Mary Kingswood's Blog, page 11

Review: The Shadow Earl by Stella Riley (2023)

This isn’t a bad book. In fact, I read it swiftly, without the slightest urge to hurl my Kindle at the wall, and on the whole I enjoyed it. So why the 3* rating? I’ll come to that.

Here’s the premise: Christopher (Kit),the Earl of Hazelmere, has fallen in love with Sophia Kelsall, but they’re deemed too young to marry. He’s told to go off and take his Grand Tour. A couple of years abroad will broaden his mind, and if they’re both of the same mind when he returns, they can marry then. So Kit takes off with his cousin Basil, but after two years they part company, Basil back to England and Kit, still wanting to explore, to Constantinople. And then… nothing. For three years, nothing is heard of Kit. Basil and his father take over Kit’s London house, and help themselves to his fortune. Sophia is left in limbo, not properly betrothed, but not fully free, either. Her father is very ill and likely to die soon, her mother is pressing her to marry at once, and Basil is very keen to lead her up the aisle. What’s a girl to do? But then, just when she’s given up all hope, Kit returns. But he’s changed, not at all the man she fell in love with.

The two themes of the book are now clear. On the one hand, there’s Kit and Sophia and the question of whether they’ll get back together, or rather (since it’s blindingly obvious that they will) how that will be accomplished and whether the author can spin things out for the full length of the book (happily, the answer is no).

The other matter is what happened to Kit, where he’s been, why he neither returned nor wrote, and how it all came about. This isn’t quite as blindingly obvious, but we find out pretty quickly how it happened and who the villain is, even if we only gradually learn all that happened during those three years. And so the only real question is how Kit will arrange things so that the villain can’t threaten him ever again.

This all sounds like fairly normal fare for a book set in the pre-Regency Georgian era, and so it is. And Stella Riley is a terrific writer. I regard The Parfit Knight, the first book of the Rockliffe series, as one of very few perfect books. So what went wrong here?

Problem number one is something I’ve grumbled about in previous Riley books, and abandoned the Rockliffe series because of it, and that’s the sheer weight of characters from earlier books. I don’t mind one or two of these, or any number, actually, if they’re treated as new characters so that I can keep up, but hurling names around as if I’m supposed to remember them from however many years ago, when I first read about them, is insane. And in fact, there are several earlier books I haven’t read, including a whole series. Since this book is supposed to be the first of a new series, would it be asking too much to make it readable for those of us who are not intimately familiar with the whole crew from the past?

There’s an exchange between two characters that goes something like this (paraphrasing):
A: We’ll have to bring X in on this.
B: Why? How can he help us?
A: You don’t want to know.
No, actually, I DO want to know, because it might help me remember who the hell X is.

Problem number two is that all these people, the ones from this book, and the vast numbers from previous books, are all uniformly good-looking, intelligent, talented, loyal to a fault and filled with steely determination to right wrongs and generally be heroes. Well, apart from the various villains, small and large, who have no redeeming features whatsoever. Perfection and cartoon wickedness don’t make absorbing reading. I like my heroes (and heroines) to be real people with faults and quirks and… oh, I don’t know, personalities, maybe? And I’d like the villains to be less unrelievedly awful.

The third problem is that nothing very terrible happens during the whole course of the book. Kit and Sophia have problems, they work them out. Sophia’s sister is deaf, Kit has a plan to help her, it works perfectly. The army of Kit’s loyal friends devise a plan to trap the big villain and it all works exactly as planned. There are no misunderstandings, no unexpected twists, no last-minute threat from the villain. Sorry but that’s just not interesting. There’s no tension in it. The book can be beautifully written (and it is) but without some unexpected happenings, it’s just dull.

I’m sorry to be so negative, but it’s just because I’m so disappointed. The Parfit Knight was so wonderful, and the next two in the series were great, too, so it makes me very sad to write a review like this. I found very little to quibble over, historically, only the big wedding thing. What is this fetish with big weddings? No one cared about big weddings then! Or choosing a picturesque church. Or having a ‘wedding dress’. Or betrothal rings. Or a bachelor party. Or kissing in the street! Or speeches and toasts at the wedding breakfast. The marriage service just wasn’t a big deal. Otherwise, nothing tripped me up. There is some sex in the book, but it’s the usual stuff (he’s brilliant at it, she’s instantly orgasmic, you know how it goes). But that’s OK. I’m not keen on too much realism in the bedroom scenes. And the funny thing is, even with all my grumbles, I read the thing over two days, and enjoyed it, on the whole. But still… three stars.

 

Review: The Captain’s Old Love by Mary Lancaster (2023)

This was a whole heap of fun. A second chance romance between a couple who were thwarted ten years’ earlier. He went off to sea and concentrated on his career. She instantly married someone else, had a son and was then widowed. Now they meet again, and the outcome is never in doubt. But there are still problems (of course).

Here’s the premise: When Royal Navy man Julius Vale met Antonia Temple, it seemed like a match made in heaven. They were soon betrothed but were driven apart by circumstances that only gradually become clear. Now he’s retired from the navy as Captain Sir Julius Vale, and has returned to his old Blackhaven home with a multitude of siblings in tow, not all of them legitimate. He’s thirty-six and never got over the loss of Antonia, so he’s reluctant to accompany the siblings to a ball. He plans to leave as soon as they’re settled, walk home along the beach within sight of his beloved sea and have a quiet evening. But just as he’s slipping outside, he sees the last person he expected – Antonia.

Their early encounters are filled with anger and pain, but there’s still something between them and they are inexorably drawn together. He discovers that her husband is dead, but that a poor marriage settlement has left her in difficulties, so she’s taken a position as paid companion to a wealthy lady, who travels about with her brother, and is presently in Blackhaven to take the waters. And as they circle warily round each other, they discover the truth: that each of them thinks the other broke it off ten years before, and that they have been repeatedly lied to.

Inevitably, they end up reigniting the same passion that drew them together in the first place, and this time there’s nothing to stop them from marrying and being idyllically happy for the rest of their lives… or is there? Well, of course, things are never that simple, especially as they reach this stage at about the halfway point in the book. From there onwards, their enemies circle ever closer around them, trying to drive them apart, there’s a subplot involving stolen horses and worse, and that marriage settlement is significant, too.

It’s great page-turning stuff, but I have to confess it’s all wildly improbable. I had a particular problem with Antonia. Firstly, when the man she loves apparently jilts her without a word, what does she do but immediately go off and marry someone else. Who in their right mind does that? Even if you believe the web of lies being spun around you, why rush into marriage with another man? Marriage was literally a life sentence in those days. The only rational reason is because she was pregnant, and for a while I wondered about that, but it doesn’t seem to have been an issue. Her parents told her to marry, so she did.

And then, when her present happiness is about to be snatched away from her, again she does what she’s told, and, what is worse, she jilts Julius without a word all over again. What kind of cruelty is that? To do all over again the thing that hurt him so badly the first time. And even though she comes round fairly quickly and starts thinking of ways out of her dilemma, I just can’t forgive her for not telling him at once what was going on.

Julius, on the other hand, is everything a hero should be. His huge family is intriguing (I’m assuming that all the siblings will get their own story eventually, which I look forward to reading). For those who read through the very long original Blackhaven series, lots of the characters from that pop up here in cameo parts, but it’s not necessary to remember them all (fortunately for me).

I very much liked the way the whole plot, in all its disparate parts, came together at the end very elegantly. I didn’t notice any historical errors, although I was a bit surprised that one character managed to ‘pretend’ to be a solicitor (and was more likely to be called an attorney in those days), and the guardianship of the child was airbrushed away at the end. However, I was very pleased to note that the author has discovered that Blackhaven would have been situated in the county of Cumberland in Regency times, not the modern invention of Cumbria. There’s one sex scene, not particularly graphic, and a few references elsewhere. Just one other grumble – I would have liked a list of all the siblings with their ages. It was really hard to get them straight.

If I were judging this book just on plausibility, it would probably rate three stars, but I enjoyed it so much, tearing through it in only two sessions, that it merits a good four stars, and I look forward to whatever comes next.

Review: A Very Proper Widow by Laura Matthews (1982)

Another odd book from Laura Matthews. I enjoyed it well enough, but the quirky side characters were unredeemably awful, I didn’t particularly like either of the two main characters and the intrusive sexual element felt jarring.

Here’s the premise: Vanessa Damery has been a widow for two years, with two small children to raise and her husband’s much-neglected estate to manage, with no help from her fellow trustee. In addition, she’s been inundated with a variety of her husband’s relations and assorted hangers-on, which her kind-hearted parents tell her it’s her Christian duty to support. Into this difficult situation belatedly arrives the missing trustee, Lord Alvescot, very much aware of his condescension in doing so, and quite prepared to find everything in disarray at the hands of a mere woman. And just why are her expenses so high, anyway? His arrival is marred by a collision with the recklessly driven curricle of one of the hangers-on, his expected suitably large bedroom isn’t available, and in the poky room he’s assigned, a flimsy chair promptly collapses under his weight. Not an auspicious start.

I have to say, for anyone who’s a fan of curmudgeonly heroes, Alvescot is a spectacular example of the breed. He dislikes and distrusts everyone, is universally hostile and thoroughly charmless, and then there’s his aristocratic arrogance. But then Vanessa is edgy with him, too, not rude precisely but certainly prepared to give as good as she gets. Meanwhile, the hangers-on are as dismal a bunch as one can imagine, and it’s hard to see why she keeps supporting them, let alone have them living under her roof. In the whole household, only the children and the land steward are nice, normal, friendly people.

