The Reluctant Widow by Georgette Heyer
May. 7th, 2012 12:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Stepping into the wrong carriage at a Sussex village, Elinor Rochdale is swept up in a thrilling and dangerous adventure. Overnight the would-be governess becomes mistress of a ruined estate and partner in a secret conspiracy to save a family’s name. By midnight she is a bride, by dawn a widow.
When Elinor Rochdale’s father commits suicide after incurring gambling debts she’s forced to change her social situation. With her relations unwilling to take her in due to the scandal, she resolves to work as a governess. While travelling to a Sussex village to take up a new position, there’s a terrible mix up that sees her taken to the house of Eustace Cheviot (a known degenerate). There she meets his cousin, Lord Carlyon who wants her to marry Eustace in order to prevent Cheviot’s estate from falling to Carlyon on his death.
Elinor refuses to do so, but matters come to a head when Carlyon’s younger brother, Nick, grievously wounds Cheviot in a bar brawl. With Cheviot close to death, Elinor agrees to marry him to spare Nick from a murder charge. Within 24 hours she’s widowed, which is when her problems really start.
With Cheviot’s estate near bankruptcy, it emerges that he was engaged in activities that threaten England’s war with France. Elinor must endure French spies and curious Cheviot family members enquiring into her business, but none of these are as insufferable as Lord Carlyon himself whose high handed arrogance is vexing in the extreme …
Georgette Heyer’s Regency romance is a light, frothy read that’s perfect for a rainy Sunday afternoon.
This isn’t a book for readers who like strong female characters. Elinor Rochdale is a passive character, very good at declaring she won’t do something and calling Carlyon insufferable and then doing what he wants. Her best scenes are those with her sweet natured former governess Miss Beccles.
Similarly Carlyon is a two-dimensional character – overbearing, arrogant and always one-step ahead of the other characters. His best scene is with Cheviot’s cousin Francis, a fashion-obsessed dandy with secrets of his own but I also liked his interaction with brothers John and Nick. Nick in particular is a great character – exuberant and enthusiastic to his own detriment whose personality is reflected by his lumbering dog, Bouncer. Together they are the source of the biggest chuckles in the book.
The romance element is somewhat perfunctory and seemed to me to be more of an afterthought than the purpose of the book (although that didn’t bother me).
It isn’t a deep book but then that’s not the point of it. If you’re looking for an easy, unchallenging but fun read then you can do much worse than this.
The Verdict:
Georgette Heyer’s Regency romance is a light, frothy read that’s perfect for a rainy Sunday afternoon. It’s not a deep book, the romance seemed a little perfunctory and neither of the main characters really worked for me, but the minor characters are a lot of fun and I did love the Francis Cheviot, a sinister dandy. I’d definitely read more of Heyer’s books.
Stepping into the wrong carriage at a Sussex village, Elinor Rochdale is swept up in a thrilling and dangerous adventure. Overnight the would-be governess becomes mistress of a ruined estate and partner in a secret conspiracy to save a family’s name. By midnight she is a bride, by dawn a widow.
When Elinor Rochdale’s father commits suicide after incurring gambling debts she’s forced to change her social situation. With her relations unwilling to take her in due to the scandal, she resolves to work as a governess. While travelling to a Sussex village to take up a new position, there’s a terrible mix up that sees her taken to the house of Eustace Cheviot (a known degenerate). There she meets his cousin, Lord Carlyon who wants her to marry Eustace in order to prevent Cheviot’s estate from falling to Carlyon on his death.
Elinor refuses to do so, but matters come to a head when Carlyon’s younger brother, Nick, grievously wounds Cheviot in a bar brawl. With Cheviot close to death, Elinor agrees to marry him to spare Nick from a murder charge. Within 24 hours she’s widowed, which is when her problems really start.
With Cheviot’s estate near bankruptcy, it emerges that he was engaged in activities that threaten England’s war with France. Elinor must endure French spies and curious Cheviot family members enquiring into her business, but none of these are as insufferable as Lord Carlyon himself whose high handed arrogance is vexing in the extreme …
Georgette Heyer’s Regency romance is a light, frothy read that’s perfect for a rainy Sunday afternoon.
This isn’t a book for readers who like strong female characters. Elinor Rochdale is a passive character, very good at declaring she won’t do something and calling Carlyon insufferable and then doing what he wants. Her best scenes are those with her sweet natured former governess Miss Beccles.
Similarly Carlyon is a two-dimensional character – overbearing, arrogant and always one-step ahead of the other characters. His best scene is with Cheviot’s cousin Francis, a fashion-obsessed dandy with secrets of his own but I also liked his interaction with brothers John and Nick. Nick in particular is a great character – exuberant and enthusiastic to his own detriment whose personality is reflected by his lumbering dog, Bouncer. Together they are the source of the biggest chuckles in the book.
The romance element is somewhat perfunctory and seemed to me to be more of an afterthought than the purpose of the book (although that didn’t bother me).
It isn’t a deep book but then that’s not the point of it. If you’re looking for an easy, unchallenging but fun read then you can do much worse than this.
The Verdict:
Georgette Heyer’s Regency romance is a light, frothy read that’s perfect for a rainy Sunday afternoon. It’s not a deep book, the romance seemed a little perfunctory and neither of the main characters really worked for me, but the minor characters are a lot of fun and I did love the Francis Cheviot, a sinister dandy. I’d definitely read more of Heyer’s books.
