When I reviewed The Nonesuch a few months ago during Sourcebooks’ summer Heyer sale, I mentioned in passing that I really wanted to review Sprig Muslin, but it hadn’t been digitized yet. Now it is, so as promised, here’s a review.

This book wasn’t in my Top 10 Heyer Regencies during the first decade or so that I read her (that would be my teens and early twenties). It was too slow and too rural, and the hero and heroine weren’t exciting enough. I was totally a These Old Shades, Devil’s Cub, and Frederica kind of girl. But as I reread it in later years, I grew to appreciate the quiet humor. I especially came to love Lady Hester, the plain spinster heroine, and it’s become one of my very favorite Heyers.

Sprig Muslin chronicles the romance of Lady Hester Theale, the aging, on-the-shelf daughter of a gaming-mad Earl, and Sir Gareth Ludlow, one of Heyer’s patented top-of-the-trees, Corinthian heroes. Having reached his mid-thirties and lost his only brother at Salamanca, Sir Gareth accepts that he has to marry and produce heirs. But since losing his beautiful and much beloved fiancée in a riding accident a decade agp, he believes he is unable to offer a wife love. He chooses Hester, an old friend, over younger and more beautiful candidates because he thinks that marriage to him will be better for her than her current life as a general dogsbody for her father and her siblings’ families. But Hester shocks everyone, not least Sir Gareth, when she turns him down:

“I can offer you a position of the first consequence. You would be at no one’s beck and call, you would be your own mistress—with a husband who, I promise you, would not make unreasonable demands of you. You may be sure that I should always attend to your wishes, and hold you in respect as well as affection. Would that not mean a happier life than the one you now lead?”

Her face was very white; she pulled her hand away, saying in a stifled voice: “No—anguish!”

This seemed so strange a thing for her to have said that he thought he could not have heard her aright. “I beg your pardon?” he said blankly.

She had moved away from him in some agitation, and said now, with her back turned to him: “I didn’t mean it— don’t heed it! I say such foolish things! Pray forgive me! I am so deeply grateful to you! Your wife will be the happiest of females, unless she is a monster, and I do hope you won’t marry a monster! If only I could find my handkerchief!”

Gareth’s proposal visit to Brancaster is complicated by his meeting with Amanda, a lovely sixteen-year-old who has run away from home in order to compel her grandfather to agree to her marriage to a serving officer who is a younger son. She refuses to tell Gareth her name or address, and he cannot leave her on her own, so he takes her with him, to the consternation of Hester’s family (but not Hester). When Amanda runs away, Gareth must postpone any attempt to persuade Hester to change her mind and go after her. In the meantime Amanda has found a younger and more credulous knight-errant, and an accident occurs when Gareth catches up to them. When they can’t think of anyone else to turn to, the panicked and guilt-stricken pair beseech Hester to come and nurse Gareth until he recovers.

Gareth can’t be moved, so the four wind up in an inn in a tiny village, isolated from their families and friends and with their whereabouts unknown. This suits Amanda perfectly, because her grandfather won’t be able to find her and thus will submit to her ultimatum. Hester has her hands full caring for Gareth, and she isn’t averse to being cut off from her usual life for a while. As Gareth recovers, he sees a different side to Hester, and his feelings of friendship deepen into something else:

Lady Hester emerged from her hiding-place, her cap now wildly askew. Sir Gareth lay back against his pillows, watching her, a question behind the brimming laughter in his eyes.

“Gareth!” said Hester, in an awed voice. “You must own that Amanda is wonderful! I should never have thought of saying I was your natural sister!”

He was shaking with laughter, his hand pressed instinctively to his hurt shoulder. “No? Nor I, my dear!”

Suddenly she began to laugh too. “Oh, dear, of all the absurd situations—! I was just thinking how W—Widmore would l—look if he knew!”

The thought was too much for her. She sat down in the Windsor chair, and laughed till she cried. Mopping her streaming eyes at last, she said: “I don’t think I have ever laughed so much in all my life. But I must say, Gareth, there is one thing about this new story of Amanda’s which I cannot like!”

“Oh, no, is there?” he said unsteadily.

“Yes,” she said, sober again. “It was not well done of Amanda to make up such a tale about your father. For he was a most excellent person, and it seems quite dreadful to be slandering him! Really, Gareth, you should have denied it!”

“I assure you, he would have delighted in the story, for he was blessed with a lively sense of humour,” Sir Gareth replied. He looked at her, a glimmer in his eyes, and a smile quivering on his lips. “Do you know, Hester, in all these years I have held you in esteem and regard, yet I never knew you until we were pitchforked into this fantastic imbroglio? Certainly Amanda is wonderful! I must be eternally grateful to her!”

There’s not a lot of plot to this story. Gareth offers for Hester and is turned down; Amanda runs away to force her grandfather to bend to her will; Gareth is injured and must be nursed back to health. Amanda’s knight-errant, Hildebrand, stays a friend because Amanda is unshakeably devoted to her Brigade-Major.

But what the novel lacks in plot it makes up for in characterizations. Amanda could have been intensely annoying, but her determination and her commitment are admirable. Hildebrand, Hester’s family, and the innkeeper and his sister are portrayed with Heyer’s usual deft touch. The book is chock full of sparkling dialogue, and it is relatively free of the cant that Heyer loved so much.

Best of all, though, is the way the romance unfolds. There is nothing external (apart from Gareth’s injury) that drives the couple together or apart. Hester is truly a plain-Jane, downtrodden spinster when we meet her, but she blossoms away from her family. Heyer shows us her wit, humor, and intelligence, all of which Hester has suppressed during years of living with her unsympathetic, uninterested, unimaginative family. In the end, she gets Gareth on her terms, not his.

Gareth is saved from being unbearably arrogant at the beginning of the novel by his innate decency; his assumption that the best Hester can do is a loveless marriage is harsh but probably true, and he genuinely believes that his ability to fall in love died with his fiancée.

By the end of the story, Heyer convinces us not only that the handsome and sought-after Gareth can fall in love with someone like Hester, but that she is the ideal person for him at this point in his life. And she does this not by turning Hester into a different woman or by demonizing his late fiancée but by revealing to us and to Gareth the wonderful woman who has been trapped under that spinster exterior.

Grade: A-

~ Sunita

Note: this book is currently $1.99 at Amazon

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Related posts:

1. REVIEW: The Nonesuch by Georgette Heyer
2. REVIEW: Cotillion by Georgette Heyer
3. REVIEW: Sylvester by Georgette Heyer

sail under false colours (British & Australian) also sail under false colors (American & Australian)
to pretend to be something that you are not in order to deceive people

When we did a series of reviews on some of Georgette Heyer’s novels, many people listed “False Colours” as a favorite. Since I’d never read it, I decided to give it a whirl and see what I thought. Thought it has its charm, is amusing and is filled with well drawn characters, there are a few things about it that will keep it from the top ranks of my most loved Heyer novels.

As the younger son, Christopher (Kit) Fancot entered the diplomatic service while his elder brother Evelyn was due to inherit the Earldom at their father’s death. The two have always been close and when Kit senses something amiss at home, he rushes back home from abroad. Upon his arrival at the family townhouse in London, his loving but flighty mother, Lady Denville, informs him just how bad things are. She is deeply in debt – again – and, due to the will left by their father, Evelyn will not be able to control the estate funds and pay her vowels until he marries a woman of whom their fraternal uncle approves. He’s been courting a young woman, Miss Cressida Stavely, who the family thinks will fit the bill though there is no violent passion on either side. Only before the match can be announced, Evelyn must past muster with Cressy’s gorgon of a grandmother – the Dowager Lady Stavely.

The problem, as Lady Denville explains it to Kit, is that she lost heavily at cards and pledged a piece of jewelry – one of the many she’s had secretly replicated in paste in order to be able to sell the original to pay down her other debts – to a incorrigible gossip who would take great pleasure in exposing that fact should he figure it out. Thus Evelyn had set off to try and redeem the piece before the man could attempt to sell it. That was days ago and nothing has been heard from Evelyn since. Lady Denville wouldn’t worry except that the Stavelys are expecting Evelyn at a dinner party the next night and if he’s a no show, it’s for sure that the Dowager Lady Stavely will take it as an insult and withhold her approval of the match.

It’s then that a brilliant idea occurs to her. Kit will impersonate his brother for one night and hopefully Evelyn will appear soon and all will be well. As identical twins, the two brothers have often been mistaken for each other. Against his better judgement, Kit agrees and the evening goes well. Knowing he’d better not stay in town and risk being exposed in the ruse, he flees to their country estate but instead of getting better, the situation only gets worse. Lady Stavely announces she and Cressy will visit him plus the one parsimonious sibling Lady Denville possesses sees a chance at a free country house visit for the summer and arrives with his fussing wife and professional invalid son in tow. Not about to abandon Kit in his hour of need, Lady Denville also gives up the pleasures of town along with her long time loyal beau, Sir Bonamy.