I was a little surprised that Vanessa was left so alone to take care of everything. Her husband’s relations are just spongers, not one of them having the commonsense to make themselves useful, or help in any way, apart from the one proposing vastly extravagant menus. And did she have no relations of her own who might have helped out? It would have been very unusual in those days for a woman to be managing an estate of any size. Normally the trustees would all be male. But there is a very poignant moment when she has to take the authoritative role, not one she’s ever been trained for and which goes against all her instincts, but she does it, and ends up shaking afterwards. That felt very real, to me, and was the point where I felt real sympathy for her.

The romance has a lot of ground to cover to get from mutual hostility to happy ending, and frankly I never found it very convincing. He gradually comes to see that she’s doing a good job with both the estate and the children under difficult circumstances, and inch by inch he begins to want to relieve her of some of the burdens. And of course, if he’d been remotely doing his job as fellow trustee from the start, she wouldn’t have had nearly so much to contend with. What she sees in him is less obvious. He starts off disliking her quite intensely, and when that starts to change into something else, he starts touching her. Now, holding her hand at a moment of stress is one thing, but he rests his hand on her shoulder at one point and starts playing with her hair, during an otherwise rational conversation, and frankly that just felt creepy to me. Then he kisses her and goes away without a word, leaving her uncertain, and sends her only businesslike letters. Foolish man.

Needless to say, the two do sort themselves out eventually, as well as seeing off the hangers-on, and the final night-time shenanigans with one particular lady are almost worth the price of admission alone, and single-handedly dragged the book from a grudging three stars up to four. I’ve mentioned the sex, which is not particularly graphic but didn’t add much to the story, although to be fair, with a widow, there ought to be some acknowledgement of it, and particularly whether the first marriage was satisfactory or not. For pedants out there, be warned that there’s a good sprinkling of Americanisms, especially ‘gotten’, but generally this felt very Heyeresque in tone. Despite the criticisms, I still enjoyed the read, and if this is a bit different from the usual Regency fare, I’m always happy to wander away from the familiar roads.

 

Review: Lord Greywell’s Dilemma by Laura Matthews (1983)

An odd book that I enjoyed, but it had some worrying elements, not least a surprising amount of sexual content for a book of this age, plus a wife dallying with a man other than her husband. But an interesting read, nonetheless.

Here’s the premise: Elspeth Parksone is 26 and determined not to marry. Her mother died ten years ago, and ever since then her father has been merrily fathering bastards on every willing girl in the neighbourhood. Elspeth takes the opposing path of becoming ever more puritanical, taking care of the bastards and devoting her life to good works about the parish. Having accidentally encountered her father in flagrante delicto with a local wench, and misunderstanding the groans of passion, the horrified Elspeth has decided that marriage is not for her. Meanwhile, David, Viscount Greywell, has just lost his beloved wife in childbirth and his son is sickly and not expected to live. When a mutual friend suggests that what he needs is a wife used to dealing with infants, and he knows just the person…

So Lord Greywell arrives to take a look at Elspeth, and after some manoeuvring, they reach an accommodation and marry. He immediately takes off for Vienna and the political negotiations going on there, leaving Elspeth to take care of the child, the household and the estate.

I confess that this is precisely the sort of situation that fascinates me. Modern marriages are almost exclusively based on romantic love, but the Regency was full of pragmatic marriages which were more a business arrangement than anything else. In this case, Elspeth only agrees to it on the understanding that it will be a marriage of convenience only, and she won’t have to participate in any of that nasty man/woman intimacy that so repels her. Lord Greywell is still too grief-stricken over his wife to care much. So long as his son and heir survives, nothing more will be demanded of his wife.

Their first few days together are a master-study in the difficulties inherent in such arrangements. He finds himself constantly comparing her with his late wife, unfavourably. She is constantly bumping up against the traditions of the household, and wondering what she can change and what will annoy her new husband too much. Their interactions are edgy and sometimes downright hostile, and yet they are both smart enough to understand and make allowances for the other. There’s a continual process of adjustment between them, but it’s not clear at first whether this will end in a rapprochement or whether it will descend to outright war.

But then Lord Greywell goes off to be a diplomat, and their only communication is by letter, a very unsatisfactory means of communication for two people with so wide a gulf between them. He fades out of the picture somewhat at this point, and Elspeth is left to her own devices, stymied somewhat by the conventions of the neighbourhood from carrying out her usual charitable projects, and at somewhat of a loose end. Into this void comes Francis Treyford, the effete son of neighbours and a poet, who falls into a kind of infatuation with Elspeth, writing her impassioned poetry and generally hanging around her. And with her husband away, she is vulnerable to his attentions.

