I've fallen down a rabbit hole this time. Blame it on YouTube. After reading the Brother Cadfael stories, I was thinking that maybe historic fiction might be my new go-to genre. To that end, I watched a video on Tristan and the Classics, a YouTube book channel, and his video on ten historical fiction books that he recommends. I proceeded to pick up one of the books he described that happened to be readily available from my library as an ebook. So down we go...
My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.
Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.
Black Sheep by Georgette Heyer B+
Historical fiction, yes, but also a Regency romance, by one of the queens of historical and Regency romances, Georgette Heyer. She also wrote mysteries, historical novels, and thrillers, which I will likely have to get around to sampling. Since, as you can see from my grade, I rather enjoyed this story.
The story itself is pretty classic. It is set in the English city of Bath during the first half of the nineteenth century, presumably during the Regency Period - 1811 to about 1820, I believe. Fanny Wendover, a seventeen year old heiress, has fallen in love with a very charming fortune hunter, Stacy Calverleigh. He is in desperate need of marrying a heiress to pay off his gambling debts and support his expensive lifestyle. Though Fanny's guardian is a straightlaced uncle who no one can stand, he had handed off the raising of Fanny to his two sisters. Thus she's grown up in the house of her two aunts. The elder, Selina Wendover, is your typical spinster, much given to (imagined) ill health, along with the younger aunt, also unmarried, the twenty-eight year old Abigail Wendover. She is a much more level headed woman, who is pursued by a number of very boring suitors. Abby sets out to save Fanny from the fortune hunter - hopefully without turning Fanny against her. A almost impossible task since Fanny resents any ill words against Stacy. Enter Stacy's uncle, the Calverleigh family's black sheep, Miles Calverleigh. Some 20 years before, he had been packed off to India for some scandal, and who by chance, finds himself in Bath. Abby and Miles meet by a minor misunderstanding, and Abby, against her better judgement, finds that she is attracted to him, despite his dark reputation and rather careless attitude to just about everything.
Black Sheep is no bodice ripper. It is all very proper, as are its characters. Which is good, as I like the understated in just about everything. The charm of this story is in the interesting and largely pleasant characters, plus a well researched glimpse of the life of high society of the period, the ton, who gathered in Bath to idle away part of their year. But ever more so, I enjoyed it for its clever and witty writing and dialog. I may have mentioned in previous reviews, (many times), but it bears mention, I like clever and witty dialog. Clever and witty writing trumps plot and story for me. While variations of this story have no doubt been written several thousand times since this one was written, and perhaps many times before, and the fact that I am likely outside of its target audience, speaks to its great charm. It's such a delightfully written book, that it earns a B+ in my grade book.
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