{"id":4333,"date":"2022-05-06T21:57:48","date_gmt":"2022-05-06T21:57:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/?p=4333"},"modified":"2022-05-06T21:57:48","modified_gmt":"2022-05-06T21:57:48","slug":"review-a-very-plain-young-man-by-christina-dudley-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/2022\/05\/06\/review-a-very-plain-young-man-by-christina-dudley-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: A Very Plain Young Man by Christina Dudley (2014)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"This was a delight almost from start to finish\u2026 no, not even almost, it actually was delightful from start to finish, because although the story opens with the hero visiting his mistress, which would normally be a downer in an otherwise traditional Regency, the scene is so funny I forgive it. The lady is a bit of a drama queen, and since Our Hero is not best pleased by her histrionics, he finds himself scratching around for a delicate way to end their relationship. To his every excuse, she finds some counter-argument, and in the end he\u2019s forced to tell her that he\u2019s about to marry. Any self-respecting mistress understands that he can\u2019t have any other relationships – at least, not for a while. He\u2019s free! But in order to keep the lady from pestering him, he\u2019ll really have to find himself a wife, or at least make the attempt.<\/p>\n

And so begins the story. Our Hero is Frederick Tierney, the wild older brother of Joseph, the gentle hero of the previous book, The Naturalist, and since said brother has just married the impoverished but equally beetle-mad Alice Hapgood, Frederick decides to descend on the Hapgoods. Having spied the serenely beautiful older sister, Elfrida Hapgood at a ball, he decides that she would make him a suitable wife. Since he\u2019s handsome, charming and wealthy, not to mention the heir to a baronetcy, he can\u2019t imagine that he\u2019ll have any trouble wooing her. But Elfrida is a down-to-earth young lady, not at all romantic, and she knows Frederick\u2019s quite above her touch, not to mention having a terrible reputation. To his surprise, she\u2019s not even interested in him.<\/p>\n

And that, in a nutshell, is the whole story. It doesn\u2019t sound like much, does it? It\u2019s hardly an original plot. But the skill is all in the execution, or in this case the characters of the two principals. Frederick is sunnily undeterred by Elfrida\u2019s indifference, and determines to ruffle her composure however he can. This manifests itself in the most glorious teasing banter, which manages to be witty and brain-addling and gloriously funny all at the same time. Many authors are claimed to be masters (or mistresses) of the art of writing witty banter, but nothing I have read before even comes close to this. It\u2019s quite brilliant.<\/p>\n

Elfrida\u2019s composure stems at least in part from short-sightedness, so she sees the world in unrelieved fuzziness and doesn\u2019t fuss over the details. And Frederick, lovely Frederick, discovers her secret and realises that she\u2019s never seen just how handsome he is, so he takes care to position himself close enough for her to appreciate him in all his golden-haired glory. And the beauty of this is that it doesn\u2019t come across as arrogance, but as a simple acceptance of himself. He truly thinks that when she sees him properly, she\u2019ll fall for him. And who would not? I defy anyone not to love Frederick.<\/p>\n

Of course, there are bound to be obstacles to the path of true love. Frederick\u2019s past comes back to haunt him, and Elfrida is faced with a potential husband of a very different kind, soberly honourable and a very sensible choice. Needless to say, things come right in the end, thanks to Frederick\u2019s irrepressible conviction that Elfrida will marry him eventually. There is only one wobbly moment where Elfrida makes a really stupid decision, but the rest of the book is so brilliant, and Frederick\u2019s solution to the difficulty is so adept that I won\u2019t hold it against her.<\/p>\n

An honourable mention for some of the minor characters. I loved Elfrida\u2019s younger sisters, chatterbox Margaret and artistic Edith, and her parents too, the father only interested in his dogs, and the mother dozing by the fire, when she can work up the energy to get out of bed. I\u2019ve mentioned the melodramatic mistress, and then there\u2019s the \u2018maid\u2019, Mrs Todd, who is in a league of her own. I love a book that\u2019s funny, and this one actually had me laughing till I cried.<\/p>\n

The writing is a treat for anyone looking for truly Austenesque prose, although there are a fair few Americanisms [*]. Nothing drastic, though, and certainly not enough to disrupt my enjoyment. A wonderful read that I raced through almost in one sitting. Five stars.<\/p>\n

[*] The author tells me that these have been fixed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was a delight almost from start to finish\u2026 no, not even almost, it actually was delightful from start to finish, because although the story opens with the hero visiting his mistress, which would normally be a downer in an otherwise traditional Regency, the scene is so funny I forgive it. The lady is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[187],"class_list":["post-4333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","tag-dudley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4333","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=4333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4337,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4333\/revisions\/4337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}