I confess to a certain queasiness about her behaviour at this point. I can understand a roving eye before a couple get together, and even something a bit more physical than that, but once there’s a definite pairing, the two should not be looking elsewhere, and certainly not doing anything more than looking. Elspeth and Francis get beyond kisses into something that would certainly have ended up in infidelity, except that Elspeth draws back at the crucial moment. The interlude serves to awaken her to the possibilities of physical intimacy, however, so when her husband returns, she is far more open to the idea than she was, and this smooths the path to the final rapprochement between the two.

I can respect this as an interesting choice by the author, and perhaps in the real world a wife in this situation, effectively abandoned by her husband, feeling lonely and unwanted, might indeed be vulnerable to another man. But frankly, I wonder how likely it would be that a well brought up Regency woman, especially one as buttoned up as Elspeth, would proceed quite so far down the path to an affair. And as a reader I would much rather it had been her husband who opened her eyes to the possibilities of marital intimacy. For that reason, I feel I can only give this four stars. The subject of sex pervades the whole book, and there’s a mildly graphic interlude towards the end. In addition, there are a number of Americanisms (gotten, write him instead of write to him, etc) which also detracted from my enjoyment. A great pity.

 

Review: A Snowbound Courtship by Holli Jo Monroe (2023)

This is a delightful little book, only novella length, but still packing in quite a lot of story, for all that. I’ve never read this author before, but I’ll be looking out for other books by her from now on.

Here’s the premise: And it’s one of the most original ones I’ve come across. Josephine Pearce had a happy and fulfilled life with her widowed father and her three younger sisters. She’s still single at twenty-seven, but that’s never bothered her. But now her father has died, there’s no brother to inherit, so the estate has passed to a cousin and his unpleasant wife. Life has become pretty miserable, and there’s no prospect of a season in London for one of the sisters to find a husband. So Jo is going to do what responsible older sisters must do – she’s going to get a husband for herself, and a home for all the sisters. And she knows just who and how. Her object is Mr Wallace, the steward on the neighbouring estate of Oakstone Hall, and if she times one of her charitable visits just right, she’ll get caught in a storm and have to take shelter in Oakstone Hall and stay overnight, she’ll be compromised and the honourable Mr Wallace will be forced to offer for her. This sounds like a pretty ruthless plan, but she’s fairly certain that Mr Wallace would not be averse to the idea.

Which is a fascinating concept. I’ve read innumerable books where the heroine is accidentally compromised, and quite a few where an unscrupulous female, not the heroine, tries to get herself compromised by the hero, but this is the first time the heroine has set out quite calmly and rationally to get herself compromised by a man, and not even a handsome, titled man, just someone situated to take care of her and her sisters.

Needless to say, her careful plans go badly awry. The storm is worse than she’d expected, she’s almost run down by a stranger on horseback, whose horse then bolts, and they’re both forced to take shelter in a hermit’s hut on the Oakstone estate. Since they’re soaking wet, this involves undressing down to their underwear to dry out their clothes. Of course it does. Fortunately, it turns out that he’s not a stranger at all, but a neighbour she was friendly with as a child. And wouldn’t you just know it, he grew up to be pretty hot stuff, handsome, charming and the heir to a title. What are the odds, eh? And wouldn’t you just know it even more, they get discovered by the very Mr Wallace that Josie had been planning to entrap.

From here on, the plot’s one that any experienced reader of the genre would expect, but it’s none the worse for that. There’s a lot of agonising on both sides over whether they’re doing the right thing, and since Mr Wallace insists on thrusting himself into the middle of the situation, it all gets a bit complicated. I rather liked the effort that went in to trying to hide the truth of the situation from the world at large in order to protect Josie’s reputation. So many Regencies skate over that aspect, but it felt very authentic to me.

Of course everything comes to a very satisfactory conclusion. There were one or two oddities of language (a transactional relationship? In a Regency novel?) but otherwise this was beautifully written. As a novella, it naturally lacks the subplots that a full length novel would feature, but that just means that all the focus is on the central romance. A highly enjoyable read. Five stars.

Review: What’s In A Name? by Janny Hambly (2023)

A new Jenny Hambly book is always a treat, and so it is here – a lovely gentle read, with nothing too melodramatic to disturb the slowly developing romance.

Here’s the premise: Emma Wynn has been living in a safe environment for a year, a place where women escaping from dangers in their life can hide away and recover their health and strength. There she befriended another girl with a traumatic past. But Nell is now happily married to the Marquess of Eagleton and living quietly in Cornwall as she awaits the birth of her first child. Emma is sent to keep her company, a way of giving her a change of scenery while still keeping her safe. There she meets the Eagletons’ reclusive neighbour, Oliver Carne, a man with his own difficult history. The two are drawn to each other from the first, by way of a series of rather too convenient ‘accidents’, but the secrets and scandals of their pasts make them wary of getting involved.

