Mary Kingswood's Blog, page 12

Review: The Chaperone by Sophia Holloway (2023)

I will confess, I have a huge problem with the premise of this story, that a single woman of twenty-three could be an acceptable chaperone for two debutantes in the London season. In the country, yes, no problem at all. In a village or small(ish) town or somewhere like Bath, certainly. But London? Almack’s? The theatre? Balls and crowded evening entertainments? No, absolutely not. Only a married woman could fulfil the role, to my mind, and that made the whole book a bit problematic for me. But everything else was well-nigh perfect, so I can let it go.

Here’s the premise: Lady Sophronia Hadlow did her best to find a husband when she was brought out into society, but her unusual height meant that she was unsuccessful, just as her mother, Lady Chelmarsh, feared. Sophy retired from the fray thankfully to allow her younger sisters their turn, but now she’s called upon to return to London. Her mother is bringing out both Sophy’s younger sister Harriet and a cousin, Susan Tyneham, but she may be called away to the confinement of another daughter, Frances. If so, she’ll expect Sophy to take over as chaperone.

So, this is shaping up to be your run-of-the-mill ‘season’ book, with the usual backdrop of modistes, Hyde Park, Almack’s, eligible gentlemen and fortune hunters, etc, etc, and so it is, in some ways, but it has a lot more depth than the usual. The way Sophy is drawn in by Lord Rothley is perfectly believable, and the reader feels the same giddiness as Sophy – is she actually flirting? Is he flirting with her? Sophy has never had an admirer before, so she’s a bit out of her depth, yet never silly with it. She’s that perfect heroine, sensible, quick-witted, easy in society, whether male or female, and really, it’s hard to see why she wasn’t snapped up years ago. And no, her unusual height isn’t a valid excuse – plenty of men are tall, too, and some of them are capable of admiring a woman for more than just looks or dowry or breeding.

Her sister Harriet is a fairly typical debutante, rather timid and trying not to put a foot wrong, but the cousin, Susan, is a fascinating character. Although she’s an innocent in many ways, just like Harriet, she enjoys a power over men that has them almost instantly at her feet. And when I say she enjoys it, she really does, even though she doesn’t really understand the dangerous game she plays. She just can’t stop playing, though. She drops a package for a passing gentleman to pick up. She even flirts with the male servants. She pretends to let her horse run wild, so that she can be ‘rescued’ by some passing cavalrymen. And when a man admires the gentle Harriet, she sets out to steal him. Needless to say, this leads to all sorts of problems for Susan herself, and also for Sophy and family. And when Lady Chelmarsh is forced to decamp to her married daughter in a hurry, it’s left to Sophy to steer Harriet and Susan towards suitable matches and try to prevent Susan from destroying their chances entirely.

And into this oddly nerve-wracking scenario come the suitors. Lord Bollington, an early admirer of Susan’s, is put off when she tries to increase his ardour by making him jealous. Sir Esmond Fawley is a pleasant and respectable man who seems oddly drawn to the uncontrollable Susan. There’s Lord Tyneham, Susan’s boorish and stuffy brother, who has decided he’s going to marry Sophy, whether she likes it or not. And then there’s Lord Rothley, who seems to have something of a reputation and is definitely rakishly attractive, but when he starts dancing attendance on the three young women, Lady Chelmarsh warns Sophy against him in no uncertain terms. And yet… she finds him almost irresistible, and she feels instinctively that she can trust him.

The plot unfolds in ways that are anything but predictable. If Sophy and Harriet and several of the men are rather too ‘nice’ and would perhaps be bland in other contexts, the wildcard Susan always stirs things up in interesting and unexpected ways. And the writing is superb, in every way, with a perfect Regency tone, no typos and (apart from the 23-year-old unmarried chaperone) no major historical errors. More than that, there’s a complexity to the characters that’s rarely seen in this genre. So despite the chaperonage, I can’t give this less than five stars, and recommend it to anyone looking for a literate and beautifully realised portrait of the Regency.

