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Galatea's Revenge
A pawn in Sir Oliver Townsend's plan to play a shocking joke on respectable society, Georgiana Oversham is determined that the joke be on the arrogant Townsend
224 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
15 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Jackson
72 booksElizabeth Jackson is a talented writer of regencies and contemporary fiction, and lives near San Diego with her husband. When not writing, she practices immigration law.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 7, 2023
Georgiana is travelling to meet her family on her father's side for the first time. They were against her father's match with the daughter of a man in trade but, after the father's death, her grandmother decides she wants to keep the fortune in the family by marrying Georgina to her cousin, Sir Oliver. Unaware of this, she travels to meet her family but encounter issues on the way. She decides to continue the journey on a common coach and pretends to be a governess in order to keep justify travelling without a companion (it's a long explanation). The coach encounters bad weather and stops at a gentleman's residence to seek shelter. There, she meets Sir Oliver and his cronies who make a bet that Sir Oliver cannot take a nobody and make her the toast of town. He assumes that Georgiana is a light skirt because she was travelling alone on the mail coach with an actress as a companion (that she kindly rescued). He kisses her without asking then, after realizing she's not a light o' love, he makes her miss the coach in order to make her part of his bet believing she's a nobody. He's going to pretend that she's his cousin Georgiana who he thinks is not coming to visit after all and will introduce her to the ton (it's a long explanation). In order to get back at him, she goes along with it planning on revealing the truth later on and humiliating him.
My main problem with this premise is that the hero is a jerk. He insults Georgiana because he believes her to be a mere governess, insults the real her (the heiress from a "vulgar" mother) even though obviously he has never met her, and just acts like a jerk almost the whole time. He only starts behaving more nicely once he falls in love with her, and I'm not sure if it's because he's truly a changed man. He does think about the fact that he behaved wrongly towards Georgiana, regrets the bet and eventually apologizes to her, but it never shows that it's a general change and not just towards her. The other characters are okay. There are some villains and some clueless people. The other cousin should have been a sweet addition (he's kind but dumb), but he was too much like Dolphington from Heyer's Cotillion, and I could not appreciate him as a unique character. The star of the book is Georgiana. She's kind, intelligent and treats others with respect. I thought she deserved a better hero but then this would be a different story if that were the case. All in all, this is a nice clean book, and I could see others who are not as disgusted with the hero enjoying it more than I did.
My main problem with this premise is that the hero is a jerk. He insults Georgiana because he believes her to be a mere governess, insults the real her (the heiress from a "vulgar" mother) even though obviously he has never met her, and just acts like a jerk almost the whole time. He only starts behaving more nicely once he falls in love with her, and I'm not sure if it's because he's truly a changed man. He does think about the fact that he behaved wrongly towards Georgiana, regrets the bet and eventually apologizes to her, but it never shows that it's a general change and not just towards her. The other characters are okay. There are some villains and some clueless people. The other cousin should have been a sweet addition (he's kind but dumb), but he was too much like Dolphington from Heyer's Cotillion, and I could not appreciate him as a unique character. The star of the book is Georgiana. She's kind, intelligent and treats others with respect. I thought she deserved a better hero but then this would be a different story if that were the case. All in all, this is a nice clean book, and I could see others who are not as disgusted with the hero enjoying it more than I did.
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February 7, 2012That cat on the cover is so fat and snuggly! :D
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews