well on the Silver Screen. The story line itself is not a far-reaching plot, therefore it was slightly slow at times, yet the chemistry between the characters is quite charming and coupled with the writing style it becomes amusing and witty, in typical Heyer fashion. However predictable the plot may have seemed, I did enjoy this novel and I look forward to her other books. The book made me smile and I enjoyed the way the writing took me back to that period and was a fabulous introduction to Georgette Heyer though other Heyer novels have since become my favorite.

The Nonesuch, by Georgette Heyer
Sourcebooks (2009)
Trade paperback (352)
ISBN: 978-1402217708

Marie Burton works full-time as a’ book keeper’ which is a nice way for saying the calculator is her best friend, but she’d rather work in a library ‘keeping books’. She writes book reviews in her spare time at The Burton Review. She enjoys reading about the past and learning the history of the world through the skill of authors such as Jean Plaidy, Alison Weir, Sharon Kay Penman and, of course, Georgette Heyer. You can follow Marie on Twitter as BurtonReview.

Celebrating Georgette Heyer – Day 16 Giveaway

Enter a chance to win one copy of The Nonesuch, by Georgette Heyer (Sourcebooks, 2009) by leaving a comment stating what intrigues you about the plot or characters, or if you have read it, which is your favorite character or scene by midnight Pacific time, Monday, September 6th, 2010. Winners will be announced on Tuesday, September 7th, 2010. Shipment to continental US and Canadian addresses only. Good luck!

Upcoming event posts

Day 16    Aug 27 – Review: False Colours
Day 17    Aug 29 – Review: Frederica
Day 17    Aug 29 – Review: Black Sheep
Day 18    Aug 30 – Review: Cousin Kate

Celebrating Georgette Heyer • August 1st – 31st, 2010

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A Civil Contract, by Georgette Heyer – A Review

Posted in Blog Events, Book Reviews, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged A Civil Contract, Book Reviews, Books, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, Fiction, Georgette Heyer, Historical Fiction, Regency romance on 25 August 2010 | 38 Comments »

Guest review by Elaine Simpson-Long of Random Jottings

I was 15 when I first read A Civil Contract and I remember being slightly disappointed at the lack of a dashing alpha male hero with matching heroine, but now that I am older and wiser, I find this Georgette Heyer to be a deeply and quietly satisfying book. It is the story of a marriage of convenience in which Adam Deveril will marry a rich heiress, save his family from ruin and in so doing, discover a satisfaction and happiness in his married life which he did not expect to find.

Adam is home from the Peninsular Wars and in love with the beautiful Julia Oversely, but when he learns of the state of his family’s finances he withdraws his suit. It is Julia’s father, honouring Adam’s action, who suggests an arranged marriage. He knows Jonathan Chawleigh, a hugely wealthy man in the city, who is eager to ally his daughter with a member of the ton and is willing to pay handsomely to gain a position in society for his daughter. Initially revolted and repulsed by the scheme, Adam realises he has no choice but to agree in order to save Fontley and provide for his family.

Jenny has always loved Adam, as a friend of Julia she had accepted her position as the satellite in Julia’s starry wake, and knows that Adam is unaware of her existence and does not love her. She also knows that his family dislike the match and deem her an unworthy wife for a Deveril, but she makes her position clear to Adam’s sister, Lydia: “You love him don’t you? This isn’t what you wished. I only want to tell you that he’ll be comfortable. I’ll see to that. You don’t think it signifies but it does. Men like to be comfortable. Well he will be – that’s all”

I love the growing relationship between Adam and Jenny and her journey into the heart of his family, but there is one character in A Civil Contract who is pure delight, a figure who would fit beautifully into Fielding’s Tom Jones or Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, and that is Jenny’s father Jonathan Chawleigh:

“Mr Chawleigh was a middle aged man, whose powerful frame was clad in an old fashioned suit of snuff coloured broadcloth…he favoured a mode that had been for many years worn by respectable tradesmen and a country squires…his coat was full skirted, and he wore knee breaches with stockings and square toed shoes embellished with steel buckles…..his waistcoat relieved the general drabness of his raiment with broad, alternating stripes of grass green and gold “

A larger than life, warm hearted, no nonsense figure, Mr Chawleigh is my favourite character in all Heyer. He practically takes over this story and is, indeed, at its very centre. The plot line, simple as it is, needs the embellishment of his humour, his sometimes overbearing ways, his generosity of heart and his love for his only child Jenny. Without him this book would be a worthy read, but would lack sparkle and zest. He is wonderful and I, a Dickens fan of many years, would go so far as to say he is worthy to stand alongside Mr Pickwick for sheer fun and joi de vivre.

And of course, we have a happy ending. Adam comes to realise Jenny’s worth “He did love her, differently but perhaps more enduringly and he had grown to depend on her. She thought they would have many years of quiet content; never reaching the heights, but living together in deepening friendship and comfort”.

A lovely, lovely, book.

A Civil Contract, by Georgette Heyer
Harlequin (2009)
Trade paperback (432) pages
ISBN: 978-0373773978

Elaine Simpson-Long has been blogging at Random Jottings now for four years and is amazed and delighted by the response she receives from her many visitors. Thinking that nobody would want to read her thoughts on books as well as opera and life in general, she finds blogging to be enormous fun and very satisfying. Now retired after years of commuting to the city, she enjoys looking after her granddaughter whenever possible, traveling, going to the theatre and opera and of course, reading, reading, reading. Follow Elaine on Twitter as Brooksideelaine.

Celebrating Georgette Heyer – Day 15 Giveaway

Enter a chance to win one copy of A Civil Contract, by Georgette Heyer (Harlequin, 2009) by leaving a comment stating what intrigues you about the plot or characters, or if you have read it, which is your favorite character or scene by midnight Pacific time, Monday, September 6th, 2010. Winners will be announced on Tuesday, September 7th, 2010. Shipment to continental US and Canadian addresses only. Good luck!

Upcoming event posts

Day 16    Aug 27 – Review: The Nonesuch
Day 16    Aug 27 – Review: False Colours
Day 17    Aug 29 – Review: Frederica
Day 17 Aug 29 – Review: Black Sheep

Celebrating Georgette Heyer • August 1st – 31st, 2010

Read Full Post »

The Unknown Ajax, by Georgette Heyer – A Review

Posted in Blog Events, Book Reviews, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged Book Reviews, Books, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, Fiction, Georgette Heyer, Historical Fiction, Regency romance, The Unknown Ajax on 25 August 2010 | 26 Comments »

Guest review by Brooke of The Bluestocking Guide

The Unknown Ajax begins with Lord Darracott reaming out his daughter-in-law over dinner for her prattle. Then the point of view switches briefly to the new servant Charles from whose perspective we learn that Lord Darracott is an extremely unpleasant man. What makes him more unpleasant is that his oldest son Granville is dead. Rather than his heir being Matthew Darracott, Lord Darracott must acknowledge Hugo who is Granville’s son with the daughter of a weaver.

Lord Darracott and the rest of the family expect Hugo to be a savage practically. So Hugo decides to oblige the family. The reader notices Hugo goes from speaking proper English to speaking some form of cockney. As the story progresses we observe Hugo learning more and more about his new family. Not all of it is pleasant. Of course, there is the patriarch who is distinctly unpleasant. Then there are Hugo’s cousins some of which are OK, others of which are ridiculous. All of cousins have suffered from their grandfather’s treatment. Then there is the house itself which has been allowed to fall apart around them.

This was the first Regency romance that I’ve ever read by Heyer. I liked the last part of the book. The first part of the book was a little bit slow. The conversations were a little hard to follow because there were so many idioms used. Certain of the cockney accents were impossible to understand. I was only able to guess as what was being said based upon the reaction of Hugo. I think if I heard someone speaking that way, I’d probably be able to understand it.

It was amazed by the snobbery the family exhibited. Even during that day, it was known that some of the merchant class were just as wealthy if not more wealthy than those with land and titles. Many of the merchant class were able to send their children to the high class schools. There really was not any reason that they should have expected Hugo to be backwards, but that’s just me.

Anyway, this book was OK. I would not mind trying another Heyer to see how the rest of them are.

The Unknown Ajax, by Georgette Heyer
Harlequin (2009)
Trade paperback (384) pages
ISBN: 978-0373774166

Brooke is the webmistress of The Bluestocking Guide: Reviews by a Partial, Prejudiced, and Ignorant Reader. During the day, Brooke is a litigation attorney. Outside the job, she is an avid reader, amateur photographer, gym rat, and budding chef. She first read Pride & Prejudice in her teens and has been a devout Janeite ever since. Brooke first heard of Georgette Heyer novels from the Jane Austen community on the web. The first Heyer novel she read was The Unfinished Clue which she greatly enjoyed. Her main weaknesses are dark chocolate and coffee. You can follow Brooke on Twitter as bluestockingbb.

Celebrating Georgette Heyer – Day 15 Giveaway

Enter a chance to win one copy of The Unknown Ajax, by Georgette Heyer (Harlequin, 2009) by leaving a comment stating what intrigues you about the plot or characters, or if you have read it, which is your favorite character or scene by midnight Pacific time, Monday, September 6th, 2010. Winners will be announced on Tuesday, September 7th, 2010. Shipment to continental US and Canadian addresses only. Good luck!

Upcoming event posts

Day 15 Aug 25 – Review: A Civil Contract
Day 16 Aug 27 – Review: The Nonesuch
Day 16 Aug 27 – Review: False Colours
Day 17 Aug 29 – Review: Frederica

Celebrating Georgette Heyer • August 1st -31st, 2010

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Venetia, by Georgette Heyer – A Review

Posted in Blog Events, Book Reviews, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged Book Reviews, Books, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, Fiction, Georgette Heyer, Historical Fiction, Regency romance, Venetia on 23 August 2010 | 59 Comments »

One of Georgette Heyer’s most beloved novels, Venetia is set in the countryside of the North Riding of Yorkshire three years after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Its eponymous heroine Venetia Lanyon is not your conventional Heyer Regency Miss. Unmarried at age twenty-five she has never been in love, is close to being on the shelf, and has resigned herself to the narrow fate of spinsterhood.

Raised by her reclusive father since her mother’s death fifteen years prior, Venetia has seen little of life beyond the family estate of Undershaw Manor or an occasional country dance at Harrogate. Since her father’s death shortly after the Battle of Waterloo she has been overseeing the household of her younger brothers: twenty-two year-old Sir Conway, a soldier overseas with the Army of Occupation in Cambray, France, and sixteen-year old Aubrey, a brilliant scholar studying for Cambridge who abhors his physical limitations from a pronounced and ugly limp. Also within her small sphere are two improbable suitors who would like to win her hand: Edward Yardley, a dull, pompous, egoist who thinks NO is a YES, and Oswald Denny, a bumbling teenage wanna-be rake who idolizes Lord Byron the mad, bad and dangerous to know poet. Life as a maiden aunt in her brother’s household seems a far preferable fate until a chance encounter with an estranged neighbor, the “Wicked Baron” of Elliston Priory, leaves a surprisingly favorable impression.

Others tell her the Baron, Lord Jasper Damerel is scoundrel, a rake, and a libertine. Not at all a suitable association for any young lady who does not want her reputation ruined. Their first encounter while she walks alone near his estate is one of Heyer’s most famous scenes. (I will not reveal spoilers – but it is very praise worthy.) Damerel is as brazen and unprincipled as his reputation precedes him, but, instead of swooning or running from his advances Venetia firmly holds her ground and pelts him with literary retorts, challenging his intelligence and temporarily belaying his dishonorable intentions. Their verbal sparring snaps and sparkles like dry kindling to a hungry fire confirming Heyer’s brilliance with characterization and dialogue. Venetia does not hesitate to say what she thinks and that makes him laugh, a refreshing change for this world-weary social outcast. Tall, dark and disreputable, everything about rakish Damerel tells her to check herself, but Venetia does the exact opposite, she befriends him.

Lord Damerel is intrigued and continues to seduce her until the green girl before him earns his true respect and deep affection. He is in love and wants her for his wife. Venetia secretly feels the same and awaits his proposal until Damerel suddenly becomes chivalrous and will not sully her reputation by marrying her. Meanwhile her brother Conway’s young bride arrives unannounced from France with her surly mother to take possession of Undershaw displacing Venetia who quickly accepts an invitation to stay with her aunt and uncle Hendred in London. Her family hopes that the change of scenery will help her forget the unsuitable Lord Damerel, but she only fears she may never see him again. However, Venetia is a realist who knows how the world works and a newly discovered family secret spurs her into action. She will need all her wit and guile to challenge propriety and to prove to Damerel that their social standing has nothing to do with keeping them apart.

