Although she’s considered the grande dame of today’s Regency romances, and her books were reviewed as “romances” when she wrote them in 1930-1970, reviewers had quite a different definition of a romantic novel in those days than they do today. By today’s definition, I’d consider her simply as a novelist of drawing room comedies, or a comedy of manners, a supremely skilled one, and I would describe her books to a newcomer as “lighthearted Jane Austen.” I really do think she was THAT good. You wouldn’t skim through Austen looking for sparkling dialogue and avoiding the wordy descriptive passages, would you? For those of you who haven’t been able to “get into” Heyer, may I suggest you slow down, and consider her simply as a novelist, rather than a romance writer. She was superb at conveying subtle social meaning and subcontext without ever resorting to explaining the obvious. She (as someone commented) made you work for it, and that’s why, after you’ve read a few of her novels and catch on to the slang of the day and the complex layers of meaning a simply phrase or social gesture can convey, you’ll be able to appreciate her writing so much more. Consider the opening sentence of “Frederica”: (I’m quoting from memory) “Not more than five days after his sister’s urgent summons to her drawing room, the Duke of Alverstroke left his horses standing and strode up the steps of her Mayfair house…” (I can’t find my copy this late at night, but it goes something like that.) Notice Heyer doesn’t say that Alverstroke dislikes his sister, is used to her letters demanding his presence, and shows his contempt for her by waiting 5 days after her “urgent” summons, when they probably live a half mile from each other in London, but Heyer simply implies this by Alverstroke’s actions. “Not more than five days after his sister’s urgent summons…” You notice he also doesn’t have his horses stabled, but leaves them at the front door, so he can make a quick exit (as in, “I can’t leave my cattle in the street for more than a few minutes”). I didn’t really notice that beautifully crafted first sentence the first or even the second time I read “Frederica” but I’m now on about my fifth reading and I always read her novels slowly, the way I read Austen, savouring all the subtle skillful wording.

Ironically, since virtually everyone writing Regencies today shamelessly steals her plots and devices, Heyer too admitted that she was writing in imitation of a “romance” novelist called Jeffery Farnol, who wrote a decade or so before Heyer started, with such titles as “The Broad Highway,” The Amateur Gentlemen,” “Sir John Dering,” “The High Adventure.” More swashbucking and derring-do than genteel drawingroom putdowns, but definitely the same genre.

I urge you all to re-try Heyer (who, by the way, hated to have anyone mispronounce her name - it’s not “hire” but “a-er”) and SLOW DOWN. She really is a joy.

I do love Georgette’s light handed touch. She combines intelligence, humour , and happy endings in such a way that suspension of disbelief is not just easy but implicit.

Now I must go pick up ‘An infamous army’! I have never really sought out her ‘historic’ novels, but now I have to!

And Cotillion, Friday’s Child and These Old Shades are way up there on my “I will kill and eat you if you take these books from me” keeper shelf.

And I LOVED that epilogue! How can you say that Gerald and Priss being able to move about in society is not a good thing?! Think of the Malloren anthem: with the Mallorens, all things are possible. Well in Christmas Bride, with a Duke, a son of a Duke, an Earl and so on and so forth, all things are possible. I ALWAYS cry when I read Precious Jewel and if it makes me a sap, so be it, I love that Priss and Gerald will be able to send their son to Eton and actually visit him.

What a thrill to see people drooling over Georgette: I own them all, Friday’s Child is my fave, followed by Cotillion (and Cotillion reminds me of the plot of Suz Brockmann’s latest: unexpected heroes!

I don’t see him as Hugh Grant at all–that glamorizes Freddy too much. He’s not really a ditherer; he knows exactly what to do–if it’s within the rules as he understands them. He has little imagination, but one thing he *is* is decisive.

Kay