The dramatic finale to the series and we finally uncover the mysterious Flint! I’ve loved the whole series (or two series, since there’s an overarching 8-book Newmarket series, of which this is the last of the Furze House Irregulars series, which comprises books 5-8; got that? No? Just start with The Kydd Inheritance, OK?). This book runs largely concurrently with the previous book, so although it isn’t essential, for full enjoyment it’s better to have read that first.
When Benedict Fitzgilbert’s sister Lilith goes off to have adventures at Newmarket, it leaves him exposed to the worst of London’s matchmaking mamas, and he hasn’t time for all that nonsense. He’s too engrossed in tracking down the notorious Flint, whose criminal empire has long and vicious tentacles. Lilith proposes a solution: a pretend attachment with her friend Julia Congreve. This is a time-honoured Regency plot, but it never grows stale, especially when carried off as well as this.
Now, our two protagonists are seriously mismatched. Benedict is a serious and very focused man, and Julia is a social butterfly, and this is one of those glorious moments when the author properly shows us Julia in her milieu, rather than simply telling us about it and throwing in a couple of balls. Julia really does move through society like a warm knife through butter, putting people at ease, arranging dance partners, making timely introductions and all of it seemingly effortless and perfectly natural. I loved that she is simply aware of everyone in a room, even a ballroom, knowing exactly who is dancing with whom, who is sneaking off to the card room and who is quietly talking to someone behind a pillar. It’s wonderful, and even though we’re later given a reason that partly explains this, it’s still an astonishing talent and I loved it.
The plot? Well, anyone who’s worked their way through the whole series (or two series, depending on how you count) knows pretty much how it’s going to go. And yes, we finally get to find out who Flint is, and how he’s been carrying out his nefarious activities. His identity wasn’t a big surprise, mainly because there were few alternatives by that point, and the dramatic final confrontation was less nerve-wracking than usual because… well, despite the threat of violence, it was obvious it wasn’t going to happen and there would be a last-minute rescue.
As the final book of the series, the romance might be expected to play second fiddle, but it was rather nicely done, with the complication of the fake attachment at the beginning adding a certain does-he-mean-it? complexity to proceedings. But Benedict has nice manners and Julia has been in love with him for years so it all came together rather charmingly. Cue the happy ending, and there’s a multi-character series epilogue for those who like that sort of thing.
A great ending to a terrific series with fantastic characters, lots of mystery and adventure and a perfectly evoked Regency by a brilliant wordsmith. I highly recommend it. Five stars.
I’m a huge fan of Jan Jones, and I really wish she could find the wider audience she deserves for her literate and intelligent (and also emotionally very satisfying) stories. This is the seventh in her Newmarket series, and the third of the Furze House Irregulars, where the stars are the women from all walks of life who gather at a highly unusual establishment. The leading lights this time are bluestocking Lilith Fitzgilbert and antiquarian Edward (Ned) Makepeace.
This may be a first – a Mary Balogh I didn’t enjoy. It is, of course, as well-written as all her work, but it lost me on the heroine’s character, the implausibility of the setup and the sheer torrent of angst that came close to making me lose the will to live. And the layer upon layer of subterfuge – why on earth can they not simply be straight with each other?
This is a difficult one for me to judge. On the one hand, it includes several elements on my list of great big no-nos. On the other hand, it has a really, really likable hero and is absolutely dripping in charm. Which makes it pretty well irresistible.
There’s been a lot of excitement in the generally restrained world of Regency romance at the prospect of Julia Quinn’s popular Bridgerton series being turned into a Netflix series, and I was sufficiently tempted to sign up for Netflix just to watch it. Reviews have been mixed, with purists shocked by the gleeful disregard for historical accuracy, while modernists applauded the brave new world of the diverse Regency. Because yes, in this re-imagined Regency, the nobility encompasses people of all colours.
The basic premise is Regency 101: the eldest Bridgerton daughter, Daphne, is about to make her debut in society, so we have a presentation at Queen Charlotte’s drawing room and a succession of balls in the hunt for A Suitable Husband, with all the social pitfalls of Making a Mistake and possibly even Being Ruined. There are rival debutantes and an array of potential husbands, but the principal other family we see is the Featheringtons. I loved, loved, loved the contrast between the uniformly charmed Bridgertons, all of them handsome and elegantly dressed as well as rich, and the less fortunate Featheringtons, with their garish taste in dresses. If the Featherington ladies were to stand in front of the curtains they would be invisible.
I suppose I ought to mention the hero and heroine, but that involves the plot which is pretty much a regency trope-fest. There’s the fake courtship and the dramatic parting, followed by the reputation-ruining kiss in the garden, the duel at dawn (eye roll), the dramatic ride to intervene by the heroine (even more violent eye roll), the marriage of convenience and the inevitable Big Misunderstanding. Eventually, things get sorted out but it was all pretty tedious, frankly, and makes the usual mistake of mixing up love and lust.
On the other hand, the gowns (apart from the Queen and the neon-bright affairs of the Featherington ladies) looked pretty accurate to me, ditto the carriages and the houses—! Oh, the houses! Some utterly spectacular interiors and exteriors, sigh. Although I was slightly flummoxed to spot Bath’s Royal Crescent masquerading as London, but then the whole centre of Bath is practically a Regency set, so I don’t blame them for using it.
A curious one. On the one hand, this has the liveliest banter between hero and heroine I’ve ever come across – they really are a good match for each other! On the other hand, our hero and heroine are both complete idiots in some ways, he because he fails to recognise that he’s falling in love, and she because she’s constantly overstepping the bounds of propriety, even when she should know better.
This is one of those books where it would be very easy to dislike either the hero or the heroine – or both! The hero is a bit of a goody two-shoes, a pious clergyman with egalitarian ideals and a burning desire to improve the lot of his parishioners, who hates the frivolity of the beau monde. The heroine is a society butterfly, only happy in the swirl of entertainments and gossipy chatter that is London, and very disparaging of country life (and country parsons). But fortunately, the parson has an Achilles heel in the shape of his meddlesome brother, and the socialite is discovered to have a more compassionate side. They are both more human and more redeemable than they appear at first.
Well. My first Eloisa James and I’m not at all sure what to make of it. It’s a bit of a muddle, the main characters are swamped by side stories, there’s not a drop of common sense in any of them, it veers from farce to tragedy and back again and then ties up the ending so swiftly I almost blinked and missed it. And despite all that, I read it avidly, and found it (mostly) great fun, if I didn’t think too deeply about any of it.
This was a delightful surprise. Most Regencies focus on the upper classes, the gentry and nobility, and servants are merely background characters, but not here. The star of the show is Jenny, the daughter of a miller, who goes off to the local big house as a nursery maid to tide her family over a patch of bad harvests. The daughter of the house, Miss Marianne, takes a shine to Jenny, and whisks her off to London to be her lady’s maid for her come-out. Jenny finds herself helping her mistress to evaluate the possibilities of three very different suitors, Geoffrey the steady rural gentry, purse-pinching Percy and the suave, sophisticated but rather dangerous Lord Vincent. Meanwhile, Jenny herself is making eyes at Thomas, one of the grooms.
I really think that Jenny Hambly gets better and better with every book. I’ve always enjoyed her work, but there’s a polish to her writing now that makes the story shine. This is a classic story of a daughter failing to follow the wishes of her family and being sent away in disgrace, to find that she blossoms in the new setting and finds out who she really is. And (naturally) finds true love, of course.