With this cast and crew plus several ancient family retainers watching his every move, can Kit keep the masquerade going until Evelyn, where ever he may be, finally arrives? And what will happen as two people who shouldn’t fall in love find themselves doing just that?

Unlike most books I’ve read from this era, False Colours is told mainly from hero’s POV but this is needed because Kit has to be in the dark about where Evelyn is and as to what Cressy’s feelings are as well as what she knows about what’s going on. I wished for at least some small hint that Evelyn was alright as I began to worry about him too as the story progressed with no clue as to his whereabouts. The plot moves forward in increments. Entire days are described in – take your pick – exquisite or excruciating detail. The opening two chapters of the book should give you a feel for the style/speed of the story and if you don’t like it, move on to another book. There are plenty more Heyers left to choose from.

Amabel, Lady Denville, is a charming widgeon, as Dowager Lady Stavely says. Vivacious yet flighty, mannered yet able to think on her feet when curveballs are thrown their way while attempting to maintain Kit’s disguise – it does not do to underestimate her. I laughed at how she almost consoles Kit for being the sensible, level headed man he is. But she’s also a tigress in defense of either of her sons as well as a staunch friend to Cressy. Cressy is an unknown entity for much of the book. Read carefully and it’s noticeable when she begins to catch on that something isn’t right and also when she declares her love for Kit. Though she doesn’t declare it to Kit.

Poor Kit is the one upon whom the burden of maintaining the charade mainly rests. He’s got to remember to act like Evelyn in public and attempt to mimic his twin’s mannerisms with a snuffbox while keeping straight how Evelyn is supposed to feel about everyone at the house party. On top of that, he’s also worried sick about his twin and sick at heart that he’s falling for the one woman he feels he can’t have or else the whole house of cards will come crashing down on the Fancot family. The “I love yous,” when they finally arrive, are done with quiet fervor rather than loud fireworks but are just as satisfying, I find.

I had great fun reading about the relationship between the Quality and servants. Kit gets away with very little around Evelyn’s valet or the groom who taught the boys to ride or their nurse who still enjoys fussing over both of them. Old time retainers like the valet, groom, town butler, and old nurse have much more leeway in what they can get away with vs the newcomers like the Ravenhurst butler and housekeeper. But everyone closes ranks against outsiders such as when Kit easily depresses the pretensions of Mrs Alperton whom even the country butler pegged at her much lower social status and was ready to fob off as well.

What didn’t I like? The cant, cant, cant – I would guess almost every phrase Heyer either learned or made up is here. Kit speaks cant, Amabel speaks cant, the valet and groom speak cant, the guests spout it. It’s almost like a chocolate cake with chocolate chips and topped by ultra rich chocolate frosting – too damn much. Give me a glass of milk and get back to plain speaking. A little cant goes a long way.

The romance is very slow. Very, very slow. It’s not until almost the halfway mark that things begin to move faster than glacial. If you want details at a stately pace, this is the book for you but if you’re used to today’s faster clip, mentally prepare yourself to sit and savor.

This is not a Heyer book I would recommend to someone unfamiliar with traditional Regencies or with Heyer books. There are better places to start with her oeuvre. It would also help if you’ve got some grounding in the Regency era. As I said, it’s not the first Heyer book I’d suggest but if you want something different as well as liking a country vs London or Season setting, then False Colours should be on your Heyer list. B-

~Jayne

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Related posts:

1. REVIEW: The Nonesuch by Georgette Heyer
2. REVIEW: Powder and Patch by Georgette Heyer
3. Flying False Colours

The incentive to use the retailers self publishing platform over a distributor like Smashwords would likely be increased visibility at the retailer site. I wonder if the future of retail based self publishing will tie scaled royalties to exclusivity.

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Simon & Schuster released a video on behalf of Snooki to promote her latest book. The video is fairly embarrassing with Snooki wandering the halls of Simon & Schuster and labeling the author portraits as grenade or geek. Grenade is apparently a girl that is unattractive. Snooki then refers to the publishing staff as “farty old grandmas” until she “guidos” them up by having them stick out their “tits and asses”, tease up their hair, and put on lots of makeup while drinking heavily [the drinking heavily part was in the Director's Cut resurrected by Ed Champion which appears to have been removed by S&S]. Louise Burke, the publisher; Liz Perle, the editor in chief; and Lauren McKenna, executive editor, all appear in the video. They appear to be having a good time and you have to applaud the lengths at which they are going to support their author. It’s too bad, however, they that they are doing it in a way that emphasizes looking like Snooki and drinking heavily over being a well read, intelligent woman.  Sarah Wendell has a poll up and shared her own thoughts on the subject.

Maybe they’ll dress up as foul mouthed, video game playing, bling wearing, sword wielding Valkryies to celebrate Kresley Cole’s upcoming release, Lothaire. After all, Cole is a #1 NYT Bestselling author and Snooki only made the extended list. Hermain Cain is No. 7 on the non fiction list. Maybe we’ll see his publishing team sitting around smoking in a video or perhaps punching people in the face with bouquets of yellow flowers.

Think of the possibilities! What would you want Louise Burke, Liz Perle and Lauren McKenna to star in next?

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The NextWeb quotes an excerpt from the Isaacson Steve Jobs biography about how Apple changed the ebook pricing market (and at the same time adds fuel to the class action lawsuits):

[Jobs] told the publishers that Apple would “go to the agency model, where you set the price, and we get our 30%, and yes, the customer pays a little more, but that’s what you want anyway.”

This made the publishers happy, but it didn’t solve the problem of Amazon undercutting the iBooks store on price.

To solve this, Jobs negotiated an agreement from the publishers to allow Apple to sell the books at a lower price if any other vendor began selling them in ebook form cheaper than Apple was.

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Publishersmarketplace has a piece on Amazon and how the agency pricing model is affecting Amazon’s balance sheet. (Reg requ’d) PM believes that over 90% of Amazon’s reported net income of $63 million is from the agency ebook commissions at $56 million.

What that also means, which analysts who find our piece are bound to discover, is that agency model ebooks are masking even greater declines in Amazon’s profitability than are readily apparent.

The larger gross margin on the agency books, however, is helping BN tremendously.

When the company reported their first quarter results in August, for BN.com they showed sales of $198 million and gross margin of $41.5 million. A year ago, sales were $148 million and gross margin was just $5 million. A meaningful part of the big boost in margin was Random House’s move to agency, along with the general increase in agency ebook sales. By our rough estimate, agency publishers did about $50 million in net ebook sales during BN’s reported quarter, which would be worth $21.5 million in recordable gross margin.

Which just goes to further support my belief that Agency has helped BN compete.

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Speaking of BN, their stores are becoming increasingly devoted to non book items like toys, games, and electronics. They’ve reorganized their internal footprint and teen books are gaining prominence. They even have a Teen Paranormal Romance section at the front of many stores. Their website offerings are becoming more diverse as well.  BN.com now offers five new categories of goods: Home and Gift, Consumer Electronics, Arts and Crafts, Toys and Games and Baby.

Last week, Barnes & Noble started selling items like rugs and cooking utensils on its website. ”If shoppers are buying cookbooks from bn.com, it’s natural to offer them cooking supplies at the same time; if shoppers are buying new baby books, it’s natural to offer them baby supplies as well,” said John Foley, B&N’s president of eCommerce.

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Whether it was Simon & Schuster’s bad programming or Apple iBookstore’s mistake, the initial iBookstore release of Steve Jobs’ biography was riddled with formatting errors.  Apple quickly responded and urged its customers to delete the original book and download a new copy.

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Sarah Wendell pointed out this article about female soldiers being integrated into the special operative groups to help with cultural outreach.

In 2009, under pressure from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, then the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and Gen. David Petraeus, then the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, the Army began to develop Cultural Support Teams.

Last November, the first group of women went through a grueling five-day assessment that tested their physical and military skills, their problem-solving and writing abilities and their psychological and mental fitness. Those that passed moved on to a six-week training program.

And just because the women are part of the cultural support program, they are not immune to risk as the article starts with the news of the death of one of those women in a bombing.  She was attached to a Ranger’s squad.

“Any day that they’re walking into a village and engaging with the population they are at the same risk as those Special Forces, SEALs, or special operators they’re detailed to. So I would say it is not for the weak-kneed,” said Michael Lumpkin, principal deputy assistant defense secretary for special operations. “These women are on the front lines in very austere locations.”

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Erica Tsang tweeted this article about using Georgette Heyer books as a guide to touring London.

From the steps, look left towards The Athenaeum Club. It was built over the western corner of the Regent’s demolished Carlton House and Wellington, who was a member, had a mounting block, which is still there, placed on the opposite pavement.

Walk left into Pall Mall, and first right into St James’s Square, where Deborah Grantham’s aunt had her gaming parlour in Faro’s Daughter. Numbers 20 and 33 are by Robert Adam. At 16, on the site of what is now the East India Club, the Regent was dining with Mrs Boehm on June 21 1815 when Major Percy, four French eagle standards protruding from the window of his post-chaise-and-four, clattered into the square to confirm the victory at Waterloo.