Emma and Oliver are both sensible and eminently likeable people. It’s obvious that they are well suited and everything moves along smoothly, except for the teeny tiny problem of their pasts. Emma must keep herself free from scandal so that she can assume control of her younger brother when she attains her majority, but Oliver has been embroiled in a particularly nasty scandal. It’s not of his making, but it seems impossible to prove his innocence – or is it? The last third of the book addresses this problem, and the weight of history for both the main characters rather overshadows the romance. It makes the book seem rather unbalanced, the gentle and slow-moving nature of the couple’s developing love giving way abruptly to a faster pace as both of them face up to their pasts. Then the difficulties are resolved almost too easily.

The author’s writing shines, as always, with a sure sense of the Regency and a particular talent for evoking a place. In Carteret, it was the house that was described in exquisite detail, but here it’s the outdoors – the river, with its shingle beach where Oliver pulled his boat from the water, or the woods with the ‘buttery yellow’ leaves and frost underfoot. Hambly brings these settings vividly to life, and the image of Emma as a wood nymph in her moss green cloak is one that lingers long in the mind.
I’ve said that our hero and heroine are sensible, but they’re almost too sensible sometimes. I would have liked the odd flaw in their personalities and a little more fire from them now and then. Regency restraint is a real thing and they certainly have good reasons for holding back, but it was a relief when Oliver finally decided he’s not going to wait and got things moving at last. If I have a grumble at all (and it’s a very trivial one), it’s that Emma’s sudden outbreak of accidents seemed very convenient to the plot. Her panic at almost meeting strangers seemed a little out of character, but her injuries forced her into contact with former doctor Oliver.

The other characters are nicely drawn, from the marquess, an endearing combination of haughty aristocrat and over-anxious husband, the very Italian Signora Mantovani and Maria, the down-to-earth locals and Oliver’s grumpy but not unreasonable relations. Be warned, though, that several of the characters have been seen before. Although this is the first of a new series, there’s some overlap with the previous series, as is now the norm with this author. It’s not essential to have read it, but a familiarity with ‘Eagleton’ will be very helpful. I’m spectacularly bad at remembering previous books, but there was enough detail given here to jog my memory, and I don’t think a newcomer to the author would have much trouble picking up the backstory.

As always, a lovely read from one of the best Regency authors around. A very good four stars.

 

Review: A Scholarly Pursuit by Christina Dudley (2023)

I’ve been looking forward to this for a while – I’ve loved Agatha (Aggie) Weeks from the very first book in the series, when she and her equally hoydenish friend Araminta (Minta) Ellsworth were shooting arrows at anything they could see, very often at each other.

Here’s the premise: In the last book, Aggie fell for highly unsuitable fortune hunter Francis Taplin, although happily Minta intervened to save her from him, and in the process found her own true love. But it’s now four years later, and Aggie still hasn’t found anyone to replace Taplin in her heart. She’s not still yearning for the unattainable and she’s quite contented with her spinsterish life, thank you very much, but when news arrives that Francis Taplin is returning to the neighbourhood, albeit briefly, Aggie becomes the unwanted focus of everyone’s concern, in case she falls for Taplin all over again.

Meanwhile, not only has Aggie done some growing up, so has Minta’s twin, Tyrone Ellsworth, who’s been testing his bookish nature at Oxford, and drumming up a nice little business writing love poems and marriage proposals for his love-lorn fellow scholars. I confess, this gave me a little bit of a wobble. What is a respectable lad like Tyrone doing encouraging his fellow scholars to write letters of any kind to ladies to whom they’re not betrothed? But the examples we come across in the book are, generally speaking, acceptable – apologies, proposals and the occasional sonnet are not quite the same as regular correspondence, so I can let it pass (although a stickler of a parent might not be so tolerant).

Tyrone’s booted out of Oxford for various transgressions, including the writing of missives for others, but once free of constraint, the business continues, specifically for Mr Gareth Boulton, newly installed curate at St Swithun’s of Headbourne Worthy. And his target is none other than Aggie herself. And here’s another wobble. Unless Mr Boulton has some other source of income, his salary as a curate (maybe fifty pounds a year) is barely enough to feed and clothe himself, let alone take on a wife and the inevitable string of children that will follow, not to mention that a curate can be fired at any time. And although Aggie’s very rich, that just makes him the worst kind of fortune hunter. But it’s perhaps a minor point.

