HAPPY 110th BIRTHDAY GEORGETTE HEYER: GIVEAWAY

It's no secret: I loooooooove Georgette Heyer.  While I haven't indugled in as many of her historical novels or her mysteries, I am a die-hard fan of her Regencies.  Next to Austen, she is the best author we have in this ilk!

I first read Georgette Heyer during the Toronto Blackout of 2003.  There was no subway service, my bookstore had just been closed due to ...well... no power....and work was done for the day, so I rambled over to a park to wait for a ride and read Arabella under a tree.  It was a few years until I started going all hard-core Heyer; but boy! did I ever.

I ration out Heyers so I always have more to read.

On this, her 110th Birthday, Sourcebooks ( and me! ) want to know your Heyer moment: whether it be when you first tucked into the pages of her wonderful novels or your favourite moment from one of her novels. Bonus points if you name your favourite hero: mine is Jasper from Venetia!

Comment and tell me and you have the chance to win a surprise grab-bag of 3 of her novels: 1 mystery, 1 historical and 1 of those gorgeous Regencies!

I will draw names from posters and the winner will be notified shortly!

The contest is open to Canadian and American readers.....

Meanwhile, DISCOVER HEYER for fabulous prices at the Sourcebooks website!

From August 14th until August 20th, a large selection of her e-books are on sale for 2.99! 2.99! Please go here to find your new favourite....

Venetia by Georgette Heyer

Venetia is a lovely story and it just smacks of LM Montgomery.  So many times I think that Maud would’ve loved Heyer should she have lived to experience the author at the height of her Regency-writing powers.

The opening scene in Venetia is memorable to fans of romance: an ultimate “meet cute.” Venetia, having strayed from her languid, opulent property to search for berries at the deserted property adjacent (its owner known to spend little time at the estate) runs into a rakish rogue who, seeing her bonnet askew, her cheeks rosy, her figure a pinnacle health, plants his eager lips on her unexpected ones.

From this chance encounter springs one of the freshest connections of intellectual equals in all of historical fiction.  Jasper, Lord Damerel, has been thwarted in love and while maintains a large fortune, languishes his time beguiled by the “orgies” of the ton.  Enamoured by nothing and no one, his is a second-hand, vapid existence until the entrance of Venetia and her sickly, scholarly brother, Aubrey.

Venetia is sequestered in her family homestead having been given no introduction to society. At over five and twenty, she is very much a green girl: shelved in a rambling mansion, caring solely for her brother without the slightest prospects of travel, culture or true romance.  Two local men fight for her affections; but neither is up to her speed.  With great solitude, we learn, Venetia has garnered a great capacity for the written word.  Paired with her swift mind and biting tongue, Venetia is very much the thinking girl’s heroine.

Venetia is well-met with Jasper Damerel and beguiled by his worldly adventures.   A happenstance wherein her beloved brother his laid up at Damerel’s estate requires Venetia to often be by Damerel’s side. He is immediately smitten with her beauty, erudite nature and her rapid-like brain and to see true devotion and love blossom between two “kindred spirits”, best friends, is a mature and favourite type of romantic story.

Damerel’s past, however, and is now acute adoration of Venetia dictates that he spends hours worrying about how his reputation might sully hers.  Thus, Heyer winds us on a bramble and briar path of mis-encounters, family secrets and words unspoken. Readers, it is HEART BREAKING when Damerel sacrifices for Venetia’s best interest.  He cannot bear to live without her, he loves her to “the end of madness”; but he worships her so much he cannot bear to think that he would mar her reputation and her chance at a wonderfully wholesome future.

The repartee between Venetia and Jasper just heightens the reader’s pleasure in excavating a perfectly adult love affair. The end scene is TO DIE FOR and Jasper and Venetia’s final 

( expected ) declarations are some of the best Heyer ever wrote.