 

Related posts:

1. Wednesday Midday Links: Simon & Schuster Let’s Go Half of its Sales Staff
2. Wednesday Midday Links RoundUp: Big Changes at Simon & Schuster
3. Thursday Midday Links: Apple’s iBookstore Pricing Is $9.99 too

For my next Heyer book, I thought I read one new to me which means pretty much all the Regencies. Or all the mysteries. Or most of the … gosh, I have a lot of Heyer catching up to do. Anyway, what attracted me to “Black Sheep” was the information that the main characters are all commoners. Yep, nary an aristo among the main characters and the titled characters got their filthy lucre in *gasp* trade. Though the well connected among the Bath set don’t hold that against them.

When Miss Abby Wendover finally arrives in Bath after a protracted five week stay at the home of her enceinte sister, she quickly realizes that her worst fears have been realized. An older, man about town fortune hunter – Abby’s just sure he is one of those odious creatures – has been making up to her “will be wealthy after she comes into her inheritance in 8 years” 17 year old niece. And what’s more, Stacy Calverleigh has bamboozled Abby’s eldest sister Serina to his side. Fanny is determined that she and Stacy felt love at first sight and means to have him as her husband. With visions of Fanny acting out and eloping if pushed too hard, Abby knows she has to tread warily in her efforts to thwart Young Love’s Dream.

A few days later, while in a hotel to visit some newly arrived acquaintances, Abby chances to overhear the name of Calverleigh and jumps at the opportunity to warn off Stacy outside of any chance for Fanny to overhear. Only the man who answers her query is far from young or handsome. In fact, he’s much older than Abby’s 28 years and brown as a nut. He’s also one of the rudest men Abby’s ever encountered and appears to take great delight in being so. Only, as the bewildering – on Abby’s side – conversation continues, it seems that he’s not young Calverleigh but Stacy’s older Uncle who got packed off to India 20 years ago after a Great Scandal. And once Abby has filled him in on Stacy’s plans and begged Miles’s aid in nipping the romance in the bud, he calmly assures Abby that not only does he not care a fig about the situation, he could care less about his nephew.

Aghast at the lack of feeling displayed by Miles, Abby still can’t help but laugh at half of what he says since he says exactly what’s on his mind and damn the consequences. For a woman who’s had to deal with her eldest sister’s various – and deeply loved – ailments plus a headstrong young niece plus two pompous older brothers for most of her life, the idea that someone isn’t tied to family merely because they’re family and who does as he pleases and says what he wants calls to something deep inside Abby.

But can she give into the exact same impulses which she’s trying to get Fanny to avoid? And how can Abby contemplate love when she still has to keep Fanny from throwing herself away on a bounder like Stacy? And what will happen when her older brother James finds out what’s going on in Bath? Is there a happy ending in store for anyone? Or will it take a former cad to set all right in the end?

All the Heyer books I’ve read up til now, pitiful though that amount is, have had humor to some degree and this one is just bursting with it. Oozing, overflowing and packed full of it. Abby and Miles share a sharp sense of the absurd and what with Miles being willing to voice whatever pops into his head, their conversations make the book for me. In fact, I think Miles is right up at the top of my “favorite heroes I’ve read this year” list. Whenever I knew I was going to get a scene with the two of them in it, I sat back and anticipated the fun.

And Abby certainly deserves fun for all the fuss she has to put up with from her sister and niece. Serina is one of those older women of that day who made a career out of their nerves and illnesses. She also flutters a lot and is prone to hysterics. It’s no wonder their menfolk preferred to be out hunting or in their clubs all day. It certainly drives James off after he makes his blustering appearance once everything is actually already taken care of.

Fanny isn’t a nervous ninny but she JUST KNOWS she’s really, truly in love in that way that only 17 and 18 year olds can be sure of and this knowledge has her wound up and ready to Do Something Foolish should anyone speak ill of her truest love. It’s to Abby’s credit that she doesn’t lock Fanny up in a room for 6 years. Abby also realizes, somewhat sadly, that even though Fanny does love her and Serina, she’s of an age when she’s ready to form outside friendships and spread her wings. Something Abby more than once steps aside and lets Fanny continue. The relationship between aunt and niece is a sweet thing about the book though Heyer never lets it turn maudlin.

But for all the praises I’ve sung about it so far, the narrative falters a bit in the third quarter. Information is repeated, scenes drag somewhat and I found myself soldiering on at times. Though new little nuggets of knowledge are sprinkled through this section, I can’t help but feel that some judicious pruning would have tightened things up and moved them along without losing anything.

The last bit does, however, do a lot to redeem the slowpoke stuff. When a final character is introduced to the story, I knew she would somehow resolve the issue of Stacy and Fanny but the way in which this is done is allowed to play out and there is great fun to be had watching Stacy be served a bit of his own medicine. But even knowing what was happening, I still didn’t realize just how delicious his just desserts were until a scene reveals all. The asshole decidedly gets exactly what’s coming to him and it’s served up as neat as can be.

But wait, there’s an unresolved romance still at stake! Abby almost buckles under to family pressure about pledging herself to a man of whom they do not approve. Even as I’m groaning about this, the way it’s presented is diabolically clever on the part of the main instigator and designed to strike Abby where she would be most likely to feel familial duty. Luckily for her Miles feels no such duty and, as he informs her, she might be willing to sacrifice herself on the Altar of Family but he certainly won’t let her sacrifice him! And thus he takes matters in hand and decidedly sees to their future and happiness in a masterful way.

I ended the book adoring the “Black Sheep” hero and the practical and, usually, level headed heroine. The villain gets his comeuppance, Serina will still have someone with whom to compare nerves, Fanny might have a romance in her future and James will probably think twice about issuing ultimatums to Abby once she has Miles at her side. If not for the draggy bits, my grade would be higher but the good that far outweighs the bad still comes out to a B for me.

~Jayne

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Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer
2. REVIEW: Cotillion by Georgette Heyer
3. REVIEW: Sylvester by Georgette Heyer

As part of our Georgette Heyer week here, I’ve decided to do lightning reviews of Heyer’s very early series. This series includes Heyer’s first runaway bestseller, the first Regency Romance evah, one of the most well-researched books about Waterloo evah, iconic heroes and the cross-dressing heroines who shoot them (well, not quite), duels, highwaymen, and Beau Brummel.

The series “starts” (sort of) with The Black Moth, which I’ve already reviewed here at Dear Author. This is Heyer’s first book, written when she was 19 (and doesn’t that make me feel like a slacker?). It’s set in 1751 so is a Georgian, NOT a Regency romance. It’s notable, in my opinion, mainly for the hero of the secondary romance, but also for the villain, Tracy Belmanoir, Duke of Andover. To the heroine (and, one assumes, to his author), he’s repellent and yet utterly compelling:

It was not what he said that alarmed her, but it was the way in which he said it, and the vague something in the purring, faintly sinister voice that she could not quite define, that made her heart beat unpleasantly fast, and the blood rush to her temples.

Repulsion or attraction?

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Well, four books (one each set in the 17th, 18th, and 15th centuries, and a suppressed contemporary) and five years later, in 1926, Heyer publishes These Old Shades, her first best-selling novel. She takes most of the characters from The Black Moth, gives them different names, and uses The Black Moth as the back story for These Old Shades, the hero of which is Tracy Belmanoir, now Justin Alistair, Duke of Avon. He’s nicknamed “Satanus” and lives up to it. The novel is still Georgian set, and one of the joys of the books is to read Heyer’s enraptured-historian’s descriptions of Avon’s elaborate outfits. Avon buys a fleeing boy off the boy’s brother in the slums of Paris. He does it for his own nefarious purposes — purposes he carries through with utter ruthlessness at the end of the novel. He makes the boy his page, but of course, his page is much more than he seems…

The novel is problematic: class is innate for Heyer. The blood of aristocrats will always tell, as will the blood of peasants, no matter their education or upbringing. But Avon is the ultimate in the depraved hero reluctantly saved by love and the climax of the novel in which all Avon’s machinations come together and he tells the story of Leonie’s background is riveting reading, not least because he’s wearing a gold suit.

But when I read this book at 13, the two line conversation –

“You do not love me?” she said, like a child.

“Too — well to marry you,” he said

– just about killed me. That little hitch in the middle…SO romantic.

Grade: B

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Six books (three contemporaries, an 18thC, a 16thC, and an 11thC set book) and six years later, Heyer publishes Devil’s Cub (1932), the story of Avon and Leonie’s son, Dominic, the Marquis of Vidal. He’s 25, wild, and utterly entitled. The book starts with him shooting to death a highwayman and leaving the body in the road. Although he hasn’t had time to become as totally depraved as his father, when he has to flee England after a duel (he leaves because of his father’s displeasure, not because he broke the law), he tries to take with him his latest light o’ love, the middle-class (not demi-monde) Sophy Challoner. Sophy, however, has a determined and entirely respectable sister Mary who refuses to allow her sister to lose her virtue to Vidal. So she swaps herself for Sophy, assuming Vidal would let her go after he discovers the switch. He does not, however, and drags her aboard his yacht, where she defends her honor by shooting him. The rest of the novel is a wild romp through France (as was These Old Shades), with Vidal determined to marry Mary because he’s destroyed her reputation and Mary equally determined not to be married to the man she loves for the wrong reasons.

