These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer

These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer was first published in 1926.

The tale begins on a dark night in Paris in the reign of Louis XV. Justin Alastair – the notorious Duke of Avon who also goes by the nickname of Satanas as he’s a bit devilish – is surprised when a small red-headed boy crashes into him. Justin assumes that he is about to be robbed but the boy assures him that he did not intend robbery, he is being chased by his much older brother a publican who is cruel to him. The lad is called Leon and when the older brother arrives the Duke buys Leon from him. Despite the fact that Leon is absolutely filthy and in rags, the Duke can see a strong resemblance to his great enemy the Comte de St Vire. That gives the Duke an idea, but first Leon will have to be cleaned up. Quelle horreur! It turns out that Leon is actually a Leonie, and the plot thickens.

Leonie has been living as a boy for years as she/he had been working in her brother’s pub, it seemed safest to eschew femininity in that atmosphere, but Leonie was loath to give up her breeches for corsets and dresses as the Duke insists. She comes to enjoy the finer things in life though as she’s taken into high society, including Versailles.

This is an adventure tale but of course there’s romance too. That’s the bit that didn’t feel quite right to me although I’m obviously looking at it from a modern stance. There’s also not much in the way of witty dialogue between characters. I think for many people this is one of their favourite Heyers and I’m glad I read it but I found it slow to begin with and it just didn’t hit the spot for me. With the 19 year old female in the romance seeming more like a ten year old to me and the over 20 year age difference in the couple, the male of which keeps calling her baby, infant and child, it seemed a bit sick to me.

False Colours by Georgette Heyer

False Colours by Georgette Heyer was first published in 1963.

Kit and Evelyn Fancot are identical male twins whose lives have gone in different directions with Kit going into the diplomatic service and Evelyn into the army. Evelyn, the eldest and therefore the inheritor of the family estate is about to announce his engagement to wealthy heiress Cressy Stavely, but Evelyn is missing from home and nowhere to be found, his mother Lady Denham is distraught. She is recently widowed and is mired in debt, and she still can’t stop spending money. It’s important that Evelyn’s marriage goes ahead, but all depends on the elderly Lady Stavely, Cressy’s grandmother, and she’s notoriously difficult.

When Kit arrives home after being away for a few years he feels that something has happened to Evelyn, he’s worried about him too.

Few people are able to tell the difference between the twins, so their mother persuades Kit to pose as Evelyn at the family gathering, he’s not keen to do it but everything goes well, too well in fact!

This Regency romance hit the spot for me, it was just what I needed after reading a few quite bleak books prior to this one. It’s absolutely chock-full of Georgian slang, I looked some of it up in the dictionary as I’m always in doubt as to whether she has just made it all up, but every time I do that the phrase is actually in the dictionary, she certainly did her research!

Katherine by Anya Seton

Katherine by the American author Anya Seton was first published in 1954. I’ve been meaning to get around to reading it for years, so I put it on my new third Classics Club list, just to remind me to get on with it. I really enjoyed it.

Katherine is written in six parts which range from 1366 to 1396. At the beginning Katherine is a young girl, leaving the very secluded Sheppey priory that she has grown up in for the hurly burly of Windsor. It’s a long journey and a real eye-opener fot the young girl. It was the Queen who had ordered that Katherine be brought to court, and it’s really only then that Katherine realises that she’s attractive with her long auburn hair. When she’s suffering from the unwanted attention of a man that Katherine first meets, the Duke of Lancaster/John of Gaunt, he saves her from Hugh Swynford, the man that she eventually marries for some sort of security. But it’s the Duke that she’s going to be involved with for most of her life.

This is such an entertaining and painless way of learning about the history of the period, Anya Seton seems really to have done her research into the period, a time of upheaval and misery for the ordinary people, most of whom were serfs, so were not free to move away if they wanted to as the landowner owned them. French wars, plague, rioting, Lollards, Geoffrey Chaucer and all sorts come into the tale, including quite a lot of the old religion as you would expect. But at the heart of it is a three way marriage and I couldn’t help thinking about the Charles/Diana/Camilla episode which was a very similar situation.

Anya Seton was steeped in English history it would seem and was obvioulsy an Anglophile, but there was one very jarring Americanism in that she uses the phrase ‘New Year’s’ It’s a US expression and I always want to say – New Year’s what?! I must say that it drives me nuts so it really jumped out at me. It would never have been used in 14th century England.

Apart from this one I’ve only read her Green Darkness. Would anyone recommend any others by Seton?

The Light Over London by Julia Kelly

 The Light Over London cover

The Light Over London by Julia Kelly was first published in 2019. It’s a dual time novel with the setting being in WW2 London 1941 and 2017 Gloucestershire. This type of structure often works well but at times they can be annoying if you are enjoying the story and the timeline suddenly switches away from it. The author is American but is now living in London.

Cara has recently divorced and relocated to Gloucestershire where she has got a job with an antiques dealer who does house clearances. When she finds a wartime diary in an old tin while helping with valuations and house clearing she asks her boss Jock if she can keep the diary and he’s happy for her to do so. The diary has been written by a woman who had run away and joined the army to do her bit, rather than stay at home and marry the young man that her rather bullying mother had planned out for her future.

The diary comes to an abrupt end and Cara is keen to find out what happened. She’s helped in her task by Liam, her new and rather good-looking neighbour. So the book contains two romances and a bit of a mystery, unfortunately for me it just didn’t work, in fact there are so many anomalies in the writing that I took to keeping a note of them, this might seem like nit-picking but if you are setting a book in England and all the characters are English then it’s important not to import Americanisms into it as it jars so badly.

The most obvious one was the use several times of the word purse where it should have been handbag.

The word blond was used to describe a woman but the ‘e’ also appeared in the next sentence, otherwise it was without the ‘e’.

The word stand-down was used in relation to the end of the war.

Card shark is used a few times, it should of course be card sharp, I have no idea if card shark is American.

Ticket taker should be ticket collector.

Do you think Princess Elizabeth will serve? The phrase in the UK is/was join up.

Off ramp was used when it should have been slip road, and tea kettle was used instead of just kettle.

In other words the book is in need of being edited to weed out the incongruous Americanisms – as well as the cornier romance parts.

Cousin Kate by Georgette Heyer

Cousin Kate cover

Cousin Kate by Georgette Heyer was first published in 1968, so it was the third last of her books and for me it seemed quite different from her other romances. The actual romance part was more or less over by around the middle of the book, and there was a distinct lack of the witty repartee that I enjoy so much about her dialogue.

Kate Malvern has been brought up ‘following the drum’ as her father had been a professional soldier, her mother had died young, so Kate isn’t your average Regency lady. She has had to work as a governess to support herself and when she loses her job she has to move in with Mrs Nidd who was her nursemaid.

Sarah Nidd writes to Lady Broome who is Kate’s Aunt Minerva, asking if she can help her niece and the upshot is that Kate is taken by Lady Broome to stay at Staplewood, her large home. Her husband is Sir Timothy, a much older man and he has more or less withdrawn to his own wing of the house as his wife is an overbearing bully and he just won’t stand up to her. His only friend had been his nephew Philip, but Kate becomes the daughter that he had never had.

Kate realises that her aunt has an ulterior motive for her invitation to Stapleton, she wants Kate to marry her son Torquil. He’s completely in his mother’s control, he’s always had delicate health, but it’s his mental state that worries Kate. He has tantrums and generally behaves like a three year old and his mother employs Dr Delabole to dose him up when he has a turn. His mother is desperate for him to produce an heir, but it needs to be with a wife that would also be under the control of Minerva his mother, she thinks Kate would be the ideal wife. Kate thinks differently.

This book dragged for me a bit although I must admit it got a bit more interesting towards the end, but it isn’t one of her best, mainly because of the lack of humour and wit which I’ve come to expect from Heyer’s writing.

The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer

The Grand Sophy cover

The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer was first published in 1950 and it’s a hoot. Sophy’s father Sir Horace who is a widower takes Sophy to live with his sister Lady Ombersley while he has some work to do in South America. As Sophy is twenty years old she’s overdue for being introduced to society and Lady Ombersley promises her brother that she will arrange some balls for Sophy, along with her own daughter Cecilia who is just slightly younger. Lady Ombersley has a large family to cope with but the children are nothing compared with the problems that Lord Ombersley brings her. He’s a compulsive gambler and has piles of debts. Luckily the family home is entailed and although he tried to break the entail he wasn’t successful. He has handed the running of the family finances to his eldest son and heir Charles who is weighted down with cares before his time.

When Sophy arrives she’s not the shrinking violet they expected. She’s determined to do exactly what she wants – and to the devil with conventions. She’s a gifted horsewoman and in no time she has bought a carriage and pair of horses which would be the equivalent of a woman buying something like a V8 Ferrari nowadays. Her cousin Charles is appalled by her behaviour.

Sophy couldn’t be more different from the strait-laced Miss Wraxton that Charles is engaged to marry. She’s joyless and a nasty gossip and definitely not the right match for Charles, but that’s main theme of The Grand Sophy, everyone seems destined to be with the wrong partner, until Sophy gets to work on them all.

As you would expect this book is full of humour and the last chapters are more akin to a farce – but such fun!!

The Toll-Gate by Georgette Heyer

The Toll Gate cover

The Toll-Gate by Georgette Heyer was first published in 1955 and my copy is a Book Club hardback from that date. This is more of a mystery/adventure book and is quite light on the romance – which is fine by me.

