Georgette Heyer
7 Bücher
- Nicholas Beauvallet captures a Spanish galleon, falls for a prisoner, and cheerfully promises to walk into Spain itself to marry her, and the fun is watching him keep that absurd vow. Pure swagger and duels, with a lot of God's-death Elizabethan talk, so come in the mood for froth.
- Early Heyer, medieval not Regency, and she writes it in deliberate thee-and-thou prose that takes a chapter to settle into. But watching stern, ambitious Simon claw up from bastard page to lord, then meet his match besieging Lady Margaret, is sturdy old-fashioned fun.
- Heyer wrote this at nineteen and it shows in the best way: a disgraced earl playing highwayman to shield his brother, a genuinely silky villain in the Duke of Andover, swordfights, abductions, the lot. Sillier than her later books, but cheerfully so.
- You’ll want this if you’re curious about Heyer before the sparkling Regency comedies: Sir Nicholas Roxhythe is a formidable, morally thorny presence at the Restoration court, and the book moves through politics, violence, and revenge with a dark, melodramatic energy. It’s rougher and more solemn than her later work, but oddly compelling.
- Two siblings swap clothes and identities after backing the wrong side in the '45, and the fun is watching Prudence keep her nerve playing a young gentleman while big, sleepy Sir Anthony notices more than he lets on. Light, witty, and their outrageous father steals every scene.
- Philip starts out a blunt Sussex squire who can't turn a compliment, gets his heart dented, and comes back from Paris powdered, witty, and infuriating on purpose. It's early Heyer, fluffy and quick, an afternoon's read, best if you're in the mood for pure Georgian froth.
- You get the wonderfully poisonous Duke of Avon, all languid cruelty and perfect manners, taking charge of the frightened Léon. The Restoration setting is lavish, the dialogue deliciously sharp, and the romance grows out of manipulation, danger, and slowly earned tenderness.