This is very Jane Austen with a dash of roguishness and a love so intense it recalls the preternatural cry across the moors when Rochester, in despair, hankers for Jane. If you have even the slightest romantic bone in your body and the slightest respect for a woman who certainly knew how to spin a Regency yarn then do yourself the pleasure of dipping into my favourite Heyer novel so far. There are some moments when I prefer Heyer to Jane Austen. Dictated by her time and sensibility, Austen’s romances could be rather reserved in exposition where as the gap of a century or so renders Heyer’s more modern infusion of romance into Regency fare is welcome, impassioned and sparkly.

Courtney liked it, too!

The Foundling by Georgette Heyer

I give you, The Foundling: a Regency Romance with kidnapping, illicit letters, coddling of sickly dukes and fantastic names ---like Liversedge and Adolphus Gillespie Vernon Ware, the Duke of Sale.  

Adolphus Gillespie Vernon Ware (Gilly to us) and his elder cousin Gideon are at the center of this adventurous drama which features a foundling named Belinda, mistaken identities, arranged marriages and a bromance to write home about.Gilly has been coddled since sickly birth by his adoring, if overbearing, uncle who believes that his sickly disposition will be the death of his favourite pet. Raised alongside his much stronger, sterner and stalwart cousin, Gideon ( the prototype of the usual Heyer hero), Gilly reaches his 25th birthday before ever really stepping into his own.

Standing to inherit a large fortune  and primed to an arranged marriage to a beautiful and respectable longtime friend, Gilly decides to go in for one bout of adventure helping his blackmailed cousin Matthew along the way.

Here, he becomes entangled in an affair of the heart that has little to do with him and, alongside two unlikely companions, becomes mixed up in villainous devices.

Oh this is just.so.wonderful. Gilly has such a big heart and his intentions are always wonderful and his disposition is so accepting!  You will LOVE HIM! ( you will love him more when you imagine him as played by Billy Boyd)

Gilly’s uncle protects him mercilessly; but refuses any other to speak against his beloved nephew; Gideon would take a bullet for Gilly but applauds Gilly’s resolution to set out on his own and the female companions that off-set the major masculine center of the tale are just as spirited and beguiling as expected.

And Gideon--- oh my god.  You guys--- Gideon!  He is okay at taking a second standing to his more diminutive cousin. He knows that Gilly is a favourite of his father’s ---but cares not; he knows that Gilly stands to inherit a more prestigious position; but happily relinquishes responsibility to the cousin who was raised alongside him as a brother.  And if you get in Gilly’s way---beyond the measures he hopes his cousin will strive in the guise of suited independence, Gideon will lose all control.

When a villain threatens his cousin, Gideon strides in full force.  His reaction to seeing proof of life when Gilly is kidnapped will stop your heart (much as it seemingly has stopped  Gideon’s).

It’s just all so cozily and sparkly and delightful. Seriously, go read this now, please.

It’s licking cake batter from a spoon. I don’t want to deprive you of this --- I can’t --- it would be inhumane. You deserve this happiness, reader, so here is where you can fit yourself with this material tout de suite!:

@SourceBooks

@amazon.com

Sourcebooks Blog Tour: Bath Tangle (and Happy Birthday to Georgette Heyer)

Georgette Heyer was designed for you if….

…it’s raining and you have the “mean reds”

…you want to steal into a land of gossamer and lace where men wear top hats and breeches

…you can taste the salt smell of the Bath waters while dreaming of a high tea at a nearby shop (perhaps stealing in for a dry spell after a stint in the rain)

…you miss the days when men were men and kissed ladies’ hands and knew the rigmarole of whist games and quadrilles

…you know the difference between a morning dress and a day dress

…you want to breakfast late and call the house staff by their surnames

…you think that “felicity” and “thither” really are the greatest words in the dictionary

…if, like me, you have read your Jane Austen canon to shreds since you began at the tender age of 14.

Georgette Heyer is pure, sparkly, cupcake-iced joy. Her heroines are winsome and beguiling, her heroes have just enough rogue to be tamed by the careful attention and craftily-won heart of a fair maiden. The “drawing room” manners and social graces of the “ton” whirl in a maze of winding, twining roads making the obstacles securing an inevitable happy ending worth the trip to the altar. Celebrating Georgette Heyer’s Birthday ( today) is a good excuse to spend the day perusing through Sourcebooks’ exceptional catalogue (they have done an incredible job at making her beloved titles easily accessible for the hungry masses)

Take Bath Tangle….

{italicized from the publisher}:

A Delightful Tangle of Affairs…The Earl of Spenborough had always been noted for his eccentricity. Leaving a widow younger than his own daughter Serena was one thing, but leaving his fortune to the trusteeship of the Marquis of Rotherham – the one man the same daughter had jilted – was quite another.When Serena and her lovely young stepmother Fanny decide to move to Bath, Serena makes an odd new friend and discovers an old love. Before long, they’re all entangled in a clutter of marriage and manners the likes of which even Regency Bath has rarely seen.

Serena is a lovely heroine: spirited and sly and smart and, like the best Heyer heroines, unwilling to be rescued by a dashing gent; rather willing to be accepting of his offer on her own terms and in her own way. A feisty red head with a temper to boot, she is near bested by a reduced family circumstance that throws her in the path of a suitor she jilted years before. Will he enjoy sweet revenge on her behalf …and to her utter ruin? Or does the spark of a first love still linger like an ember beneath flashes of anger, duels of wit and conversation that will keep readers giggling?

If you liked Persuasion, then Bath Tangle will delight you.

Heyer is indubitably the best Regency writer since Austen and in sea of Austen-inspired prequels, updates, sequels, epistolary fiction, diaries, graphic novels, parodies, pastiches and horror stories, she will rescue you. She is in a class of her own. What differentiates her from the usual Austenitis continually sweeping the publishing world and fulfilling our insatiable craving for more, is her verisimilitude, understanding of Regency culture, feels for dialogue and character and fresh plots and romances. She doesn’t hype on the laurels of Jane Austen; nor does she create new stories for characters already developed. Rather, she springboards from a popular motif and makes it her own. She is renowned as one of the most timeless Historical novelists of any age and you must, must read her. You must. It’s the law.

+To celebrate Georgette Heyer's birthday, make sure you visit Austenprose --where they are celebrating with a giveaway!

+Jane Austen's World featured a scintillating look at the Many Faces of Georgette Heyer

+Sourcebooks is celebrating Heyer's 109th by offering e-books at as little as 1.99. Honestly, they are so worth it. Buy all your Heyer here. Consider my two favourites, Venetia and Black Sheep alongside a purchase of Bath Tangle

My thanks to Sourcebooks for making her titles widely available and for sending me the copy of Bath Tangle to add to my happily growing Heyer collection.

Courtney and Rachel Talk Books: Faro's Daughter

Courtney AND rachel take on Georgette Heyer ( and Kato!)

The Story

Faro’s Daughter tells the story of Deborah, a woman who works in a gamboling house, and Max Ravenscar who is a gentleman trying to save his young cousin from a most inconvenient marriage to aforementioned woman. Of course, as Deborah really has no intention of marrying Ravenscar’s young cousin, this book is filled with many misconceptions and angry words as Deborah and Ravenscar try to get the other to leave Ravenscar’s cousin alone.

And as per any Heyer novel, we can expect these many misconceptions to somehow turn into love and a happily-ever-after ending.

Rachel: I really didn’t like Faro’s Daughter as well as I liked the other Heyer novels. This is a bit disappointing, because up to and surrounding Christmas, I read a string of awesome, adorable Heyer after another. I really think this had something to do with the characters. I did not fall for Max Ravenscar in the same way as I did a Miles Cavanaugh or a Jasper Damerel. Knowing that Heyer as such delightful potential for sparkling, witty heroes and heroines, I felt a little cheated when I failed to really click with either the main or peripheral characters. I rather enjoyed Lucius, Deborah’s erstwhile confidante, but no potential was completely realized on this front.

Courtney: I would completely agree with you about this – not nearly as enjoyable as Heyer’s other novels that I’ve read, and it’s all due to the characters. There was so much potential – misunderstanding! an unlikely female heroine! romance between all the wrong people! But it didn’t go as far as it could have because the characters didn’t bring it there. Whereas you enjoyed Lucius, I have to say that I didn’t even like him – or any of the other secondary characters. I thought they all felt very one-dimensional. And this saddens me.

Rachel: In the best Heyer novels, the relationship between the heroine and hero develops in a sparklingly languid way. Like Elizabeth and Darcy, you follow them through their trail of mishaps to the rainbow at the end of the tunnel and the final “a ha!” moment. Here, Ravenscar and Deborah hated each other (surfacely) so intensely that any development was shoved to the wayside. Thus, in the final moments, they seem almost thrown together and you cannot retrace your thoughts to the beginning of their more amorous acquaintance. Yes, a sparring couple is one of the delights of Heyer—- but this moved beyond playful sparring and bordered on downright mean. They both went out of their way to comment on the others inadequacies in a harsh and cruel way.

Courtney: Downright mean doesn’t even begin to cover it! He insulted her at every possible chance, she went out of her way to provoke his anger, and then if that wasn’t bad enough she kidnapped him! And while love often grows from hate in books, we don’t see their feels really changing and then all of a sudden when she agrees to marry him, it just feels so out of character for both of them… almost like the characters got away from Heyer and this was her reining them in for the big finish.

One of the things that really frustrated me about this book was the double standard that was presented of what women and men are allowed to do. Men are allowed to frequent gaming halls, but for a woman to run a gaming hall out of her house was one of the biggest taboos that could be done. I know it’s my feminist side coming out there, but it made me quite angry when reading about it.

Rachel: I don’t think, particularly, this “problem” was one of Heyer’s writing and plot; rather a double-standard permeating the time period ( alongside a host of others not as starkly explored in this book.

Courtney: One of the highlights of her other books are the whole cast of characters and this one was lacking, especially in the side-kick point. I have a tendency to love sidekicks more than main characters in most media that I thoroughly enjoy. They can provide insights into the character, or provide comic relief, and are often the vehicle used to get us inside the main characters’ heads and understand what they are feeling and thinking.

Rachel: Yes. Friday’s Child has ruined me for Heyer novels without strong sidekicks. Sometimes what is most prominently revealed about the development of the hero and heroine’s relationship is said in these colourful moments with wondrous side-kick aplomb. In fact, the sidekick is SO essential to a great story and so important, one is automatically drawn to thinking about other sidekicks. Say, sidekicks one has seen is recent movies. Say, sidekicks that have nothing to do with regency romance; rather are renaissance men who can make coffee and fight martial arts while listening to Beethoven. Sidekicks who are the personification of a human swiss army knife…sidekicks like KATO!!!!

Courtney: Kato is adorable! And can kick Britt’s butt but is still so loyal to him that he only does it when Britt needs a SERIOUS butt-kicking. Other than that, he will drop everything to make sure Britt doesn’t get his butt-kicked by anyone else!

Rachel: Wait. Maybe we should let people know that we have switched to the Green Hornet: a movie Court and I saw a few weeks back. A movie that was so splendidly ridiculous I doubt it really had any screenwriting: just a lot of running around and laughing.

What I REALLY liked about the Britt-Kato relationship was the balance ( or imbalance) of power. It takes Britt a long time to reconcile himself to the fact that Kato really is his superior in many ways. When Kato tells Britt he is stubborn it is an understatement. Britt finally learns that in order to stay safe ( metaphorically and literally), he has to move into the front seat of the Black Beauty and let equilibrium ensue.

I also LOVE little details about Kato: the fact that he makes coffee, sketches Bruce Lee; draws a happy face on a card accompanying a gift to Britt; is saved from Britt’s pool by an inflatable lobster…

And what I liked MOST about this partnership is how different it is to other partnerships. So often ( and can I shamelessly use the BBC Sherlock as an example, please? Okay. I will) as in the BBC Sherlock, the “team” of hero and sidekick are mentally in synch: they just need to glare at each other and they are mentally attuned to what the other is planning.

Britt and Kato ( in their development as the Green Hornet and Kato ) have no synchronicity at all.

I love how we jumped from Georgette Heyer to this, by the way. What a subtle transition.

Courtney: I think you’ve covered everything that is important about the Britt-Kato bromance, and I don’t know that there’s anything else that needs to be said about it, really. Except that it was really awesome that there wasn’t REALLY any romance in the movie. I mean, they were both in love with the same chick, but she wasn’t interested in either of them. And so the focus was completely on the Britt-Kato dynamics without getting sidetracked and distracted. Not enough stories do this!

The Bottom Line

Hum. The most boring of Heyer’s books that I’ve read so far. So boring that we tangented quite easily.

Georgette Heyer: April Lady

Like A Civil Contract, April Lady revolves around a marriage of convenience. But, while the hero and heroine of A Civil Contract resolve to live in a mutual admiration and respect, the already married hero and heroine of our tale are madly in love with each other.

Viscount Giles Cardross has been in love with Nell ( his now wife) since he first set eyes on her. Made to think that it was a marriage of convenience by her mother, Nell is coached to hide her overflowing affection for her husband lest he find her too clingy.

Somewhat contented to be the tropy-wife, all the while assured that her beloved Giles may, at one point, turn to other female companionship, Nell spends her days with Giles’ half-sister Letty, buys extravagant dresses, rides a marvelous carriage ‘round the fashionable park and wiles her nights away at the most extravagant events of the season.


Giles loves Nell; Nell loves Giles, half-sister Letty loves the poor army- secretary, Jeremy Allandale and Jeremy Allandale loves Letty.

The entire plot is a mixed array of crossed paths, misunderstandings and love very passionate and squelched unknown.

Like the adorable Kitten in Friday’s Child, Nell’s modest circumstances in her youth have made her a poor fit for the excessive ton. Indeed, she is more often than not in scrapes involving over-expenditures she is sure will awake her husband’s wrath.

Desperate to conceal her folly and deeply ashamed at her innocence, Nell and Giles spend most of the book completely unaware of the other’s feelings.

The forbidden, cross-class romance of Letty and Jeremy Allandale complements the frustrating maze of Nell and Giles’ hidden emotions.


You know when you open a Georgette Heyer novel that you can bask in the certainty that all will end well. It’s like a Jane Austen novel, in that respect, it is a guaranteed certainty that all will tie with a neat little bow. But, like the most delicious romances, it is the topsy-turvey paths and cross-purposes leading you to the ultimate gold-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow that propel you onward.

April Lady is chock-full of frustrating “But you love Rhett, not Ashley!” moments and exceptional snapshots of the glorious ton at the height of its gilded Regency brilliance.

Another fabulous read from Georgette Heyer.

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.

The Corinthian by Georgette Heyer

Courtney and I read this together and then decided to blog about it together ( with some casting .... enjoy!)

Courtney: I haven’t read any Georgette Heyer in a while and I’m always pleasantly surprised by her books when I pick them up just because of how fun they are. I found The Corinthian to be a lot more fun than some of the others I’ve read just because of the crazy hijinks that were involved – girls dressed as boys getting into scrapes, murder, theft, running away in the middle of the night, oh joy! What a great escapist novel, and how perfect for the February blahs. You’ve been devouring your way through her books – how did you find this one compared to the others that you’ve read?

Rachel: I really liked the pace of this one. There was lots of adventure and it didn’t take her very long to catapult us into the plot. Plus, she kept the whole cloak-and-dagger motif running rampant throughout the story. Like you, I really enjoyed the hijinks— and the image of carriages running helter skelter at a dizzying pace. This was sheer fun. Some of the books of hers I have read have serious undertones — like These Old Shades ( a great romance of redemption, in a way) and Black Sheep ( where the theme of women as marriageable commodities is pretty abundant ) —- but The Corinthian—well—- it was as of Heyer was writing with her tongue in her cheek.

Courtney: Yes, she does tongue in cheek very well. One thing that I noticed with this book is how much the quality of her writing improved from earlier books – this one is about 20 years into her career as a novelist, and you can really tell the difference. There’s more depth, more maturity in the writing (not necessarily the content, but certainly the writing style), etc. That’s one thing that is so much more noticeable when you can pick and choose your way through an author’s whole catalogue of books, as opposed to having to wait for the next one to be released.

Rachel: I also get the sense that Heyer was writing first and foremost for her own enjoyment. I love books like that because they allow the author’s personality to seep through. To continue your noting of her depth and maturity, I also feel she improves her grasp of how to tell convincing historical fiction. Whereas her early works had the tendency to lapse into encyclopediac knowledge now and then ( in an almost cut and paste fashion), the regency details in the Corinthian were more implied and ingrained so you had a keen picture in your mind’s eye and got a feel for the period without it being bludgeoned over your head with numerous factoids. Can I also just throw the word verisimilitude in here because I never get to use it? Thanks.

Courtney: I just had to look up “verisimilitude.” Google tells me that it is “the quality of seeming to be true or real.” But I can really see how this applies to The Corinthian. It does appear that she knows a lot of what is going on in the regency period, and it is sometimes surprising (in the case of this book, for example) to realize that she didn’t experience it herself. While this was a fun romp, it still does touch on some of the issues that would have been relevant at that point in time – specifically expectations of women who spent unchaperoned time with men, the difficulties families face with financial issues, and the necessity of women to make a good marriage. As much as I love reading regency books, I really don’t think I’d want to live in a time where it was depended on me to marry well just so I could secure my family’s financial stability!

Rachel: What I liked about this particular novel is that Sir Richard was facing the same impending threat of a loveless marriage to secure his family’s financial gain and to hold up in society. It is rather refreshing to see a man have the same expectations thrust upon him. It immediately set the stage for an understanding friendship between Sir Richard and Penn. I rather enjoyed this. Richard immediately understood Penn’s dilemma and I think, in part, that was why he was so eager to jump and save her. He knew what it felt like to have this unsavoury future looming afore him.

Courtney: Well, that plus he was completely smashed when he came across her attempting to run away in the first place. That might have had something to do with it, haha. I love the relationship that Penn and Sir Richard have right from the beginning in this book – she’s adventurous and naïve, and he is amused by her and knows that she needs protection in her wild and crazy schemes. I love that she puts him in situations he doesn’t feel comfortable with at all (hello, stagecoach?) and that he lets her do this. And that he goes out of her way to protect her without caging her in or patronizing her for her naïveté.

Rachel: He treats her like an equal— and I suppose she is— in humour and in situation and circumstance. But, I think he smiles at her out of his eyes the entire time and doesn’t always take her seriously. But, I am not altogether sure he completely takes life seriously so this is just another one of his many charms. I also enjoy the hint of rogue he has. In fact, talking about him makes me want to cast him. Jack Davenport?

Courtney: Mmm. I was just watching The Wedding Date last night and he is in it. He would definitely be able to pull off the rogue aspect, and we’ve already seen him in that same sort of time period in Pirates of the Caribbean. He could pull off being Sir Richard. What about Penn?

Rachel: I really like the idea of Carey Mulligan (Bleak House, An Education, Dr. Who) as Penn. \

Courtney: Is that Sally Sparrow? She looks a bit old for the role… I don’t know too many young females in acting, so this part is a little hard for me. What about Alexa Vega or Eliza Bennett? Actually, Eliza Bennett probably looks a little bit too young. Oh, what about Rachel Hurd-Wood? She’s rather adorable.