So Tyrone is busy encouraging Boulton’s romantic pursuit of Aggie, even though he thinks it unlikely to succeed, and Aggie is resolutely fending off the persistent Mr Taplin, who’s back and ready to reopen his flirtation with her. And into this setting comes Miss Clementine Caraway, a much hated former head girl of the school Tyrone’s sister Bea attended, now determinedly setting her cap at Tyrone. Throw in the various siblings (of both Tyrone and Aggie) meddling away, as siblings are wont to do, and things get complicated very quickly.

Inevitably Aggie finds out that she’s been deceived, and by her lifelong friend Tyrone, no less, and is furious not just with him, but with herself for being persuaded by a man’s insincere blandishments for a second time. Not that she fell in love with Boulton, but every letter Tyrone wrote for him made him seem like a thoughtful, gentle sort of man, and not the bumbling idiot he is in reality, and I did wonder at the morality of that (although Tyrone himself comes to realise that it’s not a good idea).
This discovery by Aggie comes just at the point where she is realising that it’s Tyrone she loves (and little though she knows it, he has fallen in love with her). The slowing growing feelings between them is one of the high points of the book. I love a slowly developing romance, and the transition from friends to lovers is surely one of the most difficult for an author to achieve, but here it’s beautifully done.

From this point the book rapidly descends into a swirl of misunderstandings and well-intentioned mismanagement, and an ending that felt out of kilter to me. Several reviewers thought it was rushed and out of character, but to me it didn’t have the emotional resonance I expect in a romance. I do think it’s exactly in line with the characters of the two principals – Aggie recklessly rushing into things and Tyrone in his relaxed way just going along with it, and worrying about the consequences later. There’s also a sense of history repeating itself after Aggie’s previous romantic entanglement. But it felt unfinished, and I never thought I’d say this, but I really would have liked an epilogue to show us that everything turned out well.

Some minor grumbles. I would have liked a family tree to work out who everyone was and who they were married to. The author is very correct with names, but I have trouble remembering characters from one book to the next and I’d have liked a bit of help. Historically it’s very sound, although I did wonder about there being packets of branded shortbread in the Regency. I’d have thought it was a Victorian thing, but I may well be wrong. A smattering of Americanisms (visit with, out the door, if it mends matters any and a few others) tripped me up, but it’s a trivial point.

The writing is superb, as ever, authentic and witty and downright clever (especially Tyrone, and how refreshing to meet a character intended to be clever who actually is, although he got into an inarticulate muddle with Aggie, which reminded me a little of Heyer’s Sylvester). There are so many funny moments in it – I laughed all the way through. However, the questionable ethics of writing letters for other people and that strange ending keep it to four stars for me.

 

Review: The Lady Next Door by Laura Matthews (1981)

A glorious read, and the first book in a while that I couldn’t bear to put down. Sensible characters who know their own mind from the start, not one but three (and a bit) romances to enjoy, and a hero who (praise be!) isn’t browbeaten by his harridan of a mother, but deals with her absolutely firmly and immovably. I get so tired of noblemen who crumble at the first sign of disapproval from Mama, so bonus points for that. And not a misunderstanding or an elopement or a kidnapping in sight. Wonderful.

Here’s the premise: Marianne Findlay comes from a good family, but eight years ago her reputation was destroyed by the actions of the Countess of Latteridge. Now she’s struggling to make ends meet by taking in lodgers in the dilapidated York house she’s fortuitously inherited, with her grumpy spinster aunt for company. One of the lodgers has decided that he would like to marry her, owing to the rather fine house she now owns, and the other is busy trying not to blow up said house with his experiments, but Marianne can deal with them. Slowly, she’s finding her feet in society again, albeit at a much lower level than before, and Aunt Effie has hopes that a match can be made with nice Dr Thorne, who seems to enjoy Marianne’s company. But now there’s trouble brewing, for their York refuge happens to be next door to the Earl of Latteridge’s house, and the whole family, including his mother, is about to take up residence for the autumn and winter season.

Marianne can’t avoid the family entirely, and she soon finds that the earl’s younger brother, Harry, is an enthusiastic charming young man, enthralled by the creations of her inventor lodger. Even the earl, when he arrives, is a pleasant and sensible man, not at all the disapproving and haughty peer she’d expected. His sister, too, is lovely and quite unbothered by Marianne’s supposedly disreputable past. So things are humming along nicely, until the Countess of Latteridge discovers Marianne’s presence next door and sets about making her displeasure widely known.

There’s nothing terribly surprising about how the plot unravels, but the Earl of Latteridge is very much the perfect hero, who sees Marianne as his future wife almost from the start and sets about making it happen with single-minded determination, and won’t allow anything or anyone to get in his way, least of all his mother. The two have a couple of glorious scenes where he simply exerts his authority firmly and she has no choice but to surrender. Highly enjoyable! I love me a hero who does the right thing at once with no dithering. The rest of the assemblage of characters are perhaps a little too good-natured to be realistic, but it makes a change from the usual black-hearted villainy that seems to be a staple of Regencies. Marianne was perhaps a little bland for my taste, but it’s a small quibble. The romance is entertaining, especially as the earl finally wins his lady by overcoming her objections one by one – very cleverly done.

An unusual premise but a highly entertaining read, set in York for a change and actually set at some unspecified Georgian period, so not a Regency at all, but apart from a few details of dress and the lodger’s inventions, there’s not a great deal of difference. I’ve only read one other book by this author, The Nomad Harp, and I enjoyed that, too. I’ll have to look for more of the author’s books. Five stars.

 

Review: Writing Regency England [Non-fiction] by Jayne Davis and Gail Eastwood

This is the book I wish I’d had when I first started writing Regencies seven years ago. In fact, I did no research at all for my first attempt, apart from steeping myself in Georgette Heyer’s entire catalogue and absorbing a great deal of information by osmosis. So, I just sat down to write. But there came a moment in the second book when my heroine was writing a letter. She finished it, set down her pen and reached for an envelope… Wait a minute. Envelopes? In the Regency? Vague memories surfaced of simply unfolding a letter (thank you, all those BBC costume dramas, but are they accurate?). So it’s off to the internet to look it up. The trouble with the internet is that it’s not Regency-focused, so you have to jump past paragraphs about aerograms and the US Civil War and Japanese envelope sizes before you get to the history of envelopes, and even then it has to be teased out of a deluge of irrelevant information. But by contrast, Writing Regency England says succinctly: ‘ Pre-made envelopes did not exist until after 1830, so letters were usually folded and secured by the use of sealing wax or a paste wafer.’ Perfect!

The book contains 16 chapters on topics roughly grouped into three categories: language, setting and society. As a native Brit myself, I probably won’t make use of the lists of American expressions or non-British flora and fauna, and I’ve been writing Regencies long enough to know the difference between barons and baronets, and heirs apparent and heirs presumptive, but there are still fascinating sections that I shall be using all the time. It’s 31st October – what can my hero shoot/stalk/hunt? [Answer: pheasant and wild ducks; red stags, fallow bucks and roe bucks in England; red hinds and roe does in Scotland]. What’s in flower in the garden? [Answer: asters, bizzie lizzies, dahlias, zinnias (amongst others), but not roses].

Among the most interesting chapters for me are the ones dealing with regional variations over England. There are also snippets about Britain’s other constituent parts like Wales and Scotland (Ireland isn’t covered, apart from the language). I’ve travelled about the country quite a bit, but without acquiring much idea of the different geographical features or how the houses differ from one region to another. All that is here, including place names, dialect, and the different terminology for things like rivers, hills and lakes, with pictures and maps, so you can see exactly what they’re talking about. And the authors never forget that the book is aimed at authors, so there are some wonderful suggestions for Regency-accurate ways to injure or even kill your characters!

But this book isn’t only useful to authors. I know there are many readers out there who care deeply about historical accuracy in the Regency romances you read, and even if you don’t, there must have been times when you looked up from a book thinking, “Wait a minute – was that really a thing then?” It can be frustrating not to know. And then one book shows a situation that another book depicts as being impossible, historically – so which is right? If you’ve ever wondered whether what you were reading was accurate or not, then this is the book to tell you.

So whether you’re an author or a reader, this book is highly recommended. I was given an advance copy to read, but I’ve bought it too – it will sit right beside my laptop as I write from now on. An excellent five stars.

Review: Sanditon (TV, seasons 2 and 3)

I wrote a very disgruntled and ranty review of the first season of Sandition some while back (read it here). I disliked the sheer nastiness of it – a pretty obnoxious hero, a stupid heroine, a bunch of people obsessed with money and sex (or both!) and very little to praise beyond the inevitable lush costumes. And then the ending was an abomination, a negation of everything that a Jane Austen-inspired tale ought to be. Great was the disgruntlement in JA-fanland. And the fact that the intended second series was cancelled only rubbed salt in the wound.

But lo, wiser heads eventually prevailed, the series was given two more seasons and permission to round everything off in truly romantic style at the end of season 3. Gone is the sex and avarice and edginess, and in its place, a kind of fluffy soapiness that wouldn’t frighten the horses (or even keep them awake, possibly). There’s a cliched blandness to the series now that makes it more restful watching, but it never rises above the mediocre.