Devil’s Cub has to be one of my favorite Heyers, because I adore Mary and her relationship with Vidal. When Vidal first insists on marrying Mary, she finds herself daydreaming:

She was so shocked to realise that for a few breathless moments she had forgotten Sophia in a brief vision of herself wedded to his lordship. ‘So that’s the truth, is it?’ said Miss Challoner severely to herself. ‘You are in love with him, and you’ve known it for weeks.’

But it was not a notorious Marquis with whom she had fallen in love; it was with the wild, sulky, unmanageable boy that she saw behind the rake. ‘I could manage him,’ she sighed. ‘Oh, but I could!’

There are no words for how much I love those lines. Stripping away the mask of the dissipated rake and making him a “wild, sulky, unmanageable boy” who needs managing is just…brilliant, in my opinion. And Vidal’s realization that he needs managing, while talking to his cousin, is perfect:

‘You were not very kind to Mary, apparently.’

‘Kind!’ ejaculated Vidal. ‘No, I was not – kind.’

Juliana ate another morsel of capon. ‘You seem to me to have behaved as though you hated her,’ she remarked.

He said nothing. Juliana peeped at him again. ‘You’re very anxious to get her in your power again, Vidal. But I don’t quite know why you should be, for you meant to marry her only because you had ruined her, and so were obliged to, didn’t you?’

She thought that he was not going to answer, but suddenly he raised his eyes from the contemplation of the dregs of his wine. ‘Because I am obliged to?’ he said. ‘I mean to marry Mary Challoner because I’m devilish sure I can’t live without her.’

The duel that enterprising Mary breaks up, the extended-family conversations we’re privy to, and the conversation between Mary and the unknown gentleman who saves her from herself in France are all absolutely priceless. But this is one book in which Heyer, most uncharacteristically, does not shy away from depicting full on romance at the end, and I adore it for that more than anything else.

Grade: A-

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Five books (four contemporary mysteries and one final Georgian historical) later, Heyer FINALLY publishes Regency Buck, the first Regency romance. I’ve reviewed this one as well. It’s not directly connected to the previous books until the next book, however. Really, everything I need to say about this book, I said in my other review, so I’ll wait here till you’re done…

Finally, An Infamous Army (1937), tells the story of Charles Audley, the brother of the hero of Regency Buck, and Lady Barbara Childe, granddaughter of Dominic and Mary from Devil’s Cub. The timeline between TOS, DC, and IA don’t quite work out, but it’s good enough. Dominic and Mary, now the Duke and Duchess of Avon, have a cameo in the book, but this book is most famous for the brilliantly researched and amazingly accurate description of the Battle of Waterloo that takes up almost its entire second half. The book is so accurate and so readable that for many years it was used as a set book at Sandhurt, the Royal Military Academy. I will admit, however, that I read it once as a teenager and never again, so I don’t actually have much I can say about it, except: the married brother of the heroine of Regency Buck is embroiled in a flirtation with the heroine of An Infamous Army. Pretty much the only thing I remember of this book besides Bab’s painted toenails and dampened skirts, is Harriet, Peregrine’s wife, lamenting that although they survived Perry’s infatuation, she’ll never fully look up to Perry anymore as her hero, that she sees his faults now in ways that she never had before. And as accurate and realistic as that might be, I found it very melancholy. I don’t feel I can really grade this book. But it needed discussing as part of the series.

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As much as we might adore her, Heyer is not an unproblematic author, as we see. But I don’t think anyone can deny the impact she had on the romance genre as we know it today. This series of five books is a mini-catalogue of Heyer’s career in historical romance. She finally settled down into writing Regencies almost exclusively in the 1940s, but these five books show how she got there, not only through her dedication to research, but also in her ability to create amazingly appealing characters.

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Sylvester by Georgette Heyer
2. REVIEW: Black Moth by Georgette Heyer
3. REVIEW: Cotillion by Georgette Heyer

When an author has published over fifty books, where do you start? I want to make the case for one of Georgette Heyer’s less frequently discussed novels. It features an on-the-shelf but still attractive spinster, a paragon of a hero, a brilliantly drawn cast of supporting characters, a country setting, and sparkling dialogue. There is a satisfying romance at its core, but that romance sometimes takes a back seat to her richly depicted social world.

Our heroine, Miss Ancilla Trent, is a 28-year-old spinster from a good family fallen on hard times. Rather than become a burden to her male relatives, she makes a living as a governess to The Beautiful Miss Wield, an heiress from a bourgeois background who is living with her somewhat vulgar but loving aunt and cousin, who in turn are part of rural gentry society in Yorkshire. Into this pastoral landscape ride Sir Waldo Hawkridge and his young relative, Lord Linden. The arrival of these London sophisticates throws almost everyone into paroxysms of excitement: the young ladies want to marry them, the young men want to be them, and the matrons compete to wine and dine them at social events. Miss Trent initially views Sir Waldo with skepticism, because she is all too aware of the unappealing aspects of the Corinthian lifestyle, but he breaches her defenses with charm and kindness. Sir Waldo, in turn, is intrigued by this quiet, well-bred lady who is the only unmarried woman not throwing herself at him.

Why could this book have never been written today (even apart from the barely-there level of sensuality)? Let me count the ways:

(1) The hero and heroine’s names. Ancilla? Waldo? Really? Era-appropriate perhaps, but so very unromantic.

(2) Not a Duke to be found. Not only that, but Lord Linden is less of a catch than Sir Waldo. This clearly violates every tenet of today’s Regency canon.

(3) No spies. Not a one. And even though it’s a country setting, there are no house parties.

(4) A large cast of characters but no sequel bait. The multiple storylines are all resolved, explicitly or implicitly, by the end of the novel.

Heyer’s biographer, Jane Aiken Hodge, is somewhat disparaging of The Nonesuch, noting that it “showed signs of strains” and quotes Heyer as telling her friend and publisher, “I think it stinks.” But while the external conflict that keeps our hero and heroine apart toward the end is frankly unbelievable, there is much to enjoy here.

The characters are sharply drawn, but they are not mere caricatures. Although Tiffany Wield is ambitious, vulgar, and self-absorbed, Heyer lets us see her charm as well:

She stared up at him incredulously. “But—don’t you think I’m beautiful?”

“Very!”

“Well, I know I am,” she said candidly. “Ancilla thinks I shouldn’t say so—and I meant not to, on account of losing some of my beauty when I do. At least, that’s what Ancilla said, but I don’t see how it could be so, do you?”

“No, indeed: quite absurd! You do very right to mention the matter.”

She thought this over, darkly suspicious, and finally demanded: “Why?”

“People are so unobservant!” he answered in dulcet accents.

She broke into a trill of delicious laughter. “Oh, abominable! You are the horridest creature! I’ll have no more to do with you!”

He waved a careless farewell as she flitted away, but he thought privately that when she forgot her affectations, and laughed out suddenly, acknowledging a hit, she was disastrously engaging.

For readers who enjoy context and setting, this novel has a lot to offer. There isn’t much in the way of plot: Ancilla and Sir Waldo slowly fall in love; Linden’s initial adoration of Tiffany dissipates and he moves on to a deep, long-lasting love for a more appropriate object of his affection; and Tiffany eventually gets her comeuppance, in a way that engenders some sympathy from the reader. The vignettes of country life, and the trivial but genuine pleasures of gentry life are fun to read as they advance the characterizations and plot. For readers accustomed to bed-hopping, house parties, and Almack’s, the pursuits of Yorkshire society may seem quaint, but they feel authentic, and they ring the changes as the novel progresses. For example, the excursion to the Dripping Well first reveals Tiffany’s unattractive qualities to the besotted Lord Linden:

“Miss Colebatch, don’t come out into the sun!” interposed Miss Trent, taking her hand. “I am going to ask the landlady to make some tea for us, so come and sit down again!”

“Yes, some tea will refresh you,” agreed Tiffany. “You’ll be as right as a trivet then!”

“Oh, yes! Only I don’t think—I’m afraid if I tried to ride—”

“But you’re not going to ride, Miss Colebatch,” said Julian. “Underhill is to fetch a carriage for you, and we are none of us going to Knaresborough. It’s far too hot!”

“Yes, that’s right, Lizzie,” corroborated Courtenay. “I’m just off—and I’ll tell you what! I’ll get an umbrella to shield you from the sun, even if I have to steal one! So just you stay quietly in the taproom with Miss Trent until I return! I shan’t be gone much above an hour, I hope.”

