Well, here’s a thing – a Kate Archer book that failed to make the 5* grade. What went wrong? Well, technically nothing. The book’s as entertaining as the previous ones, but somehow it felt very samey. The country girl brought up to London to be launched into society by a high-ranking lady with no daughter of her own, the business of planning gowns and public appearances, the (male) relation of said high-ranking lady who is immediately drawn to the country girl, the balls and misunderstandings and comic servants and so on. There are differences, but there’s a strong air of deja vu about it.

Here’s the premise: Lady Heathway is one of six ladies who have no daughter of their own, so decide to help a girl into society who would otherwise not have a season. Lady Heathway’s chosen girl is Grace Yardley, daughter of a deceased viscount, who has been banished to the dower house with her drooping mother by the new viscount. With very little money to live on (I wonder why? Where is the widow’s jointure?) and the dower house practically falling down around their ears, her mother takes to her bed and Grace struggles to manage with just a couple of servants. Into this dispiriting setup arrives the letter from Lady Heathway inviting Grace to London. She can’t possibly leave her mother, so she declines and that appears to be that.

Lady Heathway, however, is not a lady who allows that to be that. She turns up at the dower house, tame nephew, Lord Gresham, in tow, and summarily disposes of all objections. Grace’s mother is to have the full time care of a nurse to tend to her needs for whatever ails her, and a top physician from London will be dispatched to oversee the case. Grace is to pack and leave for London immediately. And so it happens.

Grace is quite happy to have the pleasure of a season, and soon finds that Lady Heathway has been planning this for a long time, even to the precise dress designs. She still worries about her mother, but she’s enjoying herself, and especially the company of handsome Lord Gresham, who seems to be spending a lot of time calling at the house. But the letters from her mother are deeply concerning – the doctor and nurse are overbearing, and force her out of doors and to eat things she’d rather not eat, and have they no sympathy for a poor invalid at all? But when Lady Heathway dismisses these concerns out of hand, Grace determines to make a bolt for the country to see her mother, and climbs out of her bedroom window to do so.

Needless to say, everything that could go wrong, does, and Grace acquires a reputation as a sprinter (hence the book’s title). From here the book spirals into a tangled web of plot complications, with Lord Gresham determined to keep all other suitors away from Grace so that he can marry her himself, while she thinks she has no chance with him, and determines to accept the first offer she gets, in order to get her sick mother out of the leaky dower house as soon as possible. And meanwhile, the villain of the piece is determined to throw a spoke in everyone’s wheels and get his revenge.

Needless to say, it all works out satisfactorily in the end, with all misunderstandings cleared up, and I did enjoy it, but perhaps I’ve just read too many of Archer’s books back to back because it didn’t resonate with me the way the previous ones did. But the humour is still there in spades, and I’m hopeful that the next book will be a little bit different, to restore the freshness. The writing is a pleasure to read, as always, although I wondered a little at White’s having a pool room (could this be billiards, perhaps?). Four stars.

A terrific end to an excellent series. Yes, there was a certain sameiness to the plots but there was so much originality to the side issues, and it was so damned funny, I can forgive everything.

Here’s the premise: of the six dukes who set up the original pact (the premise of the series) for their sons to be forced to marry and produce heirs, five have complied. Only Lord Dalton still defies his father, swearing he will never marry, no matter what. Miss Daisy Danworth, daughter of the positively horrid Lord Childress, has also sworn never to marry, and the death of her not at all lamented parent changes that not one whit. She’ll come of age in a few months, and into her substantial inheritance from her mother, and then she’ll be free to live her life as she pleases, and a husband has no part in that. But her father’s heir is Lord Dalton’s father, and, in the devious way of fathers keen to marry off their sons, he sends Daisy to Ramsgate to see out her mourning period, with Lord Dalton to watch over her.

I wondered at once how it was that the heir to a viscountcy was a duke, a situation so implausible as to need some detailed explanation to account for it, but never mind. This whole series is awash with implausibilities so let it pass. As is the way with this series, the principals are already very aware of each other, despite the never marrying business. So the whole book becomes a slow slide into love, or rather, the awareness of an already existing love.

But really, the main point of the story is not the romance, because we already know exactly how that’s going to go. It’s all about the situation and the odd events it throws up and (as is now a hallmark of this author) the quirky doings of the servants. Bellamy the fairly incompetent butler, the cowardly footmen, Mrs Broadbent, the housekeeper, with her ‘what-fors’ are all priceless. Then there’s the mangy cat that Lord Dalton adopts in a real-world example of the ‘save the cat’ principle of stories (which is to establish an unlikely and possibly unlikable character as a hero by showing him saving a cat at an early stage). There are some brilliant moments which will stay with me for a long time (for instance, the two lords, otherwise bereft of weaponry, answering an unexpected knock on the door with pokers, being the only things that came to hand).

