Tag: metzger

Review: Lady Whilton’s Wedding by Barbara Metzger (1995)

Posted February 9, 2025 by Mary Kingswood in Review / 0 Comments

This is probably the silliest book I’ve ever read. It starts well with an interesting premise well handled, then veers sharply into extreme farce from which it never really recovers, the romance being shoved aside in the scampering round after dead bodies (yes, really! If you’ve ever wondered what a Regency version of Weekend At Bernie’s looked like, this is as close as you’ll get).

This is how it starts:

‘It was an arranged marriage. Unlike most such marriages of convenience, this one was arranged by the bride-to-be herself. Miss Daphne Whilton of Woodhill Manor, Hampshire, left the crowded lawn of her birthday party and approached Lord Graydon Howell, heir to the Earl of Hollister, where he stood apart from the other guests under a shading elm tree. She kicked him on the shin to get his attention and said, “All of the other boys are toads. You’ll have to marry me, Gray.’’

Lord Graydon rubbed his leg and looked back toward the others. The boys were tearing around, trying to lift the girls’ skirts. The girls were shrieking or giggling or crying for their mamas, who were inside taking tea with Lady Whilton. At least Daffy never carried on like that. And she could bait her own hook. He nodded. “I s’pose,” he said, and they shook hands to seal the contract.’

Isn’t that glorious? Of course, they’re children, so inevitably as they grow up they change somewhat, but they’re still best friends, and the marriage is still an understood thing. And then Daphne reaches an age to make her debut, comes up to London and is incensed to see Graydon entertaining his mistress in a box at the theatre directly opposite her. There’s a huge dust-up, the engagement is off and he removes himself from her orbit by joining the army. So far, so very promising, and when her mother and his father decide to get married and Graydon is scheduled to be home in time for the wedding, I had the highest hopes of a slow and steady rapprochement.

And then everything went off the rails in spectacular fashion, devolving in double quick time into a morass of disappearing dead bodies, incompetent thieves, a wicked baron, a similarly wicked valet, a pickpocketing dog and a whole heap of equally implausible stuff. And in the background, one of those hugely overplanned, flower-bedecked, inviting the entire extended family weddings that never actually happened in the Regency. And that’s without mentioning the dull but respectable rival suitor and the rejected mistress. I plodded dutifully through it, in the hope that the romantic denouement would redeem the book, but it really didn’t.

In a book of this age, I don’t expect the deep character-driven romance that modern readers enjoy. I can accept that the Heyer ideal of a ‘Regency romp’ was still holding sway. That’s all fine. I can even accept that the hero might have had a mistress in the past. But what I can’t accept is a hero who professes himself chastened by his lady-love’s admonishments and determined to be worthy of her and win her back, yet the first thing he does when he returns to Blighty from his army stint – the very first thing! – is to set up a mistress again. I get that the ex-mistress turning up to the wedding is intended as comedy relief AND an obstacle for the reinstatement of the hero with the heroine, but please, this man is not hero material.

So for that alone this only rates two stars for me. If you really love the old-style comedic romp, and you don’t mind the implausibility of it or the constant trickle of Americanisms, you might well enjoy this, but it wasn’t for me, sadly.

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Review: Miss Lockharte’s Letters by Barbara Metzger (1998)

Posted January 31, 2025 by Mary Kingswood in Review / 1 Comment

A seriously peculiar book, wildly implausible and with a veritable tsunami of anachronisms but very, very funny, for all that.

Here’s the premise: Miss Rosellen Lockharte has fallen on hard times. Her clergyman father has died, leaving her penniless, and although her uncle tried, rather half-heartedly, to introduce her into London society, his daughter’s machinations got Rosellen compromised and banished in disgrace. Since then she’s been eking out a poor living teaching penmanship to the daughters of the aristocracy at a rather shady girls’ school. An outbreak of influenza at the school makes her so ill that she’s convinced she’s going to die. As a last act before death, she decides to write to all the people who, in one way or another, set her on this road to poverty and illness, to tell them (after listing all their transgressions) that she forgives them. Except for one, Wynn, Viscount Stanford – his crime is too heinous for forgiveness.