“An hour?” exclaimed Tiffany. “And what am I to do, pray? Do you imagine I’m going to sit in that odious, stuffy taproom for a whole hour? I won’t!”

“Oh, so it’s odious and stuffy now, is it?” said Courtenay. “I thought you said you wouldn’t care a rush if you were obliged to spend the rest of the day in it? Yes, you can look daggers at me if you choose, but I know what you are, and that’s a selfish little cat! You never did care a button for anyone but yourself, and it’s my belief you never will!”

Tiffany burst into tears; and Miss Colebatch, sympathetic tears starting to her own eyes, cried: “Oh, Courtenay, no! You mustn’t—It is all my fault for being so stupid! Oh, Tiffany, I beg your pardon!”

“You beg her pardon?” ejaculated Courtenay.

Tiffany almost takes over the novel, but Ancilla and Sir Waldo hold their own, and their humorous and witty repartee is a pleasure to read. We see them fall in love and we can understand why Ancilla would appeal to Sir Waldo when he has been impervious to more beautiful and eligible prospects. And while it’s even easier to perceive why Ancilla would let her guard down for Sir Waldo, watching it happen is rewarding.

In the end, all ends happily. Tiffany is poised to go to London to catch her Marquis, Sir Waldo’s feckless young relative Laurie looks set to embark upon a career as a horse-dealer, and the older and younger couples are well on their way to their HEAs. The Nonesuch is not one of Heyer’s most memorable novels, but it still illustrates what made her such a compulsively readable author, and it showcases her skill with context and minor characters.

Grade: B-

~ Sunita

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Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Cotillion by Georgette Heyer
2. REVIEW: Sylvester by Georgette Heyer
3. GUEST REVIEW: Cotillion by Georgette Heyer

Tuesday August 16th would be La Heyer’s 109 birthday and to celebrate Jane urged us to dust off our copies of her books and write reviews. I pondered and thought and recalled how much I’ve always enjoyed “Powder and Patch.” I know it’s not one of the best beloved of her books but it is one of mine. I first read it when I was about 14 and will readily admit that it made me a fan of Georgian era books. The silk coats, the small swords, powdered wigs and red heeled shoes! Ah, bliss.

In his day, Sir Maurice Jettan was a bon vivant and a darling of the ladies. Well known in Paris as well as London, he cut a fine figure before settling down with his lady love and fathering a son, Philip. But though Maurice loves his son dearly, he despairs of him as Philip is happy in the country, on their estate, and has no thoughts or desires to ever leave. Philip is, his father declares, rather dull. A neighborhood miss, the ravishing Cleone Charteris, also feels Philip could use some polish though deep in her heart, she loves him only.

When an older childhood acquaintance, Charles Bancroft, returns to Little Fittledean and flirts with Cleone while simultaneously mocking Philip, Philip has had enough. He challenges Charles to a duel but is quickly pinked. Deciding the only way to win Cleone and satisfy his father is to give in to what they want of him, he declares he’ll leave for Paris, acquire polish and, in a word, show them. Off to the City of Light he goes where as the son of Sir Maurice, doors are open to him and friends are quickly made.

But when word of his success reaches Little Fittledean, Cleone gets the mistaken impression that he’s fought a duel over a French lady love and decides to head to London for a Season of her own. Her triumph and the number of men swarming around her bring Philip back to England, determined to win his lady once and for all. But when Maurice and Cleone see what Philip has become, will they rethink getting what they wished for? Or has he really changed all that much?

I first read this book as a teenager and identified with Philip and Cleone. They love but their pride gets in their way and all sorts of (idiotic to me now though also funny) things ensue. Young love, strong passion, stupid actions. They both, at various times, need to be thumped over the head and made to see reason. Luckily for them they are surrounded by older and wiser heads who take almost delicious delight in said thumping.

But I get ahead of myself. The book does start slightly slowly as we get a few chapters setting the stage and the characters. Be patient. Keep going. Trust me. When Philip gets to Paris and we see his transformation, it’s all worth it. It’s also hilarious. He goes from a man who could care less about his three old, battered, coats to one who wears grey lace (A sweet conceit, hein?) and has pink hummingbirds on his clocked stockings. And his valet! Francois is a marvel. A man who throws tantrums over the almost loss of said bas aux oiseaux-mouches but who delights in making sure his master is well turned out. But though Francois seems resigned to shortly gaining a mistress of the household, I do wonder how he, Jacques – the groom – and the cousin of Francois who is now Philip’s chef, will fair in Little Fittledean. Watch for the account of the second meeting between Philip and Bancroft, this time in Paris and to the accompaniment of a fiddler and all of Philip’s French friends.

So, Philip returns to London determined to win Cleone once and for all but of course it couldn’t go that easily and Heyer has fun twisting the two of them around with the help of another old childhood friend and a roguish English gentleman as Cleone finds herself engaged to two men on the same night. Fear not though, her reputation will be saved by the earlier head thumping I mentioned which is delivered by Sir Maurice along with two other delightful characters – Maurice’s younger brother Tom and the lady Tom has secretly loved for many years, Lady Sally Malmerstoke. I want to be Lady Sally in a few years – she says her mind no matter to whom, wears outrageous wigs, tells it like she sees it – listen to her giving Philip a curt lesson in what young ladies say vs what they really think – and delights in the possibility of a little scandal. She also has Tom dangling on a string though she’s merciful to him in the end.

To me “Powder and Patch” is a charming little bonbon of a book. It helps to have a picture of gentlemen’s clothes of the day so as to fully appreciate how much Philip has changed on the surface though recall, if you will, that he has a masterful chin and as Sally Malmerstoke says, such men always get what they want. Cleone is a silly chit but what young woman hasn’t wanted to be admired and courted with sweet nothings whispered in her dainty ears. And as for Philip, is it so wrong that he wants to be loved for who and how he is? Here the young really can be ridiculous at times and in the intervening years, I’ve come to admire and appreciate their elders who steer les enfants away from their foolish pride and back to sensible actions. I loved the book 30 some years ago and it still stands the test of time for me today. B+

~Jayne

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Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Black Moth by Georgette Heyer
2. GUEST REVIEW: Cotillion by Georgette Heyer
3. REVIEW: Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer

That’s 46 books, plus the fabulous reader companion, Georgette Heyer’s Regency World by Jennifer Kloester, available for $1.99 from August 15-August 21.

Below is the full list of titles, separated by category: regency romance, mystery, historical fiction and non-fiction. And here’s a link with all of the info in this email, as well as a look at those gorgeous covers: http://www.sourcebooks.com/readers/casavip/happy-birthday-ms-heyer.html. The eBooks will be available through Sourcebooks.com and major eBook retailers.  (It may take some time for these prices to fully populate today)

REGENCY ROMANCE

• Arabella Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Bath Tangle Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Beauvallet Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• The Black Moth Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Black Sheep Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Charity Girl Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• The Convenient Marriage Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• The Corinthian Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Cotillion Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Cousin Kate Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Devil’s Cub Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• False Colours Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Faro’s Daughter Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• The Foundling Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Frederica Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Friday’s Child Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• The Grand Sophy Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Lady of Quality Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• The Masqueraders Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• The Nonesuch Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Powder and Patch Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• The Quiet Gentleman Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Regency Buck Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• The Reluctant Widow Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Sylvester Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• The Talisman Ring Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• These Old Shades Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo

MYSTERY

• Behold, Here’s Poison Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• A Blunt Instrument Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Death in the Stocks Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Detection Unlimited Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Duplicate Death Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Envious Casca Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Footsteps in the Dark Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• No Wind of Blame Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Penhallow Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• They Found Him Dead Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Unfinished Clue Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Why Shoot a Butler? Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo

HISTORICAL FICTION

• The Conqueror Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• An Infamous Army Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• My Lord John  Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Royal Escape  Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Simon the Coldheart  Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo
• Spanish Bride Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo

NON-FICTION

• Georgette Heyer’s Regency World Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Sylvester by Georgette Heyer
2. REVIEW: Black Moth by Georgette Heyer
3. REVIEW: Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer

“The whole book culture is changing, and in some ways, I think it’s worth worrying about,” says Jack Shafer, who writes about media at Slate.com and spent years working at bookstores before turning to journalism. “But we are so much better off now with what we’ve got. There’s a cornucopia of books out there. It may be that the bookstores are vanishing, but readers are going to have more choice and cheaper books.

“Is it good for bookstores, for writers, for agents, for publishers? We readers don’t care. It’s really good for us.”

The article goes on to speculate at the end what new publishing innovations may arise from digital publishing. One suggestion is that epic fantasy works will be serialized. Ginn Hale’s The Rifter (reviewed here) is an experiment in serialization. It will be interesting to see if she and her publisher deem this to be a success.

****

3M is gearing up to challenge Overdrive’s supremacy in the ebook lending market. The 3M Cloud product page has been updated. Perhaps 3Ms biggest obstacle is publisher participation. If you recall, Kansas is arguing that it owns the books that it licensed through Overdrive and thus can lend them using the 3M library system. It will be very interesting to see how this shakes out. If Kansas is allowed to do this, then other states will as well.