Season 2 focuses on a regiment of soldiers stationed at Sanditon for the summer. Charlotte’s sister Alison gets involved with two of the soldiers there, while Charlotte herself becomes governess to the two bolshie children of reclusive widower Mr Colbourne. Meanwhile, Georgiana Lambe has disposed of her unpleasant chaperon, and is fending off fortune-hunters and falling for the Byronic charm of painter Charles Lockhart, while Esther Denham (now Lady Babbington), Clara Brereton, Sir Edward Denham and Lady Denham have a convoluted subplot of their own, which proves ultimately the writer’s ignorance of Regency law concerning illegitimacy. And the Parkers are back, being very Parkerish – Tom enthusiastic, Arthur delightfully gentlemanly and Mary – well, Mary is the beating heart of Sandition, far more than the supposed heroine, Charlotte Heywood.

It’s obvious that Colbourne is Charlotte’s love interest almost from the start. Can I say at once how miscast I thought he was? I’m sure he would be great in other roles, and he can certainly act, but as a brooding Regency hero, he just didn’t cut the mustard, for me. I’d like him as a friend, but I’d never get the hots for him as presented here. Getting rid of the trendy stubble would help (Regency men were almost universally clean-shaven, folks, and those loose cravats are hideous), but I still don’t find him sexy. But then Charlotte isn’t exactly a hot heroine, either. She all too often looks like a bewildered rabbit caught in the headlights. Again, the loose hair doesn’t help – it makes her look fourteen instead of a grown woman.

The ending of Season 2 throws up the sort of pseudo-cliffhanger that TV types love, when Charlotte betroths herself to a farmer in Willingden, but since we know perfectly well that there’s a third and final series coming up (and the two were filmed back to back), no one was very worried about that, I imagine.

Season 3 moves on to make Sanditon the bustling resort Tom Parker always dreamt of, and I have to say that the set, although it feels smaller than in previous series, since the characters rarely leave the beachfront, is actually rather prettily done. And it really is thronged with people now. Of course, Tom Parker isn’t satisfied, and now wants to build a grand hotel, largely by knocking down the old village around the harbour where the poor people live. Well, we know how that’s going to work out, don’t we? In fact, this series has absolutely no surprises whatsoever, and very little conflict. Lockhart turns up to try to wrest Georgiana’s fortune from her, but he’s seen off by five minutes in court. A famous singer is engaged to entertain the king, but when he fails to turn up, she just shrugs and carries on. An old flame of Lady Denham’s turns up, fireworks are predicted and then… they get along famously. The whole series is a collection of nothingburgers that fizzle out at the first challenge. But it’s all very pretty, so there’s that.

The writers are still flummoxed by Regency protocol. A major new character in this series is variously referred to as Lord Henry Montrose, Lord Montrose and the Duke of Buckingham. These are THREE DIFFERENT PEOPLE! Lord Henry Montrose would be the younger son of a duke or marquess. He’s addressed as Lord Henry or my lord. Lord Montrose would be EITHER a marquess, earl, viscount or baron in his own right, OR the eldest son and heir to a duke, marquess or earl. He’s addressed as Lord Montrose or my lord. And the Duke of Buckingham is a duke, not Lord anything, and is addressed as Duke, or Your Grace. And it should be added that both the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Montrose are real titles (although Montrose is now a dukedom, but there was also a marquessate and an earldom of that name). It takes precisely five minutes to find this stuff out.

And while we’re on the subject of titles, how come Charlotte’s plot-device friend, Lady Susan (the daughter of a duke, marquess or earl) in this series becomes Lady de Clermont (the widow of a marquess, earl, viscount or baron)? She can’t be both simultaneously, or at least, she can, but she can’t be called both names interchangeably. But whatever she’s called, she’s by far the most interesting character in this series, a mature woman of common sense, who knows her own worth and her place in the world. And if she wobbled a little over her future at the end, that was just the scriptwriters ramping up the tension. She was far too astute a person to throw away her own happiness.

As for the rest of them – all the various storylines got tied up with neat little bows. Most of the romances ended the predictable way, and even Arthur got the prospect of a little future happiness, rather unexpectedly. And who foresaw the touching little romance for the vicar’s middle-aged sister? I did like that Charlotte reached her happy ever after at the exact same place high above the town where Sydney Parker so infamously jilted her at the end of series 1. That was a perfect resolution (even if I never warmed to Mr Colbourne as a passionate hero). Lady Denham made the correct decision for her – where most couples fell into the ‘love above all’ category, she decided that what she loved above all was her money, her house and her title. And her independence, of course. As for Georgiana, after dabbling with the idea of a loveless marriage to a duke, who could at least protect her from harassment, she fell back into the clutches of the undeniably handsome but unreliable Otis. So no independence there. And Sir Edward, the bad guy from the first moments of season 1, redeemed? Well… you can believe that if you want.

With the three series cycle now complete, I can say that there was more enjoyment than annoyance, overall. The costumes and sets were pretty, and if there was very little bite to any of it, if you can get past the unpleasantness of the first series, it’s lightweight and undemanding viewing. I might even watch it again in the future, who knows?