This book was a joy to read. I had a smile on my face from the opening moment, when the irrepressible Lily talks about her sister’s betrothed as ‘the Dreadful Mr Gregory’ to the final scene of the hero and heroine at last in each other’s arms.

Here’s the premise: Miss Florence Ellsworth has grown up in a family made notorious by her father’s many marriages and assortment of children by different mothers, not all equally loving. She’s determined not to follow the same route, and with her mother’s advice to follow her head not her heart uppermost in her mind, she betroths herself to a dull clergyman, and looks forward to a blessedly uneventful future. But her stepmother (wife number three) dies and immediately Mr Ellsworth is looking about him for a fourth wife, another scandal in the making. And then there’s the new attorney, who’s handsome and young and oh so tempting to Florence. And who is the widowed Mrs Whisp, and what does she want?

As far as plot goes, that’s about it, but with Dudley’s books, everything hinges on the characters and the way they interact with each other. Florence herself is lovely, and Mr Fairchild a hero worthy of her. Then there’s Mr Gregory, who is an awesome character, with his puffed out chest that makes him look like a woodpigeon, and his booming clergyman’s voice. There are so many awesome characters here. Miss Gregory, his faded sister. Florence’s sisters, Lily, the outspoken opposite of Florence, Minta, who likes to shoot things (her friend, mainly), and crying Bea. The sunnily wife-chasing Mr Ellsworth. Miss Dunn, the reclusive governess. Mrs Whisp, the rapacious widow. Very different from each other, but all memorable and all busily engaged in pursuing their own objectives.

Florence’s primary objective is to rein in her father’s wife-hunting. She calls on Mr Fairchild, the new attorney, to ask him to do what he can to steer Mr Ellsworth into respectable life as a widower instead. Mr Fairchild is delighted by the prospect of spending more time with the charming Miss Ellsworth, but it’s a difficult task to undertake when Mr Ellsworth is one of his principal clients, and he doesn’t want to get on the wrong side of him. On the other hand, he’d like to please Miss Ellsworth. Sadly, Mr Ellsworth is not a man to be steered, and almost before his late wife is cold in her grave he’s advertising for a governess for the youngest child. Since his previous two wives started as the family’s governesses, Florence can see exactly where this is going to end. And if the governess isn’t quick off the mark, she’ll be out-manoeuvred by the brazen Mrs Whisp, who knows exactly what she wants and sets out determinedly to get it. All Mr Fairchild can do is try to control the selection process for the governess, and suggest legal ways to keep the bulk of the Ellsworth fortune out of the hands of avaricious women.

And all the time, Florence is trying to convince herself that her choice of husband is the right one. Florence is precisely the sort of heroine who must have been everywhere at the time, and her dilemma a common one. Living out in the country, her choice of potential husbands is limited. If she fails to marry, she becomes the spinster dwindling into old age in her father’s home, or looking after her sibling’s children, or she slips out of the gentry altogether as a governess or paid companion. The chance of finding a suitable husband, in rank and fortune, is very small, so if someone offers, it’s very risky to refuse in the hope there’ll be a better offer later. And Mr Gregory is so very respectable, and her present home so rackety…

But… There’s always a but. The handsome and young Mr Fairchild is everything a young lady could wish for, but Florence is betrothed, and she can’t do anything as scandalous as jilting the boring clergyman in the hope that the nice young attorney will look her way. What to do? Try to summon some enthusiasm for her betrothed, that’s what. And surely she’d be happier if her not very passionate lover actually kissed her? And here we get to one of the funniest scenes in a book full of funny scenes, which I won’t spoil by telling you anything more about it.

It’s obvious from the first moment how the story will end, but how that ending is reached is an absolute delight, with any number of twists and revelations along the way. Nothing about a Dudley book is ever predictable, and so although I guessed one very crucial secret, there were plenty of other developments that took me by surprise. And it thrilled me that the final obstacle between hero and heroine is an utterly Regency one, the chains of propriety holding them fast, even though in modern terms there was nothing to keep them apart. The way this is resolved is elegant and pleased me greatly. One other very personal point: it’s common in modern Regencies to end with a long-drawn-out epilogue, and sometimes that’s appropriate, but here the story comes to a close with the final romantic moments between hero and heroine, and to me that felt utterly right.

This is a wonderful book, beautifully written on every level. It’s literate (watch out for the sly references to Emma and also the Barchester series), witty and very moving. I loved every word of it. Christina Dudley has a unique talent and I recommend this and all her books to fans of traditional Regency romance. This is a great start to the new series. Five stars.

Note: I received an advanced copy from the author, but that didn’t affect my opinion.