According to Eric Hellman, the 3M Cloud Library will be using DRM systems from Adobe and will sell “white-label” devices to libraries. (Source: Go To Hellman)

****

The Amazon Kindle refurbished prices haves dropped. Many people believe that this signals new Amazon Kindles on the horizons. I think that is accurate. I also believe that Kindle’s late entry into the library market has something to do with the launch of the new Kindles and maybe even the October release of the Harry Potter digital books. There is going to be a big announcement from Amazon and it will likely be made before September.

****

Cobblestone Press is making news, but not the good kind. According to absolute write forum, Cobblestone is delayed in making payments to authors.

It seems as if every other pay period, we’re told there’s a computer problem or power outage or whatever that makes it impossible to run royalties or make payments. My sales there trickled off to nothing after a year and I’m currently preparing a couple of rights reversion letters so I’ve let it go.

Requests for information and/or action are getting ignored. According to this author, Cobblestone did not inform her of her release date, has stopped answering emails, and is generally acting in a manner that makes her regret her publishing decision.

One author reported to me privately that she believes her contract is in breach and has been for several weeks but no response has been forthcoming from emails or snail mailings.

This is a departure from the regular practice of doing business for Cobblestone, the author reported. In the past, all royalty payments were made promptly and contact between the author and publishing house was regular and without interruption.

Cobblestone Press has some of the most ridiculously high prices for books – $4.99 for a novella, for example – so one would hope that it is on good financial footing. Or perhaps in this era of $.99 books, the high prices are dooming the Press. Hopefully Cobblestone will right its ship.

****

A sock puppet by the name of DarknessCalls is duking it out with readers over at Amazon regarding Dianne Sylvan’s book “Shadowflame”. I wrote a review here at Dear Author expressing my dismay at the direction of the story. According to DarknessCalls and, coincidentally, Dianne Sylvan herself, this reader dismay is being characterized as homophobia.

Like I said, homosexuality clearly disturbs you. I don’t believe for one minute that infidelity would make anyone react with this much hostility toward an author. It’s just silly.

Sylvan’s disbelief that readers dislike infidelity that much is a bit naive but even so, jumping to the homophobic accusation is really poor form. Frankly, the way in which Sylvan writes about the infidelity between two male characters is a fetishization of homosexuality. Miranda, the soul mate of one of the cheaters, admits to her girlfriend that the pain of the infidelity is somehow eased by how hot she thinks it is that her soul mate and husband is having sex with another man. Moreover Sylvan’s mistake isn’t that she included infidelity, but rather the way in which she handled the subject matter. She never examines the issue of love versus the soul mate bond; she has the parties who have been cheated on act almost as if it had never happened; she doesn’t acknowledge the issue of emotional infidelity and whether that has any affect on a relationship; she doesn’t deal with the aftermath.

In failing to deal with the aftermath, Sylvan presents the act of sex between two men as something titillating rather than something meaningful.

Sylvan’s reaction that she’ll really stick it to the readers by further feminizing the male protagonist doesn’t speak to someone who is driven by her muse, but of a Lori Foster-esque response wherein the author uses her work to answer her critics.

****

Georgette Heyer accused Barbara Cartland of stealing plots.

The borrowings extended to character names. Heyer was outraged that Sir Montagu Reversby, in Cartland’s Hazard of Hearts, was like her own Sir Montagu Revesby in Friday’s Child.

Heyer wrote: “On perusing the first two novels of Miss Cartland’s trilogy I was astonished to find the number of identical or infinitesimally altered names and titles … I also found what might best be described as paraphrases of situations I had created, and a suspicious number of Regency cant words, or obsolete turns of speech, all of which I can pinpoint in several of my books.”

You can read more about it in the October release, Georgette Heyer: Biography of a Bestseller (no release date in the US  yet).  Sunita had some interesting thoughts about Heyer in a recent post on her own blog.

Related posts:

1. Monday Midday Links: Romance News I Gathered in New York
2. Monday Round up Links: A New Kind of Book Tour
3. Tuesday Midday Links: Sunshine Deals Making a Big Impact

Sylvester Rayne, Duke of Salford, is looking for a wife, but is horrifying his mother with the bloodless, passionless way he’s going about the search. She casually mentions her (deceased) best friend’s daughter, so Salford decides to check her out. Phoebe is not at her best in social situations, especially around her scary step-mother, so when Salford meets her (again — they met once during Phoebe’s season the previous year), he is unimpressed and can’t wait to get away. Phoebe, however, mistakenly thinks that Salford will definitely propose to her, and so runs away with her best (male) friend during a snow storm. Tom, however, breaks his leg on the flight, and Salford comes to his and Phoebe’s rescue (it makes sense in the book — that its ridiculous is part of the point). They spend a week together, snowed in at an out-of-the-way inn, becoming friends. Salford then helps Phoebe get to London when they’re discovered. There they set up a flirtation, until the truth of Phoebe’s book comes out.

After her utterly unsuccessful season, Phoebe wrote an utterly improbably gothic novel that also happened to be a roman a clef. It’s published when she and Sylvester are at the height of their flirtation and takes the ton by storm. She used Sylvester as her villain because of his villainous eyebrows and because of his abominable pride. If there’s one thing wrong with this book, it’s how many times the characters and the narrator attempt to describe exactly what’s wrong with Sylvester’s pride. They go on and on and ON and it’s almost like Heyer doesn’t *quite* have a handle on it or was trying to convince herself that Sylvester’s pride was actually wrong. That pride is damaged by Phoebe’s book and he confronts Phoebe in public, ruining her.

Much like Charlotte Bronte who unwittingly dedicated Jane Eyre to William M. Thackeray who had a mad wife hidden in his attic, Phoebe coincidentally gave her villain a young child as a ward who is completely under his control. Sylvester’s deceased brother’s son is his ward and completely under his control. Sylvester, of course, is nothing like Phoebe’s villain, and loves his nephew, but Phoebe’s book gives Sylvester’s sister-in-law the idea to spirit her son away to France. The book turns into a road romance at this point, with all the character careening around the countryside of France. But it’s hysterical, character driven, brilliantly plotted, and so perfectly done.

I adored this story on reread. It’s always been one of my favorite of Heyer’s books, but I fell into it and just didn’t come out until I was done, even though I knew exactly what was happening. Most of all, I love how Sylvester and Phoebe fall in love:

His sense of humour, too, was lively: often if a fatuous remark were uttered, or someone behaved in a fashion so typical as to be ludicrous, Phoebe would look instinctively toward him, knowing that he must be sharing her amusement. It was strange how the dullest party could be enjoyed because there was one person present whose eyes could be met for the fraction of a second, in wordless appreciation of a joke unshared by others: almost as strange as the insipidity of parties at which that person was not present.

This is one of Heyer’s more romantic books — of course, it’s still Heyer, so “more romantic” means that love is, in fact, mentioned at some point. But still, the understatedness of Sylvester when

looked around quickly, and saw her. Something leaped in his eyes; she had the impression that he was going to start towards her. But the look vanished in a flash, and he did not move.

doesn’t make it any less powerful for all that. And the climax and denouement of the book are among the most romantic Heyer wrote: “O God, Mama, I’ve made such a mull of it. What am I to do?”.

This book is one I recommend for conversion kits. It’s not too heavily filled with Regency cant, like Cotillion, the characters are brilliant, the story is delightful, and the scenes with Edmund and both the button and the tassels are just not to be missed.

Grade: A

Next up, a visit by Sabrina Jeffries, and we’ve added Venetia to the syllabus for the last class! So you get one more review out of me.

Book Link | Kindle | Amazon | nook | BN | Borders
| Sony| KoboBooks

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Cotillion by Georgette Heyer
2. REVIEW: Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer
3. GUEST REVIEW: Cotillion by Georgette Heyer

Cotillion shows up on “Favorite Heyer book” lists all the time, and I never really understood why. I mean, I’d read it, of course — I read (almost) all of Heyer’s historical romances. But in the sub-sub-genre of Regency romance that Cotillion belonged to (not smart heroes), I preferred Friday’s Child. But I assigned Cotillion because other people apparently loved it so much. And I’m glad I did, because it meant I had to read it again. And I loved it.

Kitty Charing is a penniless orphan. She’s lived her entire life with the friend of her father who is exceptionally wealthy but utterly miserly. She has no money of her own and Uncle Matthew feels obligated to leave his money to someone in his family. So he invites all his grand-nephews (who are of age and unmarried) to come to visit and offer for Kitty and Uncle Matthew will leave his money to the grand-nephew who marries Kitty. This way Kitty is provided for and the money stays in the family.