Venetia Lanyon is one of Heyer’s most liberated heroines and Lord Damerel one of her darkest rogues. They seem a most unlikely pair, but Heyer’s skill at devising impossible obstacles for her hero and heroine is like syllabub and sunshine, we just can’t get enough if it. Upon their first meeting Damerel quotes Shakespeare, ‘How full of briars is this workaday world!’ which is an important theme throughout the novel. Both Venetia and Damerel face the challenges of social stricture – the briars of the workaday world – and overcome them in their own way. The plot is simple and secondary to the romantic tension, scintillating dialogue and playful sparing which is so much sexier than any modern bodice ripper could hope to generate. Cleverly, Heyer’s Venetia does not reform a rake, she discovers that a knight errant is what she needs. (Don’t we all?)

Venetia, by Georgette Heyer
Harlequin (2009)
Trade paperback (368)
ISBN: 978-0373774180

Celebrating Georgette Heyer – Day 14 Giveaway

Enter a chance to win one copy of Venetia, by Georgette Heyer (Harlequin, 2009) by leaving a comment stating what intrigues you about the plot or characters, or if you have read it, which is your favorite character or scene by midnight Pacific time, Monday, September 6th, 2010. Winners will be announced on Tuesday, September 7th, 2010. Shipment to continental US and Canadian addresses only. Good luck!

Upcoming event posts

Day 15    Aug 25 – Review: The Unknown Ajax
Day 15    Aug 25 – Review: A Civil Contract
Day 16    Aug 27 – Review: The Nonesuch
Day 16    Aug 27 – Review: False Colours

Celebrating Georgette Heyer • August 1st – 31st, 2010

Read Full Post »

Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle, by Georgette Heyer – A Review

Posted in Blog Events, Book Reviews, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged Book Reviews, Books, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, Fiction, Georgette Heyer, Historical Fiction, Regency romance, Sylvester or the Wicked Uncle on 23 August 2010 | 39 Comments »

Originally published in 1957, Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle is one of Georgette Heyer’s more popular Regency Romance novels. Its protagonist (or maybe antagonist) is the wealthy, arrogant and pragmatic Sylvester Rayne, the Duke of Salford. In his twenty-eighth year he has taken it upon himself to marry, much to the surprise of his mother, the Dowager Duchess of Salford, producing a short-list of five suitable debutantes that meet his exacting standards of an accomplished woman! (Mr. Darcy was more generous in his assessment of the female sex. He allowed half a dozen ladies “in the whole range of my acquaintance, which are really accomplished.”) ;-) However, among the list of beautiful and well-bred young women his mother does not see her first choice, the Hon Phoebe Marlow, granddaughter of his godmother Dowager Lady Ingham.

Sylvester soon travels to London to consult Lady Ingham, but he is put off by her inelegant attempt to fix the match solely based on the fact that her daughter, Phoebe’s mother, and his mother were best friends. Meanwhile, word reaches Phoebe’s spiteful stepmother that the Duke of Salford will shortly make an offer for her hand and commands her to accept. Horrified, Phoebe is also put off by the reasons for the alliance and her memory of the cold, proud Duke of Salford from her London season. When they are formally introduced she is shy and dull, and he is unimpressed. In a panic, Phoebe runs away to London and the sanctuary of Lady Ingram, escorted by her childhood friend Tom Orde. A carriage accident interrupts their journey happened upon by Lord Rayne who thinks he has discovered a runaway marriage in progress. When a snow storm traps them all together at the local Inn, Sylvester begins to see that Phoebe is actually quite intelligent and interesting, and not at all the young woman of his first impression. Gallantly, he removes any concerns that she may be harboring on his proposing marriage to her. She in turn, is gratefully relieved sharing that nothing could possibly induce her to marry him!

In typical Heyer fashion her independent heroine and staid hero are the most unlikely couple imaginable. How she will bring them together is a humorous and engaging adventure, filled with pride, prejudice and misunderstandings. In addition, Heyer’s cast of secondary characters are predictable, but most welcome: Ianthe the spoilt and impulsive widow of Sylvester’s twin brother who thinks he is a villainous brute, Sir Nugent Fotherby her foppish and absurd fiancé, Tom Orde the steady and trusting family friend, and Lady Ingham the meddling but well-meaning older relative, among others.