Rosellen survives the influenza, but several mysterious accidents leave her even worse off than before. But help is on its way, in the shape of most of the people she wrote to, but particularly Viscount Stanley, who is the first to actually reach her in her paltry attic room. He’s brought flowers and is ready to beat a hasty retreat, but a single tear as he’s about to leave makes him decide to help her. He whisks her away from the school, thinking he’ll send her to one of his more distant estates to recover and be looked after, but after various mishaps, he gradually develops a new plan – he’ll take her to London, to the care of his mother and sister, and introduce her into society and… well, we can see where this is going. This is one of the pleasures of the story, Wynn’s gradual realisation that, however prickly and spirited and independent Rosellen is, she’s exactly right for him.

I’m going to be honest, and say that credibility isn’t this book’s strongest suit. The ‘accidents’ that befall Rosellen and her miraculous escapes from them are almost too silly for words, some of the characters are pretty silly, too, not to mention the dog, and Wynn’s determined refusal to believe that someone is trying to kill her is really carried too far. But the moment when he realises the truth is just perfect. “You could have been killed,” he says, horrified. “I could have lost you.”

The romance, once it gets going, is the strongest part of the book. The plot is distinctly wobbly (why does the villain keep trying to murder Rosellen even when the reason for it is gone?), the loose threads are more or less tied up at the end almost as an afterthought, and I’m still not entirely clear where the fifty pounds came from, or why. As for historical accuracy, forget it. But it’s the funniest book I’ve read for months, and that alone makes it worthy of four stars. Here’s just one sample that made me laugh out loud:

‘Uncle would turn purple with apoplexy at the price of Rosellen’s ball gown. Aunt Haverhill would go ashen at the low cut. Clarice would turn green with envy. Rosellen was pink with pleasure.’

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Review: An Angel For The Earl by Barbara Metzger (1994)

Posted January 10, 2025 by Mary Kingswood in Review / 0 Comments

A weird book – a sort of (but not quite) ghost is sent to rescue a wastrel earl from his wicked ways. The element of fantasy is certainly different, even if the theme of the rake’s redemption is an old one. But very readable, so long as you can suspend all critical faculties and just let it flow past.

Here’s the premise: Lucinda Faire is about to be pushed into one of those horrible old-enough-to-be-her-grandfather marriages so beloved of Regency authors. Her father keeps her a virtual prisoner at home, so when she manages to meet a halfway plausible and attractive young man, she instantly agrees to elope with him. He, of course, turns out to be a fortune-hunting rogue, and he’s not even planning to marry her. She deals with him and sets off for home, but an accident sees her unconscious and on the point of death. Her parents, lovely people, are quite happy to let her die. But at the pearly gates, they don’t quite know whether to send her to heaven (she’s young and very innocent) or hell (she eloped, silly girl). So she is given a test – redeem one sinner and she’ll get to heaven, and they even tell her the specific sinner they have in mind – Lord Stanford, or Kerry, a licentious, gambling, drunken thorough waste of space.

Right, I know, plausibility is not this book’s strong suit. But as I say, if you just go with the flow, it’s all very entertaining. Lucinda comes upon his lordship on the point of blowing his brains out, having lost absolutely everything. Needless to say, her appearance gives him the shock of his life, and this is one of the clever conceits of the book – Lucinda’s appearance matches his current state of virtue. So initially, she looks like one of the brothel women he’s so fond of, with a revealing dress, bare feet and her hair tumbled about her shoulders. Every time she manages to persuade him to do something ‘good’, she acquires slightly more modest clothing.

The book then proceeds on entirely predictable lines. The earl gradually is induced to become a virtuous man, Lucinda becomes increasingly modestly dressed and the two contrive to fall in love. The ending requires a complete shutdown of every critical faculty, and my historical accuracy meter blew a fuse at the idea of marrying an unconscious woman (there has to be some smidgen of consent involved, surely?), but a resounding happy ending for all that. Too implausible for five stars, but a very entertaining four stars.

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