Captain John Staples has recently left the army after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, he had a bit of a reputation for being crazy amongst his fellow officers and he’s finding civilian life a bit boring, especially when he has to go to a family wedding in Derbyshire. The women in his extended family seem keen to find a wife for him, but they’re disappointed when he leaves the wedding early.

Looking for an inn to spend the night in John – or Jack as he’s generally known to his friends – gets lost and eventually reaches a roadside toll-gate which is being ‘manned’ by Ben a young and scared boy all on his own. It transpires that Ben’s father has gone missing and Ben fears the worst. Jack decides that he must find out what is going on.

This is a good light read with likeable characters and a plethora of Regency slang.

You might think that a toll-gate dates a book immediately to a certain era but it’s only a couple of years since we had to stump up all of 40 pence in the dead of night on a rural road somewhere around the English midlands. In fact not that long ago I saw such a house and business for sale in the Guardian, you would have to be a keen home body though as you would never be able to leave the place!

The Nonesuch by Georgette Heyer

Blood and Beauty cover

The Nonesuch by Georgette Heyer is one of her Regency romances – a bit of a romp, but perfect holiday reading. It was first published in 1962 and this one has a lot of similarities with Jane Austen, more so than others of Heyer’s books I’ve read.

Sir Waldo Hawkridge is a wealthy, handsome and fashionable bachelor of thirty-five or six. In his younger days he was well known as a great athlete and he’s still held in high esteem by the younger males in society. In fact they are still emulating the somewhat crazy fashions that Hawkridge made popular years before, although he himself is dressing with much less fussiness in his old age. He was given the nickname of The Nonesuch meaning he was a paragon, nothing and no-one could better him.

In fact most people don’t realise quite what a paragon The Nonesuch is. Although he is wealthy he has an interest in orphans and the poor and when he inherits an estate from a miser of an uncle he decides to turn the house into another orphanage, but it’s all very secret as he doesn’t like to advertise his philanthropy.

Throw in three young male relatives and a bit of love interest, just when The Nonesuch thought he was past such things, it all adds up to an amusing and entertaining read.

The Foundling by Georgette Heyer

The Foundling by Georgette Heyer is quite different from the other romances which I’ve read by her. For one thing it isn’t really a romance as close to the beginning the young Duke of Sale is pushed into agreeing to marry an old childhood friend and cousin, Lady Harriet. The Duke was orphaned at a very young age and his guardian and uncle Lord Lionel has molly-coddled him all his life as he was a rather weak and sickly child.

Lord Lionel likes to be in control of everything and his over-bearing attitude makes Sale wish he wasn’t an aristocrat so when a relative gets into some woman trouble, Sale jumps at the chance to help out, leaving his aristocratic trappings behind and travelling as an ordinary chap.

He finds himself in all sorts of adventures and serious scrapes which he manages to extricate himself from and his experiences end up giving him the confidence which he needed to stand up for himself against all the relatives and staff who are so keen to control his life.

The character of Belinda, a young woman who has also run off from her former life makes for quite a lot of comedy as she agrees to go off with any man who says he will buy her a purple silk gown. It’s quite a task for the Duke to save her from her daftness.

It’s an enjoyable romp.

Right Royal Friend by Nigel Tranter

Right Royal Friend cover

Have you ever read anything by Nigel Tranter? When I added this book to Library Thing I noticed that only nine people have done so, I think that’s the lowest ever for me.

Anyway, Nigel Tranter was a Scottish author of historical fiction, amongst other things. He wrote more than 90 books and when he died in 2000 there must have been a queue of books waiting to be published because his books were still being published in 2007. This one was published in 2003. If you’re into Scottish history his books are a painless way of learning about it because they are historically correct and he wove his stories around the facts.

Right Royal Friend is mainly about David Murray, the second son of Sir Andrew Murray, and how a chance meeting with the then 14 year old King James VI of Scotland on a Scottish hillside led to him becoming a close friend of the monarch.

Queen Elizabeth I of England has James’ mother, Mary Queen of Scots in captivity but James is only concerned with being named as Elizabeth I successor.

This is the first book by Tranter which I’ve read and I must say that I enjoyed it, but I have to say that there is necessarily quite a lot of info dumping which most Scottish people would probably already know about. I enjoy reading descriptions of landscapes and for me that was a bit lacking in this book, which is strange because I think of that as being a feature of Celtic writers.

The settings happen to be very close to where I live in Scotland and I’ve been in all of the castles and palaces which are mentioned so it was easy for me to imagine myself there but for other readers I think it would have added atmosphere if the buildings and villages had been better described too. I suppose that would have made the book a good bit longer though.

Anyway, I’ll certainly read more by Nigel Tranter and I’d recommend his books, especially to anyone who would like to know what was going on in Scotland’s history at a time when it tends to be England which is concentrated on. I think his books would be interesting for anyone visiting Scotland and intending to visit historic places.