Heyer excels at bringing out the eccentric and the ridiculous in her characters played against dry humor like few can. The subplot of Phoebe anonymously writing a Gothic novel mirroring the personalities and physical characteristics of her family and friends is brilliant. When Sylvester’s signature devilish-looking eyebrows show up on the villain Count Ugolino, scandalizing the Ton, she unintentionally admits that she was the authoress resulting in hilarious fallout. As with all of Heyer’s romances, there is a hard wrought happy ending. How all the ill-informed opinions and misconceptions will be resolved, I will leave to the reader to discover, but Sylvester stands as one of my favorite Heyer novels and worthy of moving up your TBR list.

Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle, by Georgette Heyer
Harlequin (2009)
Trade paperback (368) pages
ISBN: 978-0373773855

Celebrating Georgette Heyer – Day 14 Giveaway

Enter a chance to win one copy of Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle, by Georgette Heyer (Harlequin, 2009) by leaving a comment stating what intrigues you about the plot or characters, or if you have read it, which is your favorite character or scene by midnight Pacific time, Monday, September 6th, 2010. Winners will be announced on Tuesday, September 7th, 2010. Shipment to continental US and Canadian addresses only. Good luck!

Upcoming event posts

Day 14    Aug 23 – Review: Venetia
Day 15    Aug 25 – Review: The Unknown Ajax
Day 15    Aug 25 – Review: A Civil Contract
Day 16    Aug 27 – Review: The Nonesuch

Celebrating Georgette Heyer • August 1st – 31st, 2010

Read Full Post »

April Lady, by Georgette Heyer – A Review

Posted in Blog Events, Book Reviews, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged April Lady, Book Reviews, Books, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, Fiction, Georgette Heyer, Historical Fiction, Regency romance on 22 August 2010 | 28 Comments »

Guest review by Becky of Becky’s Book Reviews

April Lady is an enjoyable albeit predictable read. Our hero, Cardross, and our heroine, Nell, have been married over a year when the novel opens. The book begins with an argument over money. The wife is being scolded by her husband for going over her quarterly allowance. It’s not that he’s not fabulously wealthy. He is. He just wants his wife to be able to account for the money he’s given her, for the unpaid bills that arrive at the house.

Nell is horrified to learn that she missed one bill in her recent accounting. It is for a Chantilly lace dress. She can’t possibly tell her husband the truth–the bill got buried in a drawer, forgotten. She can’t possibly expect her husband to understand this circumstance. Perhaps her brother can help her…

Nell is keeping secrets from her husband. She is lying about giving money to her brother, Dysart, to cover his gambling debts. She knows she is disobeying her husband by “supporting” her brother like this. But she can’t understand why her husband blames Dysart for being an addict. He should know that Dysart just can’t control himself when it comes to gambling and racing. Being unsure of her husband’s love (and respect), Nell spends much of her time afraid of her husband. She’s afraid to be honest with him, which is all that he is asking of her.

Both husband and wife are deceived. She is certain that he doesn’t love her, that their marriage is one of convenience not love. And he is certain that she doesn’t love him, that she married him for his money. (Her family is always in need of money since her father and brother are gambling addicts.) The reader is the only one who knows the truth: these two do love each other, and have loved each other from the beginning.

Is Nell as silly as she seems? Is Cardross as tyrannical and unforgiving? Will these two ever be completely honest with one another?

While I didn’t love the plot of this one–at least as much as other Heyer novels I’ve read in the past–I did enjoy the characters. Particularly the “minor” characters. Nell has a sister-in-law, Letty, whose troubled love life steals the show. She’s in love with a man, Jeremy Allandale, deemed “unsuitable” by her older brother. (Letty gets one of her many scoldings in the second chapter.) This love affair is “aided” by Letty’s cousin, Selina Thorne, a young lady who has read too many novels. This romance provides my favorite scene of the novel!

Dysart, Nell’s brother, and Mr. Hethersett, Cardross’ cousin who has a way of being in the right place at the right time to aid Nell out of her messes, also add to the novel’s charm.

April Lady, by Georgette Heyer
Harlequin (2009)
Trade paperback (288) pages
ISBN: 978-0373774135

Becky has been reviewing books at Becky’s Book Reviews since August 2006. She reviews a variety of books—middle grade, young adult, and adult. She loves discovering new authors, and is very thankful to her mom for recommending Georgette Heyer. Becky is also the host of the Georgette Heyer Perpetual Reading Challenge. You can follow Becky on Twitter as blbooks.