This is two parts Bath Tangle and two parts Cotillion, and a smidgeon of Northanger Abbey, but at the same time is entirely itself. Christina Dudley is surely one of the finest Regency authors around – original, clever, literate and very, very funny. Every book in this series is a delight, even though they are all completely different, and each one a unique masterpiece.

Here’s the premise: Margaret Hapgood is the third of the four daughters of Squire Hapgood of Bramleigh in Somersetshire. The two eldest are now married, the mother indulges in ill-health, so it falls to Margaret to manages the family’s affairs. This she does so thoroughly that when her uncle, Alwyn Arbuthnot, falls once more into financial difficulties, Margaret is deployed to take him to Bath, accompanied by her mother, to find him a wealthy bride so that he won’t be a drain on the squire’s purse any longer.

This he’s perfectly willing to do, so they find cheap lodgings – and almost the first person they meet is the wealthy widow he courted in London, whose son whisked her to safety out of the eager hands of Uncle Alwyn. The son, Dashiell Waite, is a soldier recovering from a leg injury received in the war with France, and he meets Margaret when she accidentally knocks his crutches from under him. He’s accompanied by his friend, Charles Haworth, another war-wounded ex-soldier, now the unexpected owner of a country estate. They are joined in Bath by Dashiell’s betrothed-from-the-cradle cousin, Charmaine Blakely, and her mother, and this little group form an uneasy friendship, fostered by Charmaine’s unexpected friendship for Margaret.

Charmaine is, in many ways, the driver of this plot, rather than Margaret. She’s the character who most reminds me of Northanger Abbey, for she’s the worldly-wise and flirtatious Isabella to Margaret’s innocent Catherine Morland, not exactly leading Margaret astray but using her as a go-between as Charmaine tries to provoke Dashiell into uncharacteristic jealousy, or at least some sign of passion, and manipulates everyone around her to do her bidding. Even though we can see that she doesn’t much care about Dashiell and is a thoroughly cold and selfish person, she still has flashes of humour and even friendliness. It would have been so easy to make her an out and out villain, but she’s far more layered than that. Her desire for Dashiell to court her properly is actually fairly understandable, although her assumption that he should simply ‘know’ what she wants is perhaps a little unrealistic.

I mentioned the echoes of Heyer’s Bath Tangle and Cotillion, which lies not so much in the characters involved but in the situation. The misaligned but betrothed couple, Charmaine and Dashiell, are reminiscent of Bath Tangle, while between Charmaine and Dashiell, his lovelorn friend Haworth and Margaret, Alwyn and Mrs Waite, we have three of the four couples for our cotillion. The fourth couple is Sir Dodkins Hargate, who takes a shine to Margaret because she reminds him of his dead daughter, and his old friend and neighbour, Mrs Turner. How these four align and realign themselves, and the right couples end up together is the subject of the second half of the book, and I won’t spoil it by elaborating on that. I did find it just a tad surprising, and I’d be interested to know just what Dashiell will do for money now, because it really wasn’t explained.

Nevertheless, this was another fine five star read for me, and even the Americanisms [*] didn’t bother me so much in this book (only the use of ‘passed’ instead of died or even passed on or passed away, but it’s a minor point in the overall scheme of things). The Regency Dudley evokes seems very authentic to me and I thoroughly enjoyed the Bath setting as a variation from the rural countryside (although I confess I wondered whether Sydney Gardens would really be holding outdoor breakfasts in the winter). This probably could be read as a standalone, but it would be far better after reading the series in sequence, to get the full picture of the Hapgood family background. And now on to Edith’s tale (and the faithful Lionel, I hope).

[*] The author tells me she’s fixed these.

Sometimes I wish Goodreads had more than five stars in its arsenal for books like this. I give a book five stars if it totally entertains me, even if it may have flaws, but there are books that rise above that level and this is definitely one of them.

Here’s the premise: the series is based around the Hapgood family of Bramleigh, the happy-go-lucky dog-mad squire, his permanently invalidish wife, and his four daughters. With one daughter safely (if eccentrically) married off in book 1 of the series, in book 2, the squire’s cousin, Hugh Hapgood, newly widowed and with three children to raise, arrived with the dutiful but sensible plan of marrying the oldest and rather beautiful daughter. She resolved that issue in spectacular style by eloping with a rakish but very charming young man, and with the two youngest daughters too young to marry, Hugh must think again. Without a wife, what is he to do with the children? He finds a place with a local clergyman for his son, Lionel, but the two girls, Hetty and Rosie, are sent away to school.

That lasts no more than a few weeks before scarlet fever and the girls’ homesickness force a rethink. They’ll do anything to avoid being sent back to school, Lionel’s very happy where he is, thank you very much, and Hugh isn’t keen to go back to his former home and the interference of his sister-in-law. The answer is to find himself another candidate for a wife, but there are different opinions on how to manage that, and the children are just as involved as anyone else.