Three cousins show up, only two of whom are eligible: Lord Dolphington, an Earl who is slightly mentally retarded (there’s a throw-away line about him being a seven-month babe), and the Reverend Hugh Rattray. Hugh’s brother is also there, to bring Hugh up to scratch, but he’s married and Uncle Matthew doesn’t like him. Three cousins are missing. One’s in the Army of Occupation and we never hear from him. One is Freddy, the heir to a Viscountcy and himself not the brightest candle in the wall sconce. The other is Jack, the dashing and bold man-about-town who Kitty has loved for years. She’s furious that Jack didn’t show up, so runs away in pique. She meets Freddy at the local inn, partaking of dinner before he shows up at Uncle Matthew’s. She convinces him to fake an engagement so she can go to London — just for a month. She wants to make Jack jealous and realize what he’s missing.

So, she goes to London…and unwittingly falls in love with Freddy and he with her, thoroughly overturning Jack’s plans.

I asked my students what Kitty and Freddy learn, and we found something, but it’s so slight: she learns what a true hero is; he learns to grow up a bit. And although this isn’t profound, it doesn’t have to be. You just adore the characters anyway. And this is an utterly character-driven book. Nothing HAPPENS, but nothing has to happen because you’re having too much fun anyway.

And the characters are constructed in such a way that make the plot happen utterly naturally and perfectly. For example, Dolph is able to find his happiness because Uncle Matthew despises Dolph’s mother. Uncle Matthew’s dislike is set up at the very beginning of the book and seems perfectly natural and just the crotchets of an old, disagreeable man and don’t need to mean anything else. But they do mean something important by the end of the book, but it doesn’t look labored at all.

At the end of the book, there are four happy couples — it’s better than Shakespearean comedy.

But the book really is Freddy’s. He’s ridiculous and his sexuality is questionable (he’s a Pink of the Ton and very much NOT “in the petticoat line”), but he makes an amazing hero because Heyer does such a wonderful job of showing what makes a true hero. Kitty says at one point:

“Freddy is the most truly chivalrous person imaginable! . . . and a great deal more to the purpose than all the people one was taught to revere, like Sir Lancelot, and Sir Galahad, and Young Lochinvar, and — and that kind of man! I daresay Freddy might not be a great hand at slaying dragons, but you may depend upon it none of those knight-errants would be able to rescue one from a social fix, and you must own, Meg, that one has not the smallest need of a man who can kill dragons! And as for riding off with one in the middle of a party, which I have always thought must have been extremly uncomfortable, and not at all the sort of thing one would wish to happen to one — What is the matter?”

Meg raised her head from the sofa-cushions: “He w-would say it was not at all the th-thing!”

“Very well, and why should he not?” said Kitty, refusing to share in her hostess’ unseemly mirth. “If you were to hear of such a thing’s happening, you would think it most improper, now, wouldn’t you?” A sudden thought occured to her, and she choked, and said, in an uncertain tone: “As a matter of fact, he said that Lochinvar sounded to him like a d-dashed loose-screw!”

The Cotillion dance, according to Wikipedia, “The Cotillion is a type of patterned social dance that originated in France in the 18th century and was originally made up of four couples in a square formation . . . Its name, from French cotillon, “petticoat”, reflected the flash of petticoats as the changing partners turned. The Cotillion, of repeated “figures” interspersed with “changes” of different figures to different music, was one of many contredanses where the gathered participants were able to introduce themselves and to flirt with other dancers through the exchange of partners within the formation network of the dance.” This is an exact metaphorical description of the book: flashes of petticoat and couples forming and reforming in order to flirt. As my student said, utterly delightful.

Grade: A

Next up: Sylvester! and a visit from Sabrina Jeffries.

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Related posts:

1. GUEST REVIEW: Cotillion by Georgette Heyer
2. REVIEW: Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer
3. GUEST REVIEW in Limerick Form: The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer

Regency Buck was published in 1937. At that point, Heyer had published six Georgian (that is, 18th-century) romances, four historical novels, four contemporary novels (later suppressed), and four mystery novels (plotted with the help of her lawyer husband). I have no idea what order *I* read Heyer’s romances in when I was a teenager (thank you to my mother for introducing me to them!), but I always thought Regency Buck was more the culmination of all Heyer’s Regency knowledge, not the very start of her creation of the genre. But the start it is. It is succeeded by An Infamous Army and Spanish Bride, both of which are very much based in real life. An Infamous Army, of course, is set during Waterloo and is one of the most accurate fictional representations of Waterloo, but with a fictional hero and heroine. The Spanish Bride is a fictional representation of the real-life people Sir Harry Smith and his child bride, Juanita (who, of course, are the namesakes of Harrysmith and Ladysmith in South Africa).

Anyway, Regency Buck is very much written along the lines of An Infamous Army and The Spanish Bride: it’s more a historical novel than anything else. Except for the hero, heroine, and their immediate family, everyone in the novel is a real historical person. So rather than move toward more and more historically-set novels, Heyer started there and moved away from them throughout her career.

Miss Judith Taverner and her brother, Sir Peregrine Taverner, are extremely wealthy. They journey from Yorkshire to London to meet their guardian, only to find he’s not the friend of their father as they thought, but, due to their father’s bungling of his will, is actually that man’s son, Julian Audley, fifth Earl of Worth. Judith and Sir Peregrine both tangled with the previously-unknown-to-them Worth on their journey to London and find it insupportable that he is their guardian, in charge of their fortunes and circumstances, but there’s nothing to be done. They set themselves up in London, join High Society, have a few adventures, and both get happily married off by the end.

The suspense of the novel is twofold: will Judith get over her anger and pique and admit she loves Worth, and who is trying to kill Sir Peregrine (Judith stands to inherit almost all of Perry’s fortune if he dies, which will supplement her own considerable 80,000 pounds)? No matter how many times I read this book, I marvel at how well Heyer manages to manipulate scenes and Worth’s own inscrutability and omniscience to make his heroism/villainy truly in question.

Worth calls Judith “Clorinda.” Jennifer Kloester, Heyer’s biographer (long-awaited biography coming out October this year in the UK, sometime in the Spring through Sourcebooks in America), told me that Clorinda probably referred to the warrior-queen character from the epic poem “Jerusalem Delivered” by Italian Renaissance poet, Tasso. And Judith is very much the warrior-queen. She has money and presence and style and she knows how to use them all, especially under the tutelage of Worth’s good friend Beau Brummell. She’s one of Heyer’s strong female characters, but in the end, she has no idea of her own feelings when it comes to Worth. She knows she doesn’t love any of the other people who ask her to marry them (including the Duke of Clarence, the future William IV, in a historically accurate cameo), but she refuses to believe she loves Worth.

Worth himself is one of Heyer’s apparently omniscient, almost omnipotent aristocrats, supremely comfortable in his position, able to wield amazing power apparently with impunity. He doesn’t tell anyone what he’s thinking, certainly not his own heroine, and everything goes his way. The gothic overtones of the story truly make one question whether he’s the villain or not.

Although Heyer basically created the Regency romance genre as we know it today, the actual romance aspects of most of her books are layered in very lightly. We know who the hero and heroine are and we search very carefully for clues of their feelings for each other. We are led to believe that Worth falls in love with Judith at first sight, but his position as her guardian forbids him from actively pursuing her. If he did, it would be an abuse of his power as her guardian, akin in some ways to sexual harrassment and incest combined, and in all honor, he must spend the year of his guardianship unable to court the women he adores. And rather than courting her anyway, as a modern Regency hero might, with scenes of forbidden passion, Worth actually refrains, out of honor, except for dropping hints here and there that his guardianship of Judith is much more burdensome to him that she could believe. Except for two kisses, and an embrace, Judith and Worth express their feelings through their verbal sparring. No torrid scenes for Heyer anywhere in her fifty year career.

Overall, Regency Buck is, I think, a very difficult book to start with in Heyer’s oevre. The sheer number of historical personages to try to keep in one’s head, as well as the deep-end-of-the-pool introduction to masculine Regency society (which we never EVER see in Austen, after all), is sometimes difficult to work through. That said, the students of mine who have never read Heyer before loved it, but — interestingly enough — it’s rarely a favorite among Heyer fans. I love it for its amazingly accurate historical detail and for its hero and heroine. I love Worth and Judith both. And it really does establish the Regency romance genre to such an extent that this 75 year old book reads — barring the missing sex — as very very modern.

Grade: B+

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Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Black Moth by Georgette Heyer
2. GUEST REVIEW in Limerick Form: The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer
3. GUEST REVIEW: Cotillion by Georgette Heyer

I’m sure if you’ve ever had a conversation with more than…oh, two romance readers, one (or both) have them have told you to read Georgette Heyer’s books. Or squeeed over them. Or said how much Heyer has influenced her life. Or said something about how she just doesn’t get Heyer. Or otherwise mentioned Georgette Heyer. There’s a good reason for this, of course. For all intents and purposes, Georgette Heyer invented the historical romance, and certainly the Regency romance in its current form (which is not to say that there weren’t historical romances before she was writing — The Scarlet Pimpernel, anyone? — but she solidified the conventions, the heroes, the heroines, the situations, the languages, the time period).