Celebrating Georgette Heyer – Day 13 Giveaway

Enter a chance to win one copy of April Lady, by Georgette Heyer (Harlequin, 2009) by leaving a comment stating what intrigues you about the plot or characters, or if you have read it, which is your favorite character or scene by midnight Pacific time, Monday, September 6th, 2010. Winners will be announced on Tuesday, September 7th, 2010. Shipment to continental US and Canadian addresses only. Good luck!

Upcoming event posts

Day 14   Aug 23 – Review: Sylvester
Day 14   Aug 23 – Review: Venetia
Day 15    Aug 25 – Review: The Unknown Ajax
Day 15   Aug 25 – Review: A Civil Contract

Celebrating Georgette Heyer • August 1st – 31st, 2010

Read Full Post »

Sprig Muslin, by Georgette Heyer – A Review

Posted in Blog Events, Book Reviews, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, Georgette Heyer Book Reviews, tagged Book Reviews, Books, Celebrating Georgette Heyer, Fiction, Goergette Heyer, Historical Fiction, Regency romance, Sprig Muslin on 22 August 2010 | 33 Comments »

Guest review by Laura Gerold of Laura’s Reviews

Sprig Muslin is a light and funny Regency novel that showcases Georgette Heyer’s wit. I really enjoyed it and it made me laugh out loud several times! Sprig Muslin was first published in 1956, but the novel is set in 1813. The main action of the novel takes place in London, Chatteris (in the Fenland District of Cambridgeshire, England) and the roads in between.

This novel tells the tale of Sir Gareth Ludlow. His high spirited fiancée died in an accident many years previous to the start of the novel. Gary has decided he will never find love again and to just marry a friend, Lady Hester Theale, for convenience. Lady Hester is 29 and labeled an old maid – she also has ideas of her own about getting married!

On the way to propose to Lady Hester, Gary meets up with a young girl, Miss Amanda “Smith.” Miss Smith is in a local inn scandalously without a chaperone. Gary decides to chaperone her until he can find out her true identity and family. Hilarity ensues, especially with all of Amanda’s tales and adventures. The scrapes and misunderstandings were fantastic!

The version of Sprig Muslin that I read contained a forward from bestselling author Linda Lael Miller. I’d recommend skipping the foreword until you’ve read the novel. Miller basically tells the entire plot before you start the novel without giving any insight.

Sprig Muslin contains many of the elements that I love about Georgette Heyer novels. She has a quick wit to her writing and it is set in the Regency period, a time that I love to read about. Heyer’s characters are wonderful well rounded beings. In this novel in particular, I love that Gary is a wealthy, romantic man that is more than willing to do the right thing and help Miss Smith, but seems to really misunderstand Lady Hester. Lady Hester herself is introduced by other characters as being a somewhat mousy lady that is “on the shelf”. I really enjoyed seeing her character developed through the novel into a strong and independent lady on her own. It was interesting in this novel as it explored a more mature love that arises from friendship with slightly “older” characters. Juxtaposed with the young, impetuous Amanda Smith and her first flush of love, it made for an interesting contrast.

Overall, Sprig Muslin is vintage Heyer with great characters, great setting, and great humor.

Sprig Muslin, by Georgette Heyer
Harlequin (2009)
Trade paperback (288) pages
ISBN: 978-0373773862

Laura Gerold first fell in love with reading when her Great-Grandma Kile gave her the Little House on the Prairie series when she was eight. She has been unable to stop her reading addiction ever since, and discovered the regency world in her teens with Jane Austen’s wonderful novels. About five years ago, Laura discovered Georgette Heyer’s novels and was excited to find such a wonderful “new” author that really brought the regency world to life. She is a water resources engineer and mother of two, but loves to write about her reading obsession on Laura’s Reviews, a blog she started in 2007.

Celebrating Georgette Heyer – Day 13 Giveaway

Enter a chance to win one copy of Sprig Muslin, by Georgette Heyer (Harlequin, 2009) by leaving a comment stating what intrigues you about the plot or characters, or if you have read it, which is your favorite character or scene by midnight Pacific time, Monday, September 6th, 2010. Winners will be announced on Tuesday, September 7th, 2010. Shipment to continental US and Canadian addresses only. Good luck!

Upcoming event posts

Day 13   Aug 22 – Review: April Lady
Day 14   Aug 23 – Review: Sylvester
Day 14   Aug 23 – Review: Venetia
Day 15   Aug 25 – Review: The Unknown Ajax

Celebrating Georgette Heyer • August 1st – 31st, 2010

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