 

Review: Beloved by Mary Lancaster (2023)

One of very few books whose release date I marked in the calendar! Couldn’t wait to read Victor’s story (the most interesting character of the series), plus the explanation for how the duke died in the duel. Was it worth the wait? Absolutely! I loved Victor, as I suspected I would, and although the revelation of what happened at the duel wasn’t particularly surprising, there was enough real tension to drive the plot along very nicely. One word of warning: because of the nature of the plot, which culminates in all the principal characters in Brussels at the time of the Battle of Waterloo, it makes far more sense to have read the preceding books first.

Here’s the premise: Victor, the new Duke of Cuttyngham, has been left behind at Cuttyngs, alone but for the servants. He sent away everyone but his stepmother and sister, but even they have jumped ship and gone off to Brussels. But into his quiet, studious life comes Olivia, the natural daughter of Victor’s cousin and heir, to warn him that his life may be in danger. Which is lovely and all, but she’s the daughter of Victor’s cousin and heir presumptive, Anthony Severne, who is no friend to Victor, so how can he possibly trust her? And she, of course, has her own concerns about putting herself forward. But she knows something about the duel and so she feels she has to speak out.

I’m not going to say much about the duel, except that the secrets behind it come nicely to the boil in Brussels. Let’s talk about the romance, instead. As with the entire series, everything happens fairly quickly – far too quickly for credibility, perhaps. But it’s all very nicely done, and it was lovely seeing the curmudgeonly and reclusive Victor, thoroughly abused by his father because of a malformed leg, but with a very good brain and far more heart than his father, stepping forward and becoming a true hero. And he likes being the duke at last, and making things happen, instead of being nothing but an irritant to his father. I liked how decisive he was when he set out for Brussels, making careful plans and protecting Olivia and the servants, as well as himself.

Olivia was not quite such a striking character for me, not because there was anything lacking but purely because she was overshadowed by the towering personality of Victor. If you’re the sort of reader who loves to meet up with characters from earlier books, then you’ll adore the second half of this one, where everyone from the entire series is gathered in Brussels. I got muddled over who was whom, but that’s just me. The villain was suitably villainous, and if the identity was obvious from the start, that didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the ending one iota.

The author does a terrific job of showing the atmosphere in the build-up to the Battle of Waterloo — the British insouciance and determination to carry on as normal and not be frightened by the French, and yet the growing tension. We see some of the aftereffects of the battle, and the scale of the carnage is not hidden, but it’s not graphic (I’m allergic to war stories, so I’d have bailed if there had been anything gruesome).

This was a wonderful conclusion to the series. No, it’s not particularly plausible, but it’s a hugely entertaining romp from dramatic start to equally dramatic finish. I loved it. There is some mildly graphic sexual content, for those who like to know about such things, but for me this was a wonderful five stars.

 

Review: A Song Of Secrets by Robyn Chalmers (2020)

This was an interesting and unusual diversion from the well-worn tracks of Regency romances. The hero is a vicar, for one thing, which is rare enough, but the heroine is an opera singer, of all things, and that really is different! The plot isn’t wildly original (house party… family tensions… snowed up…), but any author who has the chutzpah to wheel out the Archbishop of Canterbury, no less, to play a role in the book has my admiration.

Here’s the premise: Sarah Haygarth is perhaps the most famous opera singer in London. However, she’s facing a bleak future, because within a few years she’ll be past her best and what will she do then? All her spare money has been sent home to her family, who have disowned her, so she has no comfortable bank balance to cushion her old age and nowhere to turn. Her only options are to become someone’s mistress, which she’s strenuously resisted so far, or to marry well, and how likely is that? But then a lifeline is thrown to her – the kindly old Earl of Wrotham invites her to participate in a musicale at his estate, where she will be treated as an honoured guest.

