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.
The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer C
The premise of this story is that a long lost and forgotten relative, Major Hugh Darracotton, has account of some unexpected deaths, become the heir to the title and estate of the Darracotts. Only his grandfather, Lord Darracott even knew of his existence, and when his whereabouts became know, Lord Darracott bites the bullet and invites him down the family estate in the hope of sanding off the rough edges off of Major Hugh Darracott, who is the son of his disgraced son who married a weaver's daughter and will now will inherit the title and estate upon his death.
Major Darracott shows up; a giant of a man, and on who seems good natured but pretty dumb, seemingly blind to the insults that of some of his cousins toss his way. But of course, he's not. The story shows him slowly becoming part of the family, that one day he will be the head of.
While the premise of this 1959 story sounded interesting, Heyer did not seem to be on the top of her game with this one. Major Darracott is a rather boring character for a lead in a comedy, and his foils are not especially witty. The story had the feel of a paint-by-the-numbers Heyer novel, and at least for me, felt flat. Plus, she has everyone thinking that Major Darracott is very slow dim-witted, despite the fact that he was a major in an army that had been fighting for years on the Peninsula. I found that hard to buy. And all the subplots are not very interesting. The last 10% of the story is one long scene that goes on way too long, in my opinion. Not a terrible story, but one that I would say you can miss, and not miss much.
The Corinthian by Georgette Heyer A
Here's one you shouldn't. Another delightful comedy romance/adventure from Heyer. This time we have Richard Wyndham, a dashing & stylish young man about London, a "Corinthian" who, at the urging of his mother and sister very reluctantly agrees that, in order to carry on the Wyndham line, he must marry. And marry Melissa Saar, a cold, unpleasant young woman, who also must marry the rich Wyndham because her father and brothers have tossed the family fortune to the four winds. This is a common trope in Heyer's stories. However, the night before he is to call on Lord Saar to ask for her hand, he gets very drunk, takes the long way home in the early hours of the night, and discovers a young man climbing out of a window on a bedsheet. The bedsheet rope is too short and the escapee asks for his help to catch him. He does, and discovers that the young man is actually a 17 year old young lady, a wealthy orphan, escaping her aunt who wants her to marry her son, whose face reminds her of a fish. Something she is unprepared to do. Instead she plans to return to the countryside estate that she left five years ago, and to her childhood friend who had promised to marry her.
Wyndham, reluctantly can not allow this young woman to be wandering around alone in the wee hours of the night and takes her home. And in the morning, he feels obliged to see her safely to her friend in the countryside. To avoid her aunt who would no doubt be chasing after her, they take a stagecoach to Bristol... that ends up in the ditch, and so begins an adventure involving thieves, stolen diamonds, star-crossed lovers and murder. With predictable results.
These comedies of Heyer feature characters that would be found frequenting the Drones Club a hundred years later. The lead male is usually a dashing Jeeves sort of character, someone who is never at a loss, no matter how dicey the situation is. The dialog is always witty - though you have to get used to all the slang of the times she has her characters uttering - and so it is in this story. The difference between Heyer and Wodehouse, beside the age they set their stories, is that Heyer writes the story around the characters a little more, shall we say, substantial? By which I mean, slightly more realistic. Where as Wodehouse, as the narrator, is always writing to get a smile, if not a laugh, as he tells his stories. This gives the Heyer stories a little more heft, but they are still always clever and delightful.
The only warnings I can give a new readers is that, one; she often starts out her stories in the middle of a confab of characters who are discussing something the reader is at a lost to understand, and thus patience is needed to get through the first chapter or so. And secondly, as I mentioned above, she laces her dialog with slang terms of the age whose meaning you pretty much have to guess at from the context. I wouldn't lose any sleep over not understanding all of them though. I don't. But you do become more familiar with them the more you read Heyer's Regency books.
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