The Saturday Morning Post ( No. 171)

  

I would imagine that you are getting tired of hearing about Georgette Heyer's books. I've been reading a lot of them recently. There is a simple reason for this; she is an author who I really enjoy, and her books are readily available as ebooks from the library. 

Now, if one could just type into the library catalog "give me a book I will enjoy," and get a book that I would enjoy, I'd do that. But you can't. And while exploring books can be fun, back when I was getting all these Heyer books, I wanted reliable books to read. I had a lot of time to fill.

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.

False Colours by Georgette Heyer  A

Evelyn and Kit are identical twins, and their mother, Amabel, is a beautiful, loving, but air-headed widow. She thinks the world of her twins, and they of her. More over, the twins are so close that they know when each other is in trouble, and both would do anything to help their brother. So when Kit returns to London from his diplomatic post in Vienna, to settle a modest inheritance, with an uneasy feeling about his brother. He finds that his brother is somewhere... when he should be in London, so he is talked into taking his brother's place at a dinner party with a family that his brother is expected to marry into, since his brother seems to have forgotten all about it.

The thing is that when their coldhearted father died, he did not settle the debts his wife Amabel had acquired... Very large debts as it turned out, as she has no idea of economy. Moreover, their father did not trust Evelyn, who was the "eldest" of the twins, as he is a rather happy-go-lucky young man around town. As a result, he put the assets of the estate in a trust until Evelyn turns 30, or until the uncle who manages the trust, feels that Evelyn has settled down enough to be trusted with the estate. Evelyn feels honor bound to settle his mother's debts, but he can't do that without selling some of the assets of the estate. The only way to get his hands on the full estate to settle those debts is to convince his uncle that he has settled down by marrying a very nice and level headed young lady - a marriage of convenience for both, as his prospective bride, Cressy, is eager to get out of the household with the new young bride of her father, who also would like to see her out of the house as well.

But, as I said, for unknown reasons, Evelyn has disappeared, and though he is expected back shortly, his twin brother Kit takes his place, meeting Evelyn's prospective bride and her family. And then is forced to host her and her domineering grandmother at his country estate... And you can guess what happens. But that happens halfway through the story. The rest is how to get everything - love, marriage, debts settled - right without a scandal.

Another delightful light-hearted story, with lots of witty dialog, great characters, and just plain fun. 

Beauvallet by Georgette Heyer  C+

Fine for what it is; a swashbuckling romance/adventure. Sir Nicholas Beauvallet is one of those Elizabethan privateers. He captures a Spanish galleon at the start of the story, carrying a sickly island governor and his beautiful daughter. In order to prove that he is more than an English pirate, he promises to restore the governor and his daughter to Spain, rather than take them back to England. Of course he immediately falls in love with his Spanish captive, and by the end of the voyage, she with him. However, keeping his word, he delivers her to Spain, and then promises to come to get her and take her to England within a year. And of course, he does so.

This is the type of story with as hero that Errol Flynn would have played to the hilt. He laughs at death, icy cool in the most dangerous situations, takes the most outrageous risks, and always wins. Indeed, Heyer pens Beauvallet almost over the top in his dashing, always equal to the situation attitude. As I said, fine for what it is, but I find that adventure stories no longer appeal to me as they once did. But if you like stories of danger and derring-do this is the book for you.