Rachel: What’s REALLY funny is that when you said Eliza Bennett I was thinking of the “real” Eliza Bennett ( which, in my crazy mind, was automatically Jennifer Ehle ). Alexa Vega!

Courtney: Yeah, I remember thinking that quite a bit when I read her name in the credits for Inkheart! Oh, Jennifer Ehle is such a wonderful actress. And Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, mmm… Anyway! Tangent! I hate to say this, but I think if they were to make a movie out of this, it would actually be better as a 2 hour movie than a 4 hour miniseries. As much as was going on, it felt like not everything was necessarily needed to make this a good story. Not that it dragged on, but it just wasn’t all that important to furthering character development or pushing the story to a climax – like the meeting between Penn’s aunt and Sir. Richard.

Rachel: What they should do is a BBC series featuring two hour episodes of each Heyer novel. They could totally squeeze this into two hours. I mean look at the ITV Northanger Abbey— that worked brilliantly. As did the ITV Persuasion ( Unfortunately, I have nothing good to say about the ITV Mansfield Park so I am just not going to say anything at all…..)
Penn’s aunt! Sir Richard! How Lady Catherine de Bourgh-esque was that pivotal moment. Good God Georgette Heyer! You’re like mango gelato. You are the sweetest confection in the world. And you ruin me for real life…. And so do your men with their boots and cravats and eye glasses hanging from dainty chains! Back to Jack Davenport ( because isn’t that just the best segway??? ) he has a delicious voice. I have a feeling Sir Richard would have a delicious voice.

Courtney: He really does have a delicious voice. And I imagine Sir Richard would too, especially when he is amused at Penn. And Jack Davenport could totally pull off Sir Richard’s bored attitude that seems to intimidate those he doesn’t care a fig about. Mmm, I totally want to rewatch all the Pirates of the Caribbean movies now, darn it!
What did you think of all the secondary characters? I loved me the thief they met in the stage coach. He was a lot of fun.

Rachel: I loved the thief and I loved the rather portly relative whose house Sir Richard visits at the beginning of the story— the one who tries hard to emulate Sir Richard’s flair with a cravat ( his name escapes me right now )

Courtney: The sister’s husband?

Rachel: Yah. That’s him. He was super cool.

Courtney: Yeah, he was pretty awesome. They were all mostly awesome; in fact, there were only two characters that I DIDN’T like – Penn’s childhood friend (again, the name is not coming to mind) and the girl he’s in love with. I have no patience for silly little people like them. I was especially aggravated when whats-her-name told her father that she met Penn for a romantic rendezvous instead of whats-his-name. This girl came across as being way too flakey, and I have no stomach for characters like that.
Before I start going on a rant, I need to change the subject.
How about the last moment when Penn and Sir Richard finally both admit and realize that the other is in love with them? It is up there with the awesome endings of Rilla of Ingleside and North & South, as far as my favourites go.

Rachel: I also loved the last moment. The thing with Georgette Heyer is she always leaves the romantic climax until the very last page. You know it is coming but she makes you wait and wait and THEN …. Then she ties it up with a happy bow ( same with North and South, eh?)
I really enjoyed the ending and the discovery of love which, really, when you think about it had been there since Sir Richard first saw Penn—all inebriated and blurry and cleaned her up and whisked her away.…

..
Courtney: Oh, he obviously loved her from the beginning. And she was in love with him from that point too even though she didn’t realize it until later. But all-in-all a satisfying end to a good book then. Yay!

Casting Georgette Heyer: These Old Shades edition

These Old Shades is one of Georgette Heyer’s classics. It is a wonderful, romping, rollicking plot of mixed identities and melodrama and girls dressed as boys and love slowly blossoming and cravats and conspiracies and oh! la! ...all things gloriously regency.

The Duke of Avon, Justin Alistair, is often called Satanas by the elite members of the ton: he has known so many women, has conquested so many conquests, blah! Blah! Has a good hand at cards, cares nothing for no one and drowns in his nonchalance. But one night while wandering the streets of Paris he saves a street urchin from the abuse of his older brother.

