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Another incomparable book from Jayne Davis, an author who always seems to come up with a unique look at the Regency era, without ever stepping outside the bounds of proper behaviour.<\/p>\nAnother incomparable book from Jayne Davis, an author who always seems to come up with a unique look at the Regency era, without ever stepping outside the bounds of proper behaviour.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the premise: Joanna Stretton isn\u2019t looking for love, filling her days with caring for her sick mama and helping her papa, rather secretly, with his investment projects. But when she meets handsome and charming Captain Alfred Bengrove, the younger son of a viscount, she can\u2019t resist. He\u2019s only visiting for a week before returning to his regiment in Spain, but he asks Jo to wait for him to return from the war, and she agrees. It\u2019s not a betrothal, but it is a commitment, of sorts. But his family assume it\u2019s a definite betrothal, and then comes the devastating news that Alfred is missing in action.<\/p>\n
Happily, he\u2019s only injured and captured by the French, but it\u2019s his writing hand that\u2019s out of action, so he ropes in a fellow captured officer, Captain Robert Delafield, to write his letters home, including those to Joanna. And even when Alfred is well enough to write his own letters, somehow Rob finds a reason to continue to write to Joanna. A most improper correspondence!<\/p>\n
And so the stage is set. The reader sees the worst of Alfred, during his time as a prisoner of war in France, and understands that he\u2019s only chasing after Jo for her dowry and the inheritance from her father (she\u2019s an only child and he\u2019s very rich). His obnoxious and snobby family make it obvious, too. And Rob, of course, the hero, is everything that a hero should be – honourable, kind, thoughtful, intelligent and poor. Wait, what? But that doesn\u2019t matter, since she\u2019s so rich\u2026 and no, this is not that book, that founders because she\u2019s rich and he\u2019s poor. The only question is how long it will take Jo to switch allegiance once the prisoners return to England. Spoiler: not very long at all. In fact, it all seemed a bit sudden to me. Not the part about wanting to dump the obnoxious Alfred, but the speed with which Jo decided she wanted to marry Rob. But it was a wonderful moment, so let it stand.<\/p>\n
If I have a quibble at all (and it\u2019s a minor one), it\u2019s that Jo\u2019s mother, who\u2019s the daughter of an earl, chooses not to use her courtesy title. She could be Lady Frances Stretton after her marriage, but she chooses to be Mrs Stretton, which of course is entirely her right. But given that she\u2019s so conscious of rank, and so keen for Jo to move in the \u2018higher society\u2019 of the aristocracy, it seems an odd choice. And then it\u2019s confusing for those who don\u2019t know her. I\u2019m a great believer in everyone being aware of the exact rank of everyone else (or how else is one to know the precise depth to which one is expected to curtsy?). I\u2019ve read several books where the hero introduces himself as simply {Name} and he\u2019s assumed to be Mr Name, when he\u2019s really the Earl of Name (or similar). It\u2019s misleading and potentially embarrassing.<\/p>\n
Now in this case, it does lead to some glorious set-downs, such as when the obnoxious Alfred\u2019s even more obnoxious mother patronisingly asks Jo how she would address the daughter of an earl, and she perkily replies, \u201cThe one I know, I call Mama.\u201d Which is lovely, but I still think the obnoxious mother ought to be told this sort of thing upfront. And later, when she (a mere viscountess) says she outranks Mrs (or Lady Frances) Stretton, she\u2019s plain wrong. They both have the rank of a viscountess. A daughter of the aristocracy married to a commoner retains her birth rank from her father, leading to the non-intuitive result that of two sisters, both daughters of earls, the one married to a commoner outranks her sister married to a baron, who takes her rank solely from her husband. But that\u2019s a huge digression, and not really relevant.<\/p>\n
In summary, another wonderful five-star read from the author. Highly recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Another incomparable book from Jayne Davis, an author who always seems to come up with a unique look at the Regency era, without ever stepping outside the bounds of proper behaviour. Here\u2019s the premise: Joanna Stretton isn\u2019t looking for love, filling her days with caring for her sick mama and helping her papa, rather secretly, […]<\/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":[115],"class_list":["post-5707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","tag-davis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5707","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=5707"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5711,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5707\/revisions\/5711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}