The run of five star reviews is getting longer. Here’s another classic, #11 in my complete reread of the author’s Regency romances, and this is the fifth five star in succession. Yet I can’t give it less, not when I enjoyed it so much. This is absolutely vintage Heyer, with perhaps my favourite hero so far, a spirited and self-assured heroine, a wonderful sub-plot and a very credible romance, for once.
This book, first published in 1953, starts with an outrageous arrangement: wealthy Mr Penicuik decides to leave his considerable fortune to whichever of his nephews marries his adopted daughter Kitty. Two turn up – the rather pompous clergyman and the not-quite-all-there Earl. Kitty composedly turns them down. But when dandy-about-town Freddy Standen arrives, not quite understanding what is happening, and, when he does, immediately ready to turn tail and run away, Kitty persuades him into a fake betrothal so that she can get herself up to town. Because there’s yet another cousin, Jack, the handsome rake…
And so begins this wonderful tale. What I love most about it is that although in some respects it falls into the traditional Heyer mould of an older man-about-town and a young ingenue, Kitty isn’t at all a helpless young thing, and Freddy isn’t the usual world-weary rake. He’s just a very, very nice man who would never, ever do anything improper, and is clearly far better husband material than the arrogant Jack, so sure of Kitty that he makes no attempt to win her until it’s too late. Jack isn’t really a villain, and in a great many Regencies he would be the hero, but Freddy is truly the hero of this one, and every bit the perfect gentleman.
I mentioned the sub-plot, which involves Dolphinton, the dim-witted Earl, who is so terrified of his mother that he hides under the table! He’s meant as the comic relief, but it’s hard not to like him and his most implausible paramour. The real comedy came from Freddy, who gallantly squires Kitty all over town to the many sights she is determined to see. As an aside, quite my favourite character after Freddy himself was his father, Lord Legerton, who is as astute and sardonic as Freddy is slow-on-the-uptake and straightforward. Their conversations were delightful.
I have been grumbling all the way through my rereads about the romance element being forgotten about until the very last moment, but not so here. The relationship develops slowly but surely, and the ending brought everything to a head and resolved matters most satisfactorily. Five stars.
I keep seeing Regina Darcy’s books popping up in the bestseller lists, so eventually I had to try one of them. I found it a frustrating read. On the one hand, the story is an appealing one, the main characters are likable and there are fewer historical errors than usual in many modern Regencies. On the other hand, there were innumerable minor errors, mostly punctuation, which made me very twitchy, and the story was just too short for any real character development. Amazon judges it to be 61 pages long, but the book ends at 76% of that, the rest being taken up with chapters of other books. That’s barely more than short story length.
This is a curious one, #10 in my reread of all Heyer’s Regency romances, written in 1951. After the delights of Arabella, and a charmingly developed romance, this is a return to the perfunctory love affair, quite overshadowed by the needs of the plot. And instead of the usual near-farcical Regency romp, implausible but always entertaining, Heyer veers into murder mystery territory.
We can probably blame Courtney Milan for starting this trend. A woman in a huge-skirt ball gown, typically off the shoulder, in a vivid colour, all of which has not the slightest relationship to the Regency era. I understand the need for a striking image which conveys the romantic element, and the rather grand background to many of these books, featuring as they do the upper echelons of wealthy, titled English society. But I still shudder whenever I see one of these adorning the front of a Regency book. Victorian, maybe, but please, not Regency! Lots of stock photos available for these, for self-publishers with a budget.
These generally get closer to authentic Regency costume. The woman might wear a gown with a narrow skirt, short sleeves and long gloves. There might be a bonnet and a swept-up hairdo with ringlets. The man might be sporting breeches and a cravat (or not!). But still, they don’t usually come close to historical accuracy, especially as most of the couples are half undressed. There’s also a lot of bad Photoshopping and repeated use of the same stock photos. Still, they do at least inform the reader that’s there’s likely to be a hefty dose of sex in the book.