Avon sweeps the kid from the streets and adopts him as his page. Leon, with his pale skin and reddish curls becomes quite the favourite of society. For who knew Avon to be so charitable with those unfortunate?

Turns out, Leon is actually the adorable French creature Leonine who may or may not be the illegitimate child of someone very significant in Avon’s past.

He’s twenty years older than she; she has lovely hi-jinks and adorable broken English; she worships the ground he walks on and has sworn her devotion for life; he thinks she should be set up with his rapscallion brother Rupert … and… oh yes! There is a KIDNAPPING


So much fun! And so much fun to cast. Casting Georgette Heyer today we’re going to have to toss the role of Avon to our friend Richard Armitage.

Well-played Richard.

Casting Georgette Heyer's Black Sheep

My friend Courtney did the seemingly impossible: she gave me a book as a gift.

This is usually hard for people because they never know what I have or have not read ( I have read pretty much everything it seems) or what I will like and they generally shy away from tempting me with anything but a Chapters/Indigo giftcard.

Not Court. Nope. She found a winner (a few years ago, it would seem ) and held on to her treasure and just knew that she could pop it out at the right time and I would love it.


And I did.

Ladies and gents, I give you the Regency Barney Snaith ( of LM Montgomery's The Blue Castle) Miles Caverleigh from Georgette Heyer's DIVINE Black Sheep

Now Miles, adorable Miles, is part Barney/ part Rhett Butler- --- all delicious regency fun: his boots are too tall for society; his cravat too loose and he has this infuriating habit of making our prim and bright heroine, Abigail Wendover, giggle at the most inopportune moments.

Oh Miles!


But Miles, dear Miles, sees a spark in dear Abby ( who is actually eight and twenty and very very much on the shelf. You see, bloggosphere, no one has "made up" to her ---or out with her in 20th Century vernacular---in EONS and she is being left to wither away whilst caring for her invalid, hypochondriatic sister and the neice who wants to run away with a scoundrel! a rake! a rogue....


oh it is DELICIOUS! and it is all about mature love ( because Miles once eloped with his heart's desire all but twenty years ago, don't you know, and he knows that Abby and he have a preternatural connection and..... )....and I WISH L M Montgomery had been alive to read some of these sentences:


I give you:


"He had nothing to recommend him but his smile, and she was surely too old, and had too much commonsense to be beguiled by a smile however attractive it might be. But just as she reached this decision he spoke, and she glanced up at him, and realized that she had overestimated both her age and her commonsense"



AH AH AH

and there is MORE.....


"She was aware suddenly that her heart, in general a very reliable organ, was behaving in a most alarming way"


and then....


"She had been attracted by his smile, but no smile, however fascinating it might be, could cause a cool-headed female of more than eight-and-twenty so wholly to lose her poise and her judgment that she felt she had met, in its owner, the embodiment of an ideal."




Abby is smart and resourceful with a winsome sense of humour; Miles just enough parts rakish and gentleman with a hidden fortune and a desperate need to win the heart of fair maiden ( and with a dash of sarcasm and a sardonic smile which screams Barney!) and the whole blasted thing is bloody enchanting.

Seriously.

I timed it out so I didn't gobble it wholly and spread over a few pints in the Distillery ( here in Toronto ) on a train ride for work, on the subway and before bed and, seriously chickadees, I am going to start again. From the top.


BECAUSE I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS BOOK!

It is precisely what this woman of eight-and-twenty ( who has fallen hard for a smile more than once, don't y'know) needs to subdue the January chill.


I am all aflutter...

and the best part.... THE CASTING!


why yes!


Jack Davenport as Miles Caverleigh. Won't he be divine?



( I realize this post has no real literary merit and I don't very much care... I have jelly beans aside me, a friday evening devoid of commitment and a heart full of love for a fictional man.... again)