Sarah sees the opportunity. The earl’s heir is unmarried, she knows she’s a desirable woman who can twist susceptible men around her little finger, so why shouldn’t she have a stab at nabbing him? The only snag in this cunning scheme is the earl’s younger son, the annoying Evander Ambrose, who’s a clergyman and therefore likely to be highly censorious. He’s the one who’s sent to escort her to the earl’s house (oddly called Six Oaks Manor), and it seems he’s already on to her little scheme, and is determined to put a spoke in her wheel. The only snag is, he’s attracted to her himself, and him a vicar too, and a widower whose wife is still mourned. So there’s a lot of interesting banter between the two, with a certain edge on his part.

Sarah gives as good as she gets, but she’s an oddly unsettling character (for me as a reader, and not just for Evander and other susceptible males). On the one hand, she’s an opera singer so she’s not exactly welcomed into polite society. She’s regarded in the same light as mistresses (which she’s widely assumed to be), that is, someone who should never be allowed to mingle with respectable women. Yet she’s given this opening by the kindly earl, and she wants to use it to marry herself to the earl’s heir. So you’d think, then, she’d be on her very best behaviour at all times, wouldn’t you? She knows what’s expected of her. But no, she seems to relish stirring things up and throwing out wiles at every verse end.

Inevitably, she steps out of line and is exiled, but Evander just happens to have an empty cottage on his estate… (yes, the vicar doesn’t live in the vicarage, he has an estate of his own because reasons, although with no live-in servants, again because reasons). So off she goes, and everything is going along swimmingly until there’s a fire at Evander’s house and he and his sons are forced to bunk down with Sarah at the cottage. Cue massive scandal where the Archbishop of Canterbury in person tells them they have to marry. Which neither of them particularly mind.

After this the plot runs on the familiar rails, and wraps up nicely. For those who care about such things, there’s a steady trickle of minor historical inaccuracies (example: Evander wears a wedding ring, but men just didn’t then; that came in more than a century later). I didn’t mind. The book is well written, I loved the originality of pairing a vicar with an opera singer, and the banter was clever. There’s at least one passionate kiss, but nothing at all graphic. Four stars, and recommended.

 

Review: Country Cousins by Dinah Dean (1986)

This is the second book in the series, following after The Country Gentleman, and this is but a pale imitation of that one. It’s set in the same village, features several of the same characters and even the plot has many points of similarity, but it lacks the rural charm of the previous book, and the heroine is, frankly, irritatingly stupid. And despite all that, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Here’s the premise: Miss Caroline Barnes lives on the fringes of London. Her mother has moved down in the world by marrying Mr Barnes, who’s in trade, although clearly prosperous and well-respected. Caroline is perfectly content, but one day Mr Robert Hartwell arrives on the doorstep and reveals the existence of a family Caroline never knew. Caroline’s mother has a sister who married a widowed baron. Mr Hartwell is the son of the first marriage, but there were two daughters from the second marriage. Lord and Lady Hartwell and the younger daughter are currently in France, being held prisoner by the French, but the elder daughter, Julia, is staying at Mr Hartwell’s house, Canons Grange. She’s lonely, bored and a bit wilful – could Caroline, as her cousin, come to stay, and be company for Julia?

Of course she could, and there’s some fairly dull, oh-my-goodness-why-do-the-sheep-have-horns business from Caroline, who is painted as the ignorant city girl who’s not sure how to cope with the real world. Julia is exactly the spoilt, wilful girl her brother described, but her wilfulness mostly manifests itself in refusing to do anything or to go anywhere, exclaiming how bored she is, and quarrelling with her brother. Caroline slowly and rather cleverly, it has to be said, gets her out of doors and occupied again.