I confess I was a little disappointed at the resolution to Lord Burke’s story, which has been hinted at for the last couple of books but turned out to be something not very original. I thought there was going to be a lot more to it, but hey-ho, it made a heart-warming little sub-plot, I suppose. And I suppose Lord Dalton’s backstory, and his reasons for holding out against marriage for so long, is also not very original. The blurb says his reasons are ‘not what people imagine’, but they were exactly what I imagined, so that too was a slight disappointment.

But the main characters were lovely, even Lord Dalton who was something of a villain in earlier books. I liked Daisy, apart from the name. So cool and elegant a lady deserved a less bucolic name, I felt, especially as it seemed incongruous that her father, with his social ambitions, would countenance it. The mystery part of the plot was mildly interesting, even if not particularly believable (why ransack the library and then later return and go directly to the right place?). The incident in the sea was truly scary, to those of us with a fear of drowning.

There were a few oddities. I’ve already mentioned the heir to the viscountcy being a duke. There’s also a misunderstanding about Regency meals. The heroine is shocked to have all the various dishes on the table at once. In fact, that was the norm in those days, and even if she was more used to the newly fashionable idea of individual starter/fish/meat/dessert courses, she would have been very familiar with the old style. Also, the mention of drinking chocolate is anachronistic. All chocolate was drunk in the Regency. Solid chocolate just wasn’t a thing.

But these issues never bothered me overmuch. There’s a charm to these stories that trumps any nitpicky quibbles, and I’ve blazed through the whole series in a few days, enjoying every one hugely. Book 2 is perhaps my favourite by a slight margin, but they’re all wonderfully readable, and this one is by far the funniest. Highly entertaining. Yet again, this merits five stars.

Hugely enjoyable, and a great contrast with the previous book, where the two principals were obviously well suited by their common love of horses. Here, they couldn’t be more different, but the author makes it work beautifully.

Here’s the premise: Miss Kitty Dell is an intellectual, more interested in science and her books than dancing. Still, it’s time to put aside her books and enjoy her first season in town, and perhaps she’ll meet a like-minded gentleman amongst the members of the Royal Society? Certainly she’ll never marry anyone like Giles, Marquess of Grayson, who is a frivolous dandy, without a serious thought in his head beyond the folds of his excessively starched cravat. Besides, he may flirt a lot, but he never offers marriage. But Giles is piqued by Kitty’s disdain, and sets out to charm her as only he knows how. Meanwhile, there’s something odd going on at the Royal Society…

I think my favourite book of this series is book 2, but I liked this one almost as much and for the same reason. The hero here has a relaxed, easy-going approach to life. He’s one of the world’s charmers, a pleasant, likeable fellow, and yes, he’s a terrible flirt and a bit of a dandy, it has to be said, but he’s good company. And when Kitty refuses to be drawn in to his flirtations, he’s a little bit piqued, because he charms all the ladies, so how can she be immune? He then sets out to win her over in other ways. He drops the grandiose and eye-rollingly silly compliments, sends her presents that he thinks she will like (a book! Smart man, although not that smart) and he even takes an interest in the troubles at the Royal Society, and finds creative ways to help out. He’s not an intellectual, but he’s not stupid and he sets after Kitty with single-minded determination, but always being his charming self. Some heroes are so up their own rear ends they’re impossible to like, but Grayson is a straightforward, sunny chap, the sort it’s impossible to dislike.

I liked Kitty as well, for being so sensible about things. Even though she’s painted as a rapid intellectual, she recognises that for the few weeks of the season, at least, she has to focus on dances and gowns and shopping and being pleasant to people she doesn’t even like too much. Happily, she has parents who are nice, sensible people, acting to protect their daughter and steer her gently without ever pushing her or disrespecting her. It’s lovely to see in a genre which is overflowing with thoroughly nasty parents and step-parents. I did think Kitty had some logic failure towards the end of the book, though, in suspecting Grayson of various crimes. And having correctly deduced that an invitation to meet a gentleman in the garden at a ball is Not A Good Thing, she then does it anyway. Silly girl.

The mystery isn’t particularly mysterious, since the identity of the villain is obvious from his first appearance. It’s still fun, however, and again Grayson is creative in resolving it. I particularly loved the letter from his distant relation. I must also applaud the author for imbuing her minor characters with such original ideas for balls. I love the mask lady, and the recreation of Valhalla would be spectacular. I’d love to see that in a TV recreation.

