{"id":2067,"date":"2019-07-07T16:24:14","date_gmt":"2019-07-07T16:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/?p=2067"},"modified":"2021-09-01T09:56:58","modified_gmt":"2021-09-01T09:56:58","slug":"review-wyndcross-by-martha-keyes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/2019\/07\/07\/review-wyndcross-by-martha-keyes\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Wyndcross by Martha Keyes [Trad]"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"It\u2019s a rare day when I find a new author I can rave about, but here we are. Martha Keyes\u2019 first full-length Regency romance manages to tick all the boxes – engaging characters, believable situations and a truly authentic setting. The dialogue is sparkling with wit in the best tradition of Georgette Heyer, and the characters all speak and behave in a credibly Regency manner. Awesome.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the premise: Kate Matcham is in a difficult situation. Her father died trying to stamp out smuggling in Dorsetshire, and her mother remarried a man in trade. Kate\u2019s spending most of her time with her widowed aunt in London, but she\u2019s aware that, with younger sisters growing up, she\u2019s expected to marry well. Her options are limited, though – a marriage of convenience, an offer of a less savoury sort, or the slight possibility of a fortune from her less-than-respectable step-father. She doesn\u2019t want any of them. But then she receives an unexpected invitation to stay with a childhood friend very near to her old home. The only problem? The charming young man she finds herself falling for is earmarked for her friend.<\/p>\n

I adore a character who makes me laugh, and William, the aforementioned charming young man, has the most glorious sense of humour. He brings out the best in Kate, and their verbal sparring matches are a delight. There are some other fun characters, too, and (with a couple of minor exceptions) the bad guys are not so much wicked as flailing about trying to do their best, albeit in a fairly misguided way.<\/p>\n

The smuggling subplot is not an original one, and the resolution there was fairly melodramatic, but it never felt outrageously contrived and the characters behaved (on the whole) in keeping with their characters. I say \u2018on the whole\u2019, because I got a bit twitchy about William keeping Kate in the dark, especially when it\u2019s clear at this point that he\u2019s in love with her. Knowing her history and character, and knowing how dangerous the situation was, not telling her put her at great risk. I would have liked a bit more passion from him, too, especially at the end when they\u2019ve been through some difficult times together. Sweeping her into his manly arms wouldn\u2019t have gone amiss at that point. Sometimes Regency restraint can be carried a tad too far!<\/p>\n

As for Kate, she did a great deal of agonising and it took her a long time to realise what was going on with William, both on the smuggling front and emotionally. There\u2019s that Regency restraint again. I\u2019m not a huge fan of hand-wringing heroines, but with Kate it was very understandable, given her background and her presumed unsuitability to marry William, who is the heir to an earldom. But when the two of them did finally manage to set aside that pesky Regency restraint for five minutes and sort themselves out, it was well worth the wait.<\/p>\n

On the historical accuracy front, I have virtually nothing to grumble about. The only Americanisms I spotted were a couple of gottens and one or two times Kate gazed \u2018out the window\u2019. There were a couple of anachronisms. \u2018Empathy\u2019 was first recorded in 1895 and \u2018surreal\u2019 in 1936. Trivial stuff. In every other way – dialogue, manners, setting – the author\u2019s grasp of the Regency is very assured, and the wit and sparkle that flies between Kate and William reminded me very much of Georgette Heyer. A wonderful read, highly recommended. Five stars.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a rare day when I find a new author I can rave about, but here we are. Martha Keyes\u2019 first full-length Regency romance manages to tick all the boxes – engaging characters, believable situations and a truly authentic setting. The dialogue is sparkling with wit in the best tradition of Georgette Heyer, and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[141],"class_list":["post-2067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","tag-keyes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2067"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3857,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067\/revisions\/3857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}