Erni read and liked Bibliophile's review of Venetia:

"A few years ago, I read an enormous number of Georgette Heyer novels, and I must confess that I don’t actually remember much about any of the individual novels, beyond thinking they were loads of fun and had unusually well-developed secondary chara...more A few years ago, I read an enormous number of Georgette Heyer novels, and I must confess that I don’t actually remember much about any of the individual novels, beyond thinking they were loads of fun and had unusually well-developed secondary characters. In fact, one of the main reasons I enjoy Heyer as much as I do is that she even develops the dogs really well (and there are always dogs in her stories!). Take, for example, “Flurry” a spaniel who makes a brief but memorable appearance in Venetia:

“Her sole companion on this expedition was an amiable, if vacuous spaniel, bestowed on her by Aubrey, when he had discovered that besides being of an excitable disposition the pup was incurably gunshy. As escort to a lady on her solitary walks he was by no means ideal, for, his unfortunate weakness notwithstanding, he was much addicted to sport, and after impeding her progress for a few hundred yards by gamboling around her, jumping up at her with hysterical yelps, and in general enacting the role of a dog rarely released from his chain, he would dash off, deaf to all remonstrance, and reappear only at intervals, with his tongue hanging out, and an air of having snatched a moment from urgent private affairs to assure himself that all was well with her.”

In just that one short paragraph, I TOTALLY know the dog she’s talking about and I’ve met him several times in real life!

OK, so onto the human characters: Buried in the countryside looking after a disabled younger brother, Venetia is an old maid at 25, despite her beauty and independent wealth, which would make her an eligible match on the London marriage market. Enter Jasper Damerel, a notorious rake who owns the property adjoining Venetia’s family estate. Jasper is captivated at first by Venetia’s beauty and slowly comes to recognize her wit and charm as equally potent claims to his attention; Venetia realizes that the qualities she’s looking for in a husband include most prominently the ability to laugh alongside her. Inevitably, they fall in love and although the course of true love is disrupted by a untimely fit of conscience on Damerel’s part as well as by the interference of a well-meaning uncle, a pompous suitor, the mother-in-law from hell, and assorted others, of course they are eventually reunited in happiness. (And for the Amazon.com reviewer who was convinced that Damerel and Venetia were going to have an open marriage because Venetia says she’s going to preside over Damerel’s orgies? Um, NO! That was a joke!) In addition to the dog, I think my favorite character in the novel was Venetia's brilliant and self-absorbed (but not completely so!) younger brother Aubrey. He was a delight and I'd love it if he appeared in another novel somewhere!

There are two things that annoy me: one specific to this book, the other more generally applicable to Heyer's writing. The part that's specific to this book is the way that Jasper forces a kiss on Venetia the first time they meet, and far from being really angry, this is what gets Venetia started thinking about him. In fact, that moment seems so very different from how Jasper is in the rest of the novel that it strikes a jarring note to me. (And I hate the implication that the only reason he doesn't continue the sexual assault is only because she's a girl of a good family and if she had just been one of the farmer's lasses, he would have continued to do whatever he wanted to with her. Ugh!) So I can't think too hard about how Jasper and Venetia meet - because I do really like that they form a steadfast friendship afterwards because of the injury to Venetia's brother Aubrey, and that's the basis for their love and eventual marriage.

The other thing that does tend to annoy me about Heyer is the way that she tries a bit too hard to lend verisimilitude to her stories by having everyone CONSTANTLY use outlandish, though no doubt accurate, vocabulary (like “making a cake of oneself”) – I guess Jane Austen never felt the need to throw in all this stuff, because she was basically writing contemporary – rather than historical – fiction, and Heyer would have done well to follow her fictional model in that regard, I feel. But otherwise, Venetia is a delightful little romp, as light and airy as a macaroon!
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