Georgette Heyer: Friday's Child

Everyone, I have an announcement:

You are going to be reading a lot about Georgette Heyer here in the coming posts because I have decided to just read-read-read them. I have enjoyed the ones I have read thus far ( especially Black Sheep which I cast a movie version for! ) and after Friday's Child, I decided it was time to just go and read as many as I could get my little fingers on.

A few weeks ago, Courtney and I spent a marvelously Christmas day wandering Toronto, seeing a film, drinking Starbucks festive drinks and basking in the city lights and window displays.

We both decided to buy Friday's Child together as she had heard it was one of the very best.

Well, I was delighted:

Lord Anthony Sheringham, Viscount of something or other, seeks to wed the gloriously “Incomparable” Isabella: the toast of the ton and society’s darling and basically the best thing in sprig muslin. But, alack, she refuses him! And zounds! Is that ever dashed inconvenient. You see, Sherry has raked up his bit of gambling debt from places thither and yon and he will not come into his inheritance until the ripe of old age of 25 if he doesn’t marry and prove he can get his act together. Thus, the inconvenienced Sherry proclaims that he will wed the first lady he sees. The first lady he sees is indeed his old childhood pal, Hero Wontage, whom he affectionately calls Brat. Hero is rather young and inexperienced and will set society asunder; but Sherry is demm’d hot-headed and so he does as he pleases and whisks her off to get a special license. His (adorable) friends Ferdy, Gil and George ( of the kind who would as soon fight a duel as drop a hankie ) help in his cause.

Soon, Sherry and Hero (whom he now calls Kitten because Hero is a dash’d unfortunate and misguided name, don’t y’know ), are set up in a fashionable house and Hero cannot help but get into scrapes here and there and all over; much to the chagrin of her young husband. This book is friggin’ adorable. Sherry grows up; Hero stands on her own two feet; Hero falls more deeply in love with the childhood playmate she has always pined for and Sherry realizes he cannot live without his unintentionally incongruous wife. This is one of the funniest Heyer novels I have read; namely because Sherry’s pack of friends, Gil, George and Ferdy play such a lovely role. They fall over themselves protecting Hero, enjoying Hero’s friendship and even going so far as to reprimand Sherry for not seeing what they see immediately: that he is completely in love with the wife he attained from a convenient marriage.