So far, so slightly predictable. But Mr Hartwell is the star of the show, for me. I never got a good sense of what he looked like as a person (maybe he was described, but I don’t remember it), and I don’t even know how old he is, but his personality is intriguing. It’s really hard to tell whether he’s being nasty to Julia, or whether it’s just a quirky manner, or maybe just sarcasm. Whatever it is, they snipe at each constantly, in a low-key sort of way. Maybe he just doesn’t know how to deal with her, or maybe he feels that being ascerbic will drag some sort of reaction from her. Or is he just exasperated with her? I can’t tell at all, which makes him very intriguing. He’s a little snippy with Caroline sometimes, too. Later, when he gets round to proposing to her, he’s shockingly abrupt, but she decides he’s just not had much practise in the romantic arts, and I think I can go along with that. I have to say, it’s one of the most charming proposal scenes I’ve encountered.

And so to Caroline. She starts off well, a smart, sensible lady who stands up for herself, argues her points with spirit and is well on the way to being a thoroughly admirable heroine. And then things start going bump in the night and she starts creeping about the house in her nightgown and tripping over things and getting caught, and in a different sort of book she’d be dead by the halfway point. I know authors are very fond of the whole gothic vibe, but really, it’s hard to do gothic without making the heroine totally someone you just want to slap some common sense into, frankly. As it is here. I counted at least three times that she set off into the darkness, barefoot and inadequately dressed, and that’s not intrepid, that’s stupid. Foolish, foolish Caroline.

However, despite all that and some repetition in the plot (French spies again? Really?) this was an enjoyable read, very well written and with a totally believable Regency. I found it a little slow to get going, but once underway, it rattled along. The similarity with the previous book and the so-irritating heroine keep this to four stars for me.

Review: The Guinea Stamp by Alice Chetwynd Ley (1961)

I’ve enjoyed a number of Alice Chetwynd Ley’s other books, but this one just didn’t work for me. Too many concealed identities, too rushed a romance and a frankly unbelievable ending. Actually, the whole book is just one implausibility after another.

Here’s the premise: Joanna Feniton’s parents are dead, so she lives with her grandparents, and at the story’s opening, they are visiting Joanna’s friend Kitty. Joanna is writing a letter one evening alone in a room, when she hears a suspicious noise outside. Instead of doing the sensible thing and ringing for a couple of hefty footmen to deal with the problem, she throws open the french doors and goes outside, where she meets a very suspicious man indeed. Again, instead of summoning help, she invites him into the house to hear his story. Then, when she discovers he is injured, and he tells her that he can’t actually explain what he’s doing, she calmly binds his injured arm, hides him when someone comes looking for her and then doesn’t mention his presence after he’s gone. She even gets up early to wash away the blood from the carpet. And all she knows of him is his (probably fake) name, Captain Jackson.

Now, I’m usually quite prepared to give any book its basic premise, however unlikely, but this one pushed me a little too far. I get that Joanna is intrepid and courageous, and all the rest of it, but there’s a difference between intrepid and foolhardy, and she’s frankly a little too much on the foolhardy side. There are several other occasions when she decides to do something herself instead of sensibly leaving it to those better able to tackle it, and gets herself into all sorts of hot water because of it. Combine that with her propensity to trust anyone with a glib story, or even no story at all, and she’s getting perilously close to too stupid to live territory.

Another big problem with this book is that there are far too many characters who have important roles but aren’t given names, only numbers or the shadowy title ‘my lord’. Again, I get what the author is trying to do, and I suppose if I’d been paying more attention (or had been taking notes, perhaps) I’d have worked out everyone’s identities eventually. As it was, I was left completely confused, and the last few chapters threw me completely. At one point, Captain Jackson is bopped on the head by the bad guys and held captive. Then he seems to have been arrested and imprisoned by the good guys. And then he’s on a ship helping the good guys defeat the bad guys. Was this all the same Captain Jackson? Maybe I missed the connecting story that explained all these disparate sightings.

And then there’s the big reveal of who Captain Jackson really is. All I can say about that is — no. Just no. I don’t believe for one single minute that she could not know that, and no, telling us that she always met Jackson in poor light and therefore didn’t recognise him elsewhere just doesn’t cut it. So that’s a huge fail.