There were only a few anachronisms – sidewalk (Brits have pavements), psyche (not used in the psychological sense until 1910), and again, London town houses don’t have front gardens. Most of them don’t have ballrooms either, since space was at a premium, but it’s so convenient I can let that pass. But these are very minor irritations in a series that I’m enjoying enormously. I don’t remember the last time I read an entire series back to back, since I usually get jaded after two or three, but Archer keeps creating interesting pairings in a style that’s amusing and easy to read, without losing too much Regency authenticity. Five stars and straight on to see how Lord Dalton meets his doom.

Another five star read, although it was a close run thing. The first few chapters were, frankly, a bit dull (the season again? Really?), but once the hero showed up to play piquet everything livened up nicely.

Here’s the premise: Hayes, Viscount Ashworth, is the heir to a dukedom, but it’s not a dukedom in very good heart. He’s managed to turn things around by his skill at cards, and he’s not about to be distracted from his purpose by anyone, least of all a bucolic chit like Lily Farnsworth. But when she tells him that she can beat him at piquet – his own speciality! – he sets out to take her down a peg or two. He’s astonished and mortified, not to say angry, when she proves her point. How can a female possibly play piquet so well?

Little does he know that Lily has grown up in even more dire financial straits than he has, and has had to use her quick wits and formidable memory to win at cards to keep her family afloat, just as he has. She’s slowly accumulated enough to fund a season in London for herself, with the object of securing a good match, that is, a husband rich enough to save the family from penury. She doesn’t aspire to a dukedom, thank you very much, and besides, Lord Ashworth and his friends are determined to thwart their conspiring fathers and avoid matrimony, so he’s out of the equation… isn’t he?

Well, we all know the answer to that. This is another in a splendid series wherein the heroes, heirs to dukedoms every one, slowly succumb to the charms of the most unlikely lady, despite their best endeavours. The books are completely free of hanky-panky, in fact, there’s no kiss in this one until the very end. The hero is not quite as appealing as Lord Lockwood from book 2, in fact he starts off unspeakably arrogant and only slowly comes to appreciate the heroine’s skill. Lily herself is the sort of heroine who is pleasant to read about – the usual resourceful, feisty type – but will probably be quickly forgotten. The aunt who says whatever comes into her mind is quite fun, however, there’s a spunky street urchin for Lily to rescue (shades of Heyer’s Arabella there), and the villain is suitably villainous, and comes to a very appropriate sticky end, after giving both hero and heroine a moment to shine and display their courage (and the hero’s strong arms, naturally).

My over-sensitive pedant-o-meter wasn’t tested quite as much as previously. I’m getting a little tired of the ubiquitous dance cards (a Victorian fixture) and of gentlemen riding to a ball (and thereby arriving in breeches and boots, smelling of horse, and having to change into full evening dress on arrival – not very practical). Also, ‘rube’ raised my eyebrows. I thoroughly disapproved of Lily’s aunt disappearing to the card room at a ball and leaving the poor girl to her own devices. A chaperon was supposed to watch over her charge at all times, and steer her towards suitable partners, and away from the unsuitable ones, not to mention protecting her from predatory men who might compromise her.

This wasn’t quite as much rip-roaring fun as book 2, and the here-we-are-in-the-season-again moments were a bit tedious, but once it got going it was very entertaining. The card games were terrific, and I particularly liked Lord Dalton acting sensibly for a change, and steering Lord Ashworth away from a scandalous confrontation with Lily. They had this charming conversation afterwards:

‘The Lords Ashworth and Dalton trotted through the dark streets after departing Lady Montague’s card party.
“As you mean to be silent,” Lord Dalton said, “I will carry on both sides of the conversation. You say to me, thank you for pulling me out of Lady Montague’s house before I said anything else outrageous. Then, I say to you, you’re very welcome friend, but you must watch your tongue. The girl has a father, and perhaps even brothers, it will not do well to accuse her of trickery, which is tantamount to an accusation of cheating.”
“You saw it for yourself!” Hayes muttered.
“I did not, actually,” Lord Dalton said. “I walked away after she trounced you on the first play. I occupied myself with a cold ham until it seemed the game was coming to an end.”
“Nobody is that good,” Hayes said. “Nobody.”
“It appears she is that good,” Lord Dalton said drily.’

It seems I’m going to be working my way through this entire series, but I’m particularly looking forward to Lord Dalton’s story. Five stars and on to book 4.