I Love Love
Ah, Valentine’s Day! That magical, wonderful day for all the lovers! I am currently sitting at a cozy little bar around the corner from my apartment writing this, and it is fully decked out for the holiday in here. Three separate employees have asked me if I’m waiting for someone, and now the bartender keeps trying to get me to order various menu items heavily featuring chocolate because they “go well with the Chianti.” I know, I know - Valentine’s Day is technically a holiday for couples, but single or not, it’s always been one of my favorites. I love my friends and my family, and I love any excuse to tell those people I love how much I love them. And the cards, and the flowers, and the chocolates. I basically just love love.
And so, in the spirit of love - tonight I will be talking about my love for a genre that’s all about love: <3 romance <3. I could go on at length about romance novels - both how amazing they are and how unjust it is that people think they’re a joke. If you loved Netflix’s Bridgerton, but you think that romance novels are just for sad, middle-aged cat ladies who call Valentine’s Day 'singles appreciation day,” you’re part of the problem. But - to keep things positive on this day of love, I will save that discussion for another time. I’ve read many romances - most of them regency romances, some gilded age, a couple contemporary, some of them extremely steamy, some of them totally chaste and a few in between. Of all the romance authors I’ve read though, one has truly captured my heart, and that is Georgette Heyer (regency, totally chaste).
Georgette Heyer is an absolute genius when it comes to this stuff - I mean she nails it every single time. She started her writing career in 1921 and died in 1974. Her last novel was published posthumously. She is the mother of the regency romance genre as we know it today. I also have an extra soft spot for Georgette (first name basis because I love her) because after telling my grandmother, Bonnie Matheson, how I had discovered this amazing author who wrote the most fun and romantic books ever, she laughed and told me that my great grandmother, Emma Tompkins Matheson (affectionately known as Big Pink) loved Georgette Heyer. That makes me smile because I know where my good taste comes from.
So far, I have read 5 books by my girl Georgette. Out of an impressive 54 - which is truly so amazing because it’ll take me a while to run out of new one’s to read. For now though, I’ll have to tell you about the ones I have read - ranked from most favorite to least :)
The Grand Sophy
Sophy (worldly, dead mother, granted way more freedom than a young lady should have by her widower father) comes to stay in Berkley Square with her aunt and uncle. Sophy turns the entire household upside-down, meets her match and falls in love. Read this one first. I read it first, and I still loved the others, but in my opinion this one is the liveliest. Sophy is the best of Georgette’s characters (that I’ve read so far). It is truly just rollicking fun the whole way through. No notes.
Frederica
Frederica comes to town hoping to find her beautiful sister a well positioned man to marry. She applies to her better known connection (distant relation), Alverstoke to help introduce her sister into society, and in a shocking move to everyone who knows him, he agrees. In an equally “shocking” turn of events, the beautiful little sister doesn’t make as much of an impression on him as our dear Frederica does. By far the sweetest of the five that I’ve read. Sweetest female lead and sweetest male lead (even though he doesn’t know how sweet he is). It’s just delicious.
Arabella
Arabella, daughter of a poor family with many children is on her way to stay with her godmother in London when her carriage breaks down and she meets Robert Beaumaris. In a moment of hot-headedness, she tells him that she is an heiress. Shenanigans ensue when they meet again in London society. I read this one second. It was a delight. If you haven’t figured it out yet, they’re all delights. There is more frustrating deceit that could be easily sorted out if the characters just talked to each other openly in this one, which is why it comes in 3rd.
Devil’s Cub
The Marquis of Vidal, has a similar reputation to his father (Duke of Avon, see below) with an added violent streak. He wants to run away with the beautiful Sophia Challoner and make her his mistress, but older sister Mary essentially gets herself kidnapped instead, in an effort to protect her little sister from ruin. Definitely the most adventure filled of the five. Better than the one about his dad but still questionable by modern standards. Mary is not as interesting as some of Georgette’s other female leads, so it ranks lower than the others but higher than These Old Shades. Not really necessary to read them in order, and the bow at the end of this one is particularly satisfying.
These Old Shades
Old, scandalous, scoundrel who everyone thinks will be a bachelor forever (Justin Alastair, Duke of Avon) suddenly takes on a young (like way-too-young-for-him) ward, Leonine, who pretends to he a boy at first but is actually a girl. You guess the rest. Admittedly, this one starts off so, so, so weird. I honestly hesitate to truly recommend it because the premise is so strange (this coming from someone who has a pretty high threshold for inappropriate relationships in romance novels - I’m there for the romance, not the details). All that being said, even though I did think this was a bizarre tale, I was still smiling from ear to ear by the end. A testament to Georgette’s storytelling.
Each of these books is honestly a masterpiece. As much as I defend romance novels, and this is a hill that I would die on, I can also recognize the silly little things about them that make people think of them as silly novels by lady novelists. The characters can feel derivative and the plot lines or set ups can be ridiculous. When Georgette does it though, the characters are fantastically original, hilarious and full of life. As for the lead ups to (spoiler alert) the always happy, tied up in a bow, endings - they do feel ridiculous at times, but that never matters in the end. I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but something about the way she writes it quite literally leaves me screaming at how something that made me roll my eyes 50 pages ago, now has me looking like an absolute goofball - permanent smile glued to my face believing in the power of true love. I don’t mean to sound hyperbolic - I’m really not exaggerating. These books make me smile so hard that my face hurts, and sometimes that’s exactly what you need.