This is most often seen on Jane Austen fan fiction (JAFF), or, as they like to call it, Pride and Prejudice variations or continuations or retellings or whatever. I assume the lack of human figures is intended to leave the actual faces of the characters to the reader’s imagination, so that she can picture Colin Firth or Matthew Macfadyen or Matthew Rhys, as preferred. I’d always assumed that the flowers implied a lack of sex, but even a brief look at some opening chapters suggests that one purpose of JAFF is to fantasise about getting it on with Mr Darcy. To each their own. These have the virtue of being incredibly cheap to run up at home and some of them are lovely, but it’s not easy to do them well.
Popular with traditional Regencies, these save the bother of finding stock photos with accurate costumes. The outlines used can be quite quirky, which makes me feel they’re aiming for the Regency-romp-style of Georgette Heyer (but her publisher doesn’t use covers like this, so what do I know?). Another simple option for self-pubbers who are handy with Photoshop or Canva.
The cover is a painting taken from the era. Again, the tone conveyed (to my mind) is less of the sexy bodice-ripping and more of the old-school romance, or maybe even a stab at tackling serious social issues of the day, or a darker tone in general. Easy to find for self-pubbers, but the good ones are very overused.
I’ve heard of one lady who makes her own gowns, and photographs her friends wearing them for her covers, which is totally awesome, but for those less skilled with a needle, it’s extremely hard to source authentic clothing images. What’s really needed is some way to connect cover designers with the thousands of historical re-enactment societies. Until then, this type of cover is the province of traditional publishers, who can afford to commission the costumes.
There were innumerable journals published in the era which contained fashion plates, designed to show fashion-conscious ladies living in the provinces what the highest levels of society were wearing so that they could make cheap copies. These make excellent cover images if you don’t mind the rather stylised tiny hands and feet, and dainty faces. Generally used on traditional Regencies.
The Grand Sophy, published in 1950, features a heroine that every modern reader can surely enjoy. Sophy Stanton-Lacey is a glorious character, feisty without being unfeasibly modern, spirited and determined without being aggressive, a catalyst for change without being ruthless. Yes, she’s meddlesome and manipulative, but she genuinely wants the best possible outcome for everyone. From the moment she arrives at her aunt’s house in London, armed with her own Spanish horse, a parrot and a monkey, she dominates the page, charming and infuriating her relations in equal measure.
The eighth in my reread of Georgette Heyer’s Regency romances in chronological order, and I’m up to 1949. This is the first one that I recall a great deal about from my previous reads, enough to place it as one of my favourites, and I have to say, it hasn’t lost its charm.
Dulcie’s sharp tongue has got her into trouble many times, and set her at odds even with her own sisters, but when she falls out with a neighbour, he challenges her to swap places with his ailing sister — she will go to Allamont Hall to recover in luxury, while Dulcie must manage the chores of a small cottage. As she learns to milk the goat and cook meat without burning it, she also learns a great deal about humility and honesty — and about love.
The seventh book in my attempt to reread all Georgette Heyer’s Regency romances in chronological sequence. This one was published in 1948, and it’s a cracker. The Duke of Sale, a posthumous son and heir, has been cosseted from birth, every aspect of his life dictated by his guardian and uncle, and an array of loyal and devoted retainers. When he was a sickly child, this was appropriate, but now, at twenty-four, he’s chafing at the bit. He dutifully proposes to Lady Harriet Presteigne, his uncle’s choice of bride, and even though he likes her well enough, he longs for a little freedom from the demands of being a duke. So when his young cousin finds himself in a spot of bother, the Duke decides to go incognito to get him out of the scrape.
This book took me completely by surprise. Having loaded up my Kindle ready for a long-haul flight, I started with the big-name books and discarded them one-by-one — too many typos, too implausible, too historically inaccurate. By the time I got to this one, I had no expectations. And then it completely blew me away. Within five minutes of meeting Miss Rosa Lane — shy, stammering, socially inept Rosa — I desperately wanted her to have her happy ever after.
Sometimes when I’m looking for a book to read, I feel the need to do some research for my own Regency romances. So it is with this one. I picked it from the top of Amazon’s popularity lists, and since it’s more than a year old, it must be a good example of a well-targeted book that’s selling well because it gives readers exactly what they want.