Your online source for Jane Austen and her legacy
From the desk of 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... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Dana Huff: 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... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Chris:Â 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... Continue Reading →
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... Continue Reading →
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.... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Laurel Ann Nattress: 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.... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Marie Burton:Â 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... Continue Reading →
Series III of Inspector Lewis on Masterpiece Mystery begins on Sunday, August 29th with Counter Culture Blues. Duct tapped in rock and roll excess, deception, greed, and of course murder, Lewis and Hathaway investigate the death of a young boy that is somehow linked to the late 1960’s rock and roll band Midnight Addiction. Joanna... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Elaine Simpson Long:Â 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... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Brooke: 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... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Laurel Ann Nattress:Â 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... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Laurel Ann Nattress: 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,... Continue Reading →