On the plus side, the writing is beautiful, as always with this author, and nothing struck me as inauthentic. There were some nice side characters. I especially liked Joanna’s grandfather, who would have lived in his library if he could and was only half attending to anything else outside his books (a position with which I have total sympathy). The side romance between Kitty and her betrothed was well drawn, too, and the main romance had its share of good moments, although I’m not keen on heroes who seize a kiss that wasn’t actually on offer. The whole smuggling/spying/adventure plot left me cold but that’s just me. I’m not a fan of that, especially when it takes up so much space that the romance is effectively squeezed out. I did guess the identity of the villain, so there’s that.

Other books by this author worked really well for me, but this one was a pretty spectacular fail in the credibility department, and I didn’t particularly take to either of the main characters. For anyone who enjoys this kind of spy story, however, it might work better. As it is, I can only give it two stars.

Review: A Knowing One by Judith Hale Everett (2023)

To be honest, I’m not quite sure what to make of this. On the one hand, Everett is one of those glorious authors who writes a completely different book every time — you just never know what’s going to turn up when you start reading. And the authenticity of the language she uses is twelve shades of awesome. On the other hand, some elements of this book left me underwhelmed, most specifically the heroine, and that’s a problem.

Here’s the premise: Tom Breckinridge is the son of a ne’er-do-well who practically bankrupted his family. Happily, he died before things quite reached that point, and Tom’s been spending the years since slowly rebuilding his finances and nurturing his estate. His mother has remarried, his sister is also married and Tom himself is in love with Diana Marshall, who seems to favour his suit. But into this promising situation comes Reginald Popplewell, a childhood friend of Diana’s, who has dazzled her with his charm, wealth and prospects of inheriting a viscountcy. Mr Marshall is very much on his side, and Diana appears to be too. But Mrs Marshall intervenes to invite Tom to stay with them, and when there are setbacks, to follow them to Brighton for the summer. And Tom, faithful, honest Tom, does so, and even tries to make a friend of Popplewell, as Diana asks him to, in the hopes of winning Diana in the end.

I have to say that Tom is one of the most delightful heroes I’ve had the pleasure of encountering. He’s a true down-to-earth fellow, not given to flowery compliments or flirtation, but he knows his own worth and holds to his principles, and that is so rare in a Regency novel. To be honest, a lot of heroes appear to have no principles at all. I absolutely cheered every time he managed to put one over on his adversary (which was not very often, to be frank – at first he appeared to be quite outgunned, but Tom is deep (and the knowing one of the title) so he gets there in the end.

It’s rare to meet a villain who’s as complex and downright nuanced as Reginald Popplewell, or ‘dear Reggie’ as he’s generally known. He appears to the world as a perfectly amiable and charming man, perfect husband material, one would think, yet through Tom’s eyes we see the snide comments and the sly ways in which he tries to make Tom feel inferior and put him at a disadvantage with Diana. It’s very, very clever, and the reader totally sympathises with poor misused and abused Tom. This book is a glacially slow read in many ways, with a fair amount of long-winded introspection, but I read on avidly to see dear Reggie get his comeuppance.

And then we come to Diana. What can I say? The whole premise of the book is that, although she seems to be drawn to Tom, she does very little to encourage him, constantly seeming to be in thrall to Reggie, and she refuses to believe there’s anything underhand about him. In fact, she outright accuses Tom of irrational prejudice against his rival, and wants the two to be friends so that Tom will come to appreciate Reggie for the good and noble man he really is. And honest Tom does as she asks, or makes a valiant attempt to, and only succeeds in proving to his own satisfaction what a deceiving toad Reggie is. But Diana never makes the same effort to see Reggie from Tom’s point of view. Considering that she supposedly wants to marry Tom, she’s astonishingly dismissive of his opinions. If a good, honest man tells you that another man is a shady character, you should at least trust him enough to think about it. After all, women only see men in certain carefully prescribed contexts, so she couldn’t possibly know what Reggie gets up to when she’s not around. Although, to be fair, her father ought to have been looking out for her interests too, and he failed rather badly in that regard, being blinded by his own advancement, silly man. But that doesn’t excuse Diana for arguing so forcefully against Tom’s opinion. There’s a moment when they have a huge dust-up when I wondered just why he wanted to marry her at all. Any rational man would have said, well, if that’s how you feel, you can have Reggie, I’m outta here.

