I didn’t get around to signing up for the Georgette Heyer tour on the Classics Circuit but I thought I would read and review one anyway.

Footsteps in the Dark was first published in 1932 which just suits me fine, I love vintage thrillers. I hadn’t read any Heyers before this one and I was very pleasantly surprised by it.

At first I thought that I had fallen into an episode of Scooby Doo as all the ingredients were there – two male characters, two females and a spooky house which all of the locals said was haunted, and I kept expecting a huge mutt to come lolloping into the story but it didn’t happen.

Plenty did happen though and Heyer managed to throw lots of comedy into the mix as well as the mystery and suspense. The storyline wasn’t exactly original but I found the main characters to be really likeable.

Perfect for bedtime reading or for when you are travelling or needing a bit of distraction from real life as it was just a light, entertaining read.

I must admit that the reason that I haven’t read any Heyers before is sheer snobbery. I worked in libraries before having my family and we were all quite disdainful of Heyer even although we hadn’t actually sampled her. I think she was just out of fashion at that time and because her only readers were ‘ladies of a certain age’ we thought the worst. My grandmother was a huge fan and so I should have known better, as granny was keen on classics too.

So I’m going to have to get stuck into her work and see what the regency ones are like.

It has just occurred to me that I am now a ‘lady of a certain age’ myself. Hmmmm.