There is one obvious candidate – thirty-one year old Rosemary deWitt, daughter of a man formerly in business but now knighted and living the life of a respected country gentleman. Rosemary isn’t a great beauty but she has a respectable portion and she’s had one or two offers. Not enticing enough to accept, however, and she doesn’t want to marry a man who’s only interested in her fortune. She contents herself with parish work and teaching a few local girls at a time the rudiments of reading and writing. It’s frustrating, though, when they learn a little and then drift away.

But children aren’t deterred by lack of beauty or interested in fortune, so Hugh Hapgood’s children take an immediate shine to her and decide that she’ll do very well as a new mama. And so they begin their plotting…

The children’s machinations are a big part of the plot, so if you don’t enjoy the scheming children trope, this is probably not the book for you. I suppose they’re a little mature for their years, but it wasn’t a problem for me and their devious little schemes were very funny (especially Lionel’s attempt to engineer a compromising situation so that his father would be obliged to marry Rosemary deWitt). But really, their schemes are hardly necessary, when the two principals are well on the way to matrimony already, without any help from anybody. Rosemary discovers the funny and charming man that thirteen years of unhappy marriage had all but suffocated, and Hugh has long since learnt to value qualities beyond appearance. They both discover that being in your thirties is no protection against the inner turmoil of falling in love.

And then disaster happens, which had me (literally) in tears. Even though I knew that of course these two were going to get their happy ending and I even suspected how it would happen, still the grief of the two lovers tore me apart. I punched the air with glee when Hugh had his mad moment and decided that… well, you’ll see. I won’t spoil the ending.

Here’s what I loved about this book: firstly, the characters. Not just the two leads, although Hugh, so serious and stern-faced initially and so passionate at the end, was especially delightful. Rosemary, the dutiful spinster who seems so past the age of matrimony but still has a wilful heart, was also easy to love. Then there were the children: Hugh’s three, Lionel, Hetty and Rosie, and also the Bramleigh girls, Margaret and Edith, who were all delightful.

But really, it’s all of them. This is an ensemble cast, set deep in the English countryside, far away from the usual Regency haunts of London, Hyde Park, Almack’s and so on. This is a setting and a group of people who might have existed any time from the middle ages onwards. The gentry, like the Hapgoods, the deWitts, the Porterworths and the Birdlows. The clergy, like Mr and Miss Benfield. And the shadowy, but still vibrant, characters of the servants. Every one of them feels alive and active and very, very real.

There are no actual villains in this all-too-believable world, but equally there are no saints either, just ordinary people doing what they can to get by and acting in whatever manner seems fit to them, pursuing their own ends without treading too much on other people’s toes. And sometimes that works and sometimes it just makes things worse, and they have to do whatever they can to fix things, or put up with the consequences. One review compared this with Middlemarch, both in the range of characters and the way that they are all likeable in their different ways, even when they’re self-absorbed or unobservant, and I can see that.

And, just as in real life, the characters ping off each other and cause actual changes. For instance, when Lionel first comes to the Benfields for tuition, he tells Rosemary that he doesn’t need to study or go to university because he’s going to be a country gentleman like the squire and spend his days doing sporty, outdoorsy things. But when he tells Rosemary that he plans to marry his cousin Edith, she asks him if he really thinks she would want to marry an uneducated man. And so gradually he changes his opinion. Such a small detail, but so true to life.

I’ve waxed lyrical about this book for a multitude of paragraphs, but was there anything I disliked about it? There was, but I have to say that it was not enough to knock a star off my rating. It was a repeated irritation, but everything else was so exceptional that I can let it go. I’m talking about the Americanisms[*]. I know there are a number of authors who deliberately choose to write with American style and spellings, and that’s fine. That’s a creative choice, and I would never quibble over an author’s right to do that. Besides, there are plenty of Regencies where there’s so much suspension of disbelief required that a few gottens and a chipmunk or two is neither here nor there. But when an author has created such a beautifully crafted Regency, where every element is utterly convincing, the use of gotten drops me instantly out of my immersion in the story. The two that tripped me up most were ‘write someone’ instead of ‘write to someone’, and the jarring overuse of ‘shall’. A phrase like ‘Lionel shall miss his sisters’ just sounds wrong to me, although I couldn’t even explain why. And these little tripwires, and a few others, are dotted throughout the book. [*] The author tells me these have been fixed.

But that is, for me, the only conceivable grumble about the book, and it’s a very minor one. Don’t let it put you off, because otherwise this book is as near to perfect as it’s possible to be. It could just about be read as a standalone, but why would you want to? Start with The Naturalist and then read the whole series. I’m going straight on to Margaret’s story, and then Edith’s. The chores can wait. Five hundred stars.