The Grand Sophy, Georgette Heyer

Everyone told me this was the best Heyer, and they were totally right. This is the platonic ideal of Regency romance. Sophy is somehow the greatest manic pixie dream girl ever and yet totally wonderful and lovable and perfection. She swoops in, is hilarious, fixes everyone up into the right couples, steals horses, shoots people, and is never obnoxious or eye-rolling. She also never has to be humiliated For Her Own Good, which I find often in books about super competent women. The side characters are hilarious, the couples are all good for each other, the plot ends with a giant operatic "I love it when a plan comes together" scene when everyone converges on the same place, and the hero is both brooding and stern AND hilarious and wonderful, and he is never taken in by Sophy's plans. This is just great. I would like to read this book a thousand times.

Grade: A

Originally posted 2010

The Foundling, Georgette Heyer

The Duke of Sale is a nice kid who happened to be orphaned and sickly and is raised by his overbearing, bossy uncle who means well, but basically never lets him do anything by himself, ever. So the Duke sets off to be Mr. Dash from Nowhere In Particular to help his cousin out of a scrape and accidentally rescues a couple of people and gets kidnapped and sets fire to an inn and has a really, really good time. I was pretty worried at one point, because when he meets the titular foundling she's 16 and ditzy and not too bright and wanders off with any man who offers her a purple dress, and I was making faces to myself over how Heyer was possibly going to sell a romance that seemed to involve a character who didn't have the mental facilities to fall in love. But the Duke doesn't, he falls in love with someone much more suitable and manages to find a romance for everyone else involved in the book, too, except Tom, who is 15 and thinks girls are gross. I wish it had been a page longer, because I would have liked a little more happy ending, but I was so, so pleased with the end and the wrap up. It's more a comedy of errors and manners than a romance, but I stayed up until 2:30 reading it a few nights in a row. Lovely.

Grade: A

Originally posted 2010

The Convenient Marriage, Georgette Heyer

I loooooooooove this book. The grumpy Duke is supposed to marry the family's eldest sister, but she's already in love, so the youngest sister offers herself up instead. It's supposed to just be a marriage of convenience, but they fall in love instead! Except she can't help causing a scene and a scandal wherever she goes, and he can't get his ex-mistress to stop plotting against him. There are highwaymen and kidnappings and at one point the heroine hits the villain over the head with a poker to escape his unwanted seduction. And at the end, LOVE.

Grade: A

Originally posted 2009

False Colours, Georgette Heyer

It's seriously a bit like Heyer went through and invented every possible Regency cliche and wrote a book for each one. And yet, I'm never bored. In this one Kit has to pretend to be his twin brother Evelyn when Evelyn mysteriously misses his own engagement party. I expected to be upset by how they deceive the girl (who's awesome) but Heyer handles it amazingly well. And the mother in this book is a fantastic character, and the end of her plotline made me giggle for a long time. I wish there was a sequel to this, because I want the part where Cressy and Kit pine for each other and have to pretend not to be in love! Plus, we never find out if Evelyn really does marry Patience. I want more! 

Grade: B

Originally posted 2008

These Old Shades, Georgette Heyer

When I read The Devil's Cub everyone yelled at me to go and read this -- the prequel -- immediately! And I was like, "What? No, I loved that one so much; no way will I like this one better!"

I think I liked this one even better.

I mean, the plot features a cold-hearted Duke and the orphan he saved, crossdressing, duelling, kidnapping, and Leonie, a character I love SO MUCH I almost can't talk about it. She's fantastic. She's sparkly and adorable and hilarious, and as she wins over the hearts of the people in the book it's never a case of a narrated attribute; she is genuinely darling and fantastic. She's a red-headed sort-of-orphan who is never sickly sweet or cloying, but instead hilarious and wonderful.

I suppose some people might be weirded out by the huge age difference between Leonie and Avon; it didn't bother me at all. But then, my father is 20 years older than my mother, and they've been married for over 30 years, so I have reason to believe that relationships like that can work out.

Grade: A

Originally posted 2008

Devil's Cub, Georgette Heyer

Looooooooooove. This is the most traditional romance I've read yet by Heyer, with scheming mamas and disapproving counts and family entanglements. I had a little trouble with the hero, since he kept killing people and all, but Mary and his parents were so fantastic that I let it go. There could have been a tiny bit more writing about why they fell in love, but I was perfectly happy that they did, and the ending was exactly the way I used to end my mary sue stories in my head. Noble self sacrifice, and then at the last minute saved by a stern father-figure who turns out to be fabulously understanding!

Seriously, I am all aflutter.

Grade: A

Originally posted 2008

Black Sheep, by Georgette Heyer

This is SO LOVELY. I almost couldn't decide which storyline I liked better; Abby and Miles, who has no manners and doesn't give a damn about it, or Fanny and Oliver, who loves her desperately even though she says things like, "you are like a brother to me." And then he wishes he were her brother, so he could punch the young rake after her fortune in his nose. 

My only complaint was that it could have been a hundred pages longer; that would have been fine with me.

Grade: B

Originally posted 2008