But in the end, it all gets worked out and I expect that marriage to Tom will knock the most obviously stupid of her ideas out of her head. A beautifully realised Regency, with language and manners and every detail perfect. Only that slight overdose of introspection and a moderately silly heroine keep it to four stars.

Review: Winter Wedding by Joan Smith (1990)

This was a wonderful old-school Regency, over thirty years old now, but still fresh, beautifully written and with a ton of that witty banter that some people regard as the epitome of a good Regency.

Here’s the premise: Clara Christopher is an itinerant poor relation, fetching up at this aunt or that cousin for a few weeks at a time before moving on, and that’s exactly how she likes it. She supposes that she’ll have to settle down eventually, either in marriage, since she’s had a few offers and isn’t yet at her last prayers, or by becoming a paid companion, preferably to someone who also likes to travel about. If she were to marry, she’d like it to be someone like Lord Allingcote, a man she met some years ago, who made her his deeply appreciative flirt for a few days before they parted. Since then, she’s heard of him visiting one or other of her distant relations, but never at the same time as her.

Now she’s helping eccentric Lady Lucker organise a winter wedding for her daughter Prissie. Lady Lucker’s eccentricity runs to pretending to have not two farthings to rub together, so all her effort is expended on getting the most expensive wedding gifts out of her relations, and ensuring that her neighbours provide all the food for the occasion. It’s an enterprise that amuses Clara, being used to managing on not very much herself, so the two get along famously, and Lady Lucker’s skinflint ways and economies form a lot of the humour of the book.

And needless to say (because there wouldn’t be much of a story otherwise), Clara’s Lord Allingcote is one of the guests, and happily he not only remembers her, he seems inclined to carry on the flirtation right where it left off. Or is he even flirting at all? Is it possible that he has remembered Clara in exactly the way she remembers him? But the fly in this ointment is Miss Nel Muldoon, a flighty piece and wealthy orphan whom Allingcote is escorting to London to offload onto a willing couple. Or so he says… but is he in fact betrothed to her? Or about to be? What is going on with him anyway?

The reader is left in just such a muddle as Clara herself, knowing that she’s Allingcote’s target to flirt with, but having no idea of his intentions. And Allingcote isn’t sure of Clara’s feelings, either. And so they circle round each other, getting into deeper and deeper water until the charming Nel forces things to a head. Why is it that every Regency of this era has to feature an elopement? Or if it isn’t that, it’s an abduction of some sort. I know it adds a bit of drama to spice up an otherwise placid tale but just a touch of plausibility wouldn’t go amiss.

Anyway, Nel’s shenanigans are just a backdrop for the banter between the two principals. There’s a lot of sparkle to it, just as there should be, but I particularly loved the ambiguity in it. There really is subtext dripping from every word, so even though the reader can see (or hope, at least) that the words mean one thing, it’s easy to see how they would be misinterpreted, leaving both parties floundering, uncertain of the other’s feelings. In some ways it’s frustrating – I just want to shake them, and tell them to speak openly for once. But this is the Regency, so subtlety is all.

Beautifully written, and enjoyable from start to finish. Five stars.

Review: Mr Malcolm’s List (movie, 2022)

This was so much fun! Apart from the Bridgertonised casting, which was lovely, there’s nothing particularly to distinguish this from a thousand other lightweight Regency-style romantic comedies, and it’s absolutely not historically correct, but I enjoyed it and found it entertaining in a frothy kind of way.

The premise is that the gorgeous and rich and therefore highly eligible Mr Malcolm is also highly picky. He’s looking for a bride, certainly, but he has a list of qualities he finds indispensable. When Julia Thistlewaite is slighted by said Mr Malcolm and discovers it’s because she failed some of the tests on his list, she determines to get her revenge. She summons from the country her old school friend Selena Dalton and ‘grooms’ her, with the aid of her cousin who’s seen the actual list, to be just the bride that Mr Malcolm is looking for. The plan is for Selena to ditch Mr Malcolm by telling him that he doesn’t match up with the items on her list!

Inevitably, Mr Malcolm and Selena are very soon falling into love, they are indeed perfectly suited and all seems set fair for a happy ending. Mr Malcolm invites everyone to a house party at his estate where he plans to propose, and Selena tells Julia that she doesn’t intend to go through with the deception. So what can possibly go wrong? Well, Mr Malcolm inevitably finds out about the scheme and feels (not surprisingly) that he’s been duped. After that things unravel in spectacular fashion, and it takes a lot of manipulation, not least by Mr Malcolm’s mother, before things come right.

This isn’t, of course, a serious attempt to recreate the Regency period. The costumes are lovely, and some of the language is period authentic, but there are too many errors to make it a comfortable watch for purists. I winced every time one or other character attempted to bow or curtsy, or worse, neglected to do so at all. Introductions were terrible, the dancing was awful with absolutely no attempt at any recognisable format and don’t get me started on the lack of chaperonage. There was only one outrageous title error, however.

I won’t complain about the implausibility of the plot, because it was meant to be light-hearted and therefore one doesn’t expect plot logic or sensible character arcs. It’s all about the funny moments, and the set-piece visuals. I did like the eye-rolling of the footman, however, which added a much-needed note of levity to scenes which might otherwise only have been mildly amusing.

As for the Bridgertonisation of the cast, mixing up actors of all ethnicities seemingly at random, I liked the freshness of it, although I couldn’t resist trying to detect subtle underlying messages in the choice of one actor or another for certain roles. Probably there was none, and they were merely chosen for their acting ability, but it amused me to wonder about it. All the actors were fine, although I was especially pleased to see Theo James in a minor role, having missed him from later series of Sanditon.

Overall, a fun movie, not for purists or anyone looking for serious themes, but as a Regency-lite type of rom-com, it whiles away a pleasant couple of hours.

Review: Isabelle by Sophia Holloway (2022)

This is such a beautifully written book that was completely wonderful for the first 75%, then became a little melodramatic, but in a good way, until the hero fell at the final hurdle. This is going to be spoilerish, so don’t read it if you don’t want to know.

Here’s the premise: Isabelle Wareham is nineteen, and while her much older sister had a season in London and made a good match, she stayed at home nursing her father through his final illnesses. Now he’s died, and Isabelle is put in the guardianship of her brother-in-law, Lord Dunsfold. Her cousin Sir Charles Wareham, the head of the family, is given joint charge of the estate which Isabelle is to inherit, but it is Cornelia’s husband who has charge of her person. Isabelle doesn’t much like him, but she will be of age in not much more than a year, so it is only a temporary arrangement and he seems minded to leave her at peace in her home during her period of mourning.

But then fate intervenes. A friend of Sir Charles, Lord Idsworth, staying with him for a shooting party, is accidentally shot, and carried to Isabelle’s home. She nurses him back to health with the inevitable result, but however predictable this might be, the gentle and charming way they fall in love is utterly beautiful. It reminded me a little of Heyer’s Venetia, where it is obvious that the two principals are like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that fit together perfectly.

However, Idsworth is not deemed a suitable match by Isabelle’s avaricious sister and brother-in-law, so she is whisked off to Bath to be kept in relative seclusion until she agrees to marry the suitor of their choice, Mr Semington, whose principal attraction is that he will pay the Dunsfolds handsomely for the privilege of relieving them of the care of Isabelle. She is blissfully certain that she has only to wait until she comes of age and she can marry the man of her heart, but it gradually dawns on her that her letters are being intercepted and she has no way to communicate with the outside world.

Needless to say, our hero arrives on the scene to save the day despite the machinations of the not very appealing Mr Semington and the very unappealing sister and her husband. The heroine herself is also able to take steps to rescue herself from her predicament. Things do get quite complex for a while, but eventually we come to the point where I fell out rather with the hero. This is rather spoilerish, so if you don’t want to know anything about it, skip forward to the last paragraph.

To my mind, a hero is one who will do pretty much anything to rescue the heroine from whatever dire circumstances the villains inflict on her, and I have no problem with Lord Idsworth in that regard. His pursuit of the heroine and subsequent rescue are suitably heroic. But what he does after that falls very much short of heroic behaviour. No matter what the villain has done, his retribution should come either from the law or should be proportionate and rational. It’s not for the hero to mete out summary justice, yet that is pretty much what Idsworth was prepared to do. Only the words of the heroine drew him back from actually killing the villain, and to me that is unacceptable behaviour. I get that he was in an absolute rage about it, but it really wasn’t a sensible reaction. Even when he drew back from actually killing the guy, he did something pretty nasty to him, as well. If he’d merely humiliated him, that would have been enough (and very funny, as it happens). But there was nothing remotely funny about his violence.

So although this was a beautifully written book in almost every way, that one moment reduces the rating to four stars for me. But I still recommend the read, and I fully intend to read everything that Sophia Holloway writes going forward.

Review: Deserted by Mary Lancaster (2023)

This is the third book in a series dealing with the repercussions of a duel wherein the much disliked Duke of Cuttyngham meets an untimely demise. The first book focused on the other duellist, Major Giles Butler, and the widowed duchess. The second book dealt with the duke’s daughter, Lady Hera, and the attending doctor at the duel, Justin Rivers. This book is all about one of the seconds, the Earl of Frostbrook, and the former betrothed of Major Butler.

Here’s the premise: Sophia Wallace, living a miserable life as the put-upon poor relation to cousins, was scooped up in book 1, for fairly contrived reasons, and deposited at the ducal residence, Cuttyngs, ostensibly as companion to the now widowed duchess. When the duchess departs, Sophia is to act as chaperone for the late duke’s daughter, Lady Hera. But even she has taken herself off, so what is Sophia to do now? The new duke, Victor (by far the most interesting character in this whole saga, by the way) doesn’t much mind if she stays on, but it’s not quite proper and anyway the widowed duchess had a mind to live in the dower house before she left, so Sophia sets herself to restore it to habitability and live there until such time as the duchess returns.

Into this rather pleasant, if lonely, existence, she meets a man with whom she had a brief but unforgettable encounter some time previously. In her role as unpaid slave to her cousins, she had been required to walk some distance at night to bring a forgotten item to the young lady of the family who’s at a party. Exhausted and not at all happy, she leaves the house to set out on the return walk, only to be accosted by a somewhat drunk Earl of Frostbrook. Mistaking her for a servant girl, he amuses himself by dallying with her and eventually kissing her. Sophia is shocked and gives him a piece of her mind, but secretly she rather enjoyed the experience. Now Lord Frostbrook has turned up again, and remembers her, and so is set the scene for the gentle development of the romance. By the time Lord Frostbrook sets out to stymie his mother’s matchmaking attempts by introducing Sophia as his betrothed, there’s not much doubt how things are going to end.

Of course, a smooth path to the happy ever after is anathema to any well-devised Regency, and here it’s the unpleasant cousins who throw a huge spanner in the works. I never quite understand why such people have to be so relentlessly nasty, when they could have achieved their aim in much gentler ways but there we go, and the reason for them to decamp to Brussels and there join up with the main characters from the previous books is too implausible for words. But you know what? It doesn’t matter a bit. This is a rollicking good read, with plenty of action, a spirited heroine, a heroic hero and villains who get their comeuppance. There’s a little sex in it, but nothing terribly graphic, and it certainly helps to have read the previous books, but it’s a great read. Four stars, and I’m very much hoping that Victor gets his story in the next book.