She did not do this with The Black Moth, however. The Black Moth, in fact, was her very first book, published when she was 19. It is set in 1751, not in Regency England, but instead solidly in Georgian England, where men wore wigs, high heels, and make-up as well as the women. Published in 1921, between the wars (and 15 years after The Scarlet Pimpernel), The Black Moth tells the tale of Jack Carstares, Earl of Wyncham, exiled from polite society because he cheated at cards. He rescues the innocent Diana Beauleigh from the clutches of Tracy Belmanoir, the Duke of Andover…except he only does this just less than half way through the book. Up until this point, they hadn’t even met in a book that is nominally their romance.

So this book also tells the tale of Richard Carstares, Jack’s brother, the man who actually cheated and let his brother take the blame because he was so wildly in love with Lavinia Belmanoir, the Duke’s sister. They married after the scandal, but Richard has been wracked with guilt for six years and is convinced that to make things right with Jack, he has to sacrifice his beloved wife’s affections. So it’s the love story of a marriage in trouble — in fact, to me, this romance was much more compelling than Jack and Diana.

And it’s also the story of Tracy, nicknamed the Devil, because he knows all, sees all, has very little morals, and manipulates everyone in the book, but is still, somehow, a sympathetic character — he is, in fact, the prototype of the repellent, yet unaccountably attractive dark, amoral hero.

This book is, as Heyer’s own characters would say, a mad romp. It’s got sword fights and gambling, gallops over the countryside, abductions, love, melodrama, wonderful characters, and so much fun. It’s not her best, mainly because her best is truly superlative. But for a 19 year old, it’s pretty awesome. The three different subplots all roll together and tie off beautifully together at the end. I personally love it because above all else, it’s really an exploration of the definition of a “good man.” While Diana in particular is a bit of a cipher, more a porcelain doll than anything else (although she shows some spirit when she basically proposes to Jack), the other characters are really well-drawn. If they feel like cliches, it’s because Heyer invented them and they’ve since been reused time and again. You really feel for the characters, despite or even because of the melodrama and I actually love the character of Richard (except in that he’s called “Dicky”!) the best, because he’s tortured and makes the most moral progress in the story.

All in all, it’s over-the-top and laugh-out-loud funny and is a good place to start with Heyer’s books, because it’s just so much fun and, to our Regency-saturated reading habits, a little different.

Grade: B

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

P.S. And as an Easter egg for those few who don’t already know, all the characters are revisited with different names and slightly different relationships to each other in These Old Shades, in which Tracy, now Justin, the Duke of Avon, finds his HEA. These Old Shades is one of my favorite Heyers, but then, I think about 15 books occupy that list. :)

P.P.S I’m writing this review because I’ve been immersed in this book for the past two weeks because I’m writing an Introduction for a new Barnes and Noble edition. It must have recently entered the public domain to receive this treatment. Look for it later this year!

This book can be purchased at Amazon and Kindle (which is currently $.99).

Related posts:

1. GUEST REVIEW in Limerick Form: The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer
2. GUEST REVIEW: Cotillion by Georgette Heyer
3. REVIEW: Pitch Black by Susan Crandall

When Sophie and her cousins first meet
The youngsters fall straight at her feet
She has a dog and a chimp
And a bird who’s an imp
Who swears like a sailor, no tweets.

Her cousin Cecilia has been betrothed
To a dear man who became indisposed
From a case of the mumps
Then he must take his lumps
When for a poet, Cecilia’s emotions grow.

There’s Hubert who hides what he’s done
Silly boy, is under the thumb
Of a mean moneylender
Who shows nothing tender
And Hubert can’t fix his sad run.

Into this household, dear Sophy emerges
With fix-it desires and urges
Her cousin, stern Charles
With Sophy, does quarrel
While his betrothed wishes a familial purge(s).

The writing is fast and has many plot holes
The characters lack personality but play their roles
But with Sophy, no matter
The plot’s mad as a hatter
And is better (not the parts) but the whole.

Contemps are my true cup of tea
But The Grand Sophy delighted me
Friday’s Child is next
And sits on my desk
Waiting to turn me into a fan of Regency.

This book can be purchased in mass market from an independent bookstore. No ebook format.

Related posts:

1. GUEST REVIEW: Cotillion by Georgette Heyer
2. Grand Central Promotional Ebooks
3. GUEST REVIEW: Grimspace by Ann Aguirre

My romance reading group is composed of eight women whose ages span a healthy quarter-century. As a group, although the membership has ebbed and flowed, we’ve met for nine years. We each have our likes, dislikes, and areas of expertise. Several members judge national romance contests from the reader’s point of view. As an author myself, I judge unpublished contests and then take tremendous delight when we come across a newly published book that I read in its first-50-page infancy.

We pick a book to read per month and over the course of these years, we’ve tried all the categories. Very few selections have been universally beloved. We also like first printings, not trusting reprints to hold to the mores of when the original was published. We’ve been to RWA National Conference booksignings, the local ones held by the closest RWA-chapter, done a stint at an Romantic Times convention, and have co-hosted, along with the local library, as many as eight area romance authors for a meet, greet, and sell.

As readers, we are jaded.

I give all this background to introduce our latest reading jump, Georgette Heyer. I saw an ad from Sourcebooks announcing a re-release of her books. I’d never (no throwing things here) read one. It had been decades since anyone else in the group had. Our buyer didn’t get the message to find the new ones, so when I found worn paperbacks on the used book store clearance rack for 50 cents apiece, we were in business. We each had our own (in many cases a first printing) Georgette.

And so began my adventure.

As the Regency romance genre’s grande dame, Georgette Heyer’s writing career spanned over 50 years and 58 books, not all of them Regency romances. As my group’s Regency-reader-in-residence, I was set for a treat. I got more than I bargained for.

At 288 pages, COTILLION should have been a snap read. But the print was small, and there were words that begged a dictionary, words that changed the way I wrote two newspaper columns. (This was a good thing.) I knew I had become lazy in my reading and my writing, but this served to prove it to me. I must reform.

Kitty Charing is young, orphaned, and under the guardianship of Matthew Penicuik, an old man suspected of being her father. That trope ends quickly. As his health fails, he desires to see otherwise penniless Kitty set for life and she will be–if she marries one of his great-nephews, men she has grown up with and calls cousins. She has always loved Jack Westruther, but he doesn’t deign to come to Great-Uncle Matthew’s “this is how it will be” lecture. In a fit of pique, Kitty agrees to an engagement to his cousin, Freddy Ledgerwood. She hopes to get to London, make Jack jealous when he sees her on his cousin’s arm, switch the intended bridegroom, and live happily ever after. Freddy agrees to all this and tells her it’s fine because he’s not ready to be married. But Freddy, unbeknownst to Kitty, has a plan of his own.

For starters, Freddy takes charge of most of the clothing allowance Uncle Matthew reluctantly parts with. Possessed of considerable fortune and a title to boot, Freddy plans to supplement the money, with Kitty never being the wiser. Freddy is a good guy, but a bit of a ditherer. I finally nailed him: Hugh Grant at his most confused. Totally charming, but I’d have liked a little less goodness me-ing.

“Goodness gracious,” exclaimed Meg [his sister], when she saw him. “What now, pray?” A gleam of hope shone in her eyes. She cast aside the hat she was just about to set on her head, and said eagerly: “Oh, do you mean to tell me the secret after all?”
“Not that one,” responded Freddy. “Tell you another instead!” He perceived that she was looking affronted, and added: “Not banning you! Wish I was! Dashed awkward business! Fact is, need your help!”

Kitty is a quite modern heroine, capable of taking care of herself, but realizing there are times that help from other quarters is needed. Freddy installs Kitty with his married sister Meg whose older husband has gone off for business in India, and the women quite conveniently manage to get themselves involved in lives and situations better left alone. But then, that’s the fun of the book. All the characters, all the interconnected lives, all the romance!

There are two romances beside Kitty and Freddy’s. Cousin Foster, inheritor of the Irish title Lord Dolphinton, a man overrun by his mother and without the brains to get out of it, desires a most unsuitable match with a woman far below his station. She, Kitty surmises, will nonetheless be quite good for him and stand up to his mother. The other is Kitty’s French cousin, the Chevalier, and Olivia, a beautiful girl with a social-climbing mama who would have her married to the highest bidder. Confusing this issue is Jack’s desire to take Olivia as a mistress, perhaps his last one, before settling down with Kitty, whom he has always considered will be his–in his own good time. He, like everyone else in the book, has seriously underestimated Freddy.

The conversations are quick, the descriptions pithy and to the point, and in the end, all the romances set to end well. COTILLION refers to the dance our protagonists are making around each other. For awhile, they don’t even know they’re dancing. But after mutual expressions of affection, Freddy gets his girl and a kiss. Jack slumps off into the sunset and, if this were written now and not in 1953, he’d have his own reformed-rake book out next year.

from Kay Layton Sisk
www.kaysisk.com
www.kaysisk.blogspot.com

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