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
Arabella by Georgette Heyer A-
As I mentioned in another review, Heyer's romances vary in tone. Some are more serious, well as serious as romances can be, while others are comedies. Arabella falls on the comedy end of that spectrum. It proved to be a very enjoyable antidote to that mystery story with all its unpleasant characters, "real" and fictional.
In this story Arabella is the oldest daughter of a kindly clergyman. She has seven siblings that the clergyman must provide for on modest means. Her mother married this second son of the gentry, and is very happy, but she knows it will be hard to marry off her four daughters, and so arranges to send her oldest, Arabella, down to an old friend of hers in London, who married well and is now a rich widow in the hope of finding a suitable i.e. rich, husband for Arabella. Her friend is delighted to introduce Arabella into London society and goes about it as if she were her own daughter.
However, along the week-long journey from the north, Arabella and her traveling companion's carriage breaks down and it being winter, they call on a local house for shelter while they wait on a replacement carriage to be sent out from town. This house happens to be he hunting lodge of a Mr Beaumaris, a youngish, very wealthy, and important figure in London society. They are welcomed, but she overhears Beaumaris telling his friend that he fears she is just another woman hoping to land him, and his money, as so many other women have tried. This makes Arabella angry, and she when their together again, she tells him that she has her own wealth and has no interest in him.
Well, word reaches London that she is a wealthy heiress, trapping her in her lie, and causing her to be besieged by scores of young men in need of a wealthy heiress to marry. And, of course, she meets Beaumaris in London, and his attendance to her ensures her success in London society. Can she escape her lie?
I found this a very enjoyable story. Heyer's writing is always witty and entertaining, which I value highly. Arabella is an engaging protagonist, her father's daughter, ready to stand up against anyone when she sees injustice or cruelty, be it taking charge of a battered orphan child who was being forced to crawl up chimneys to clean them by his master, or saving a little dog being beaten youths. My few cons were that there is a fair amount of "telling" as we are introduced to London society and all its ins and out. Plus, there is a typical Heyer sub-plot involving her brother in town and getting into deep financial trouble living wide and foolish. Plus gambling, i.e. the evils of gambling, and losing at it, are often featured in Heyer's Regency London stories.
I haven't exhausted as Georgette Heyer's catalog yet, so more of her stories will be on the way. And if you've read my last mid-week post, you'll know just how many more.
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