Posts Tagged ‘Georgette Heyer’
Tuesday, May 14th, 2013
See, I knew that signing up for this blog would cause me a headache. How are you supposed to choose the top ten romances that rock your world? How? How? (At the back of my mind I have the Baha Men singing along, except it’s “How do you choose now? How, how, how, how?” Great. Hence the headache.)
Anyway, I figured the only way I can keep sane is a) recognize that I won’t hit them all, and b) acknowledge that if I am actually stuck on a desert island with only ten romance novels, I’d go crazy anyway, no matter what I chose. (Unless I chose, like, the Koran, Paradise Lost, and Journey to the West. Then maybe I’d not go all loopy.)
I decided that what I’d probably crave the most is variety, a little bit of every genre to suit every mood. It actually turned out to be relatively easy once I’d decided on this, looked at my Top 100 list, scanned my shelves, and sliced through the different categories. I’m happy with my choices – they’re all different in setting, subgenre, writing style, and character. I’ve also read each of them at least twice – I’m a serial re-reader, so I know when something works for me, when it doesn’t, and (most of important of all) when it stands up to the test of time. (more…)
Tags: All About Romance, Georgette Heyer, jennifer crusie, Jo Goodman, Joanna Bourne, Katie Fforde, Mary Stewart, meredith duran, Nora Roberts, sharon and tom curtis, Thea Harrison, Top Ten lists, top ten romance novels
Posted in All About Romance, Jean AAR, Romance reading, Uncategorized | 16 Comments »
Wednesday, February 15th, 2012
After one of my columns bemoaning discussing the rise of the light Regency, I got several emails from those who worried about me. And no, dearest emailer, I don’t torment small animals in my free time. I actually rescue cats and volunteer at the SPCA and – yikes! I’m a cute little urchin or reformed pickpocket servant away from being a Regency heroine! All of that aside, one kind soul wrote to suggest that I read Cotillion by Georgette Heyer. She described it as “the best of Regency romps, funny and clever at once.” Since I already had this book in my TBR pile(s), I decided to take it on for this month’s portion of the TBR Challenge.
I’ve loved a number of Georgette Heyer’s novels, so I had high hopes for this one. However, after Chapter One, I started to fear that this would be rough going. The book certainly seemed light and capery. However, it also brims over with inscrutable Regency-esque slang and the only characters who seemed to have much personality were the unpleasant ones. The basic set-up is this: Matthew Penicuik is a very wealthy old miser. He has called his great-nephews to his drafty old country house so that they can learn the terms of his will. Penicuik has decided to leave all of his wealth to his ward, Kitty Charing, on the condition that she choose and marry one of the nephews. This news prompts proposals from an uptight rector and an impoverished Irish earl who proposes more out of terror of his mother’s wrath than any real desire for Kitty.
(more…)
Tags: All About Romance, Georgette Heyer, TBR Challenge
Posted in Lynn AAR, Romance reading | 10 Comments »
Monday, August 15th, 2011
I know that for the readers that just love holding the actual paper book in their hands, it is going to take a lot to convince them to change to eBooks. But this week, a recurring dilemma of mine brought home one reason I love them.
An AAR reader mentioned wanting to read an out of print book, but the least expensive copy available is selling for $40.00. As I read the message board post, I realized that I had read the book. (more…)
Tags: All About Romance, decluttering, ebooks, Georgette Heyer, Nora Roberts
Posted in E-books, Leigh AAR, Reading | 36 Comments »
Wednesday, August 10th, 2011
Lynn started the week out by talking about one type of series books in Series Serendipity – the category romance books that we see coming out every month in a variety of lines. However, sometimes when readers are talking series, we’re just talking about interrelated sets of books from an author. And, love them or hate them, there seem to be a lot of interconnected series out there these days!
(more…)
Tags: All About Romance, Georgette Heyer, series books
Posted in Leigh AAR, Romance reading | 27 Comments »
Thursday, June 2nd, 2011
If you are not a fan of the 1960’s western television show, The Virginian , then this title means nothing to you. As a caregiver for an aging relative, I can almost repeat all the dialogue. One episode opens as a young woman and her mother are traveling out west to visit relatives. On the train, the young woman is reading a dime novel featuring the western hero, Deadeye Dick. When an older man saves her from falling off her horse after tumbleweeds spook him, just like Deadeye Dick saved Bessie Burton, she has her hero. Throughout the episode the mother understands that her daughter’s impressionable age is to blame rather than the dime novels and never forbids her the joy of reading them. While watching the show, I wondered how today’s mothers guide their daughters’ reading choices through the immense choices available.
During an internet search, I saw that Wikipedia touts Samuel Richardson’s popular 1740 novel Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded as one of the first romance novels. From Jane Austen to serial romances in women’s magazines, from Georgette Heyer to Mills and Boon and finally the explosion of the genre with Kathleen Woodiwiss’s The Flame and The Flower, young girls today have a myriad of choices available to them. And even if your daughter or niece is not interested in romance now, the chance of her wanting to read one in her adolescence is very high, especially with books like Twilight being made into movies. I eased into reading romance books while in my early teens. Like many readers here, my introduction to this genre started with Harlequin romance and Georgette Heyer. While I had an aunt who disapproved, my mother never censored my reading, and we had a long history of loving the same types of books.
(more…)
Tags: censorship, Georgette Heyer, Jane Austen, Kathleen E. Woodiwiss, Romance reading, Samuel Richardson, The Virginian, Twilight
Posted in Leigh AAR, Romance reading | 20 Comments »
Friday, February 25th, 2011
I’ve been thinking lately about what is it about some writers that make their books magical for readers in ways that others aren’t.
First, a confession: I read contemporary romance, romantic suspense, and paranormals, but historical romance was my first love and remains my absolute favorite. So, with my bias fully admitted and setting aside the continuing gush of wallpaper historicals in which you can’t even tell the time period a book is supposedly set in unless the author tells you, there are some talented writers out there I’ve come to admire and who have become auto-buys for me. Still, the ones I’m watching have yet to come up with one of those scenes.
I’m talking about those hit-you-in-the-heart scenes. The kind you remember. The kind you share with other readers who very often respond “Yes!” The kind that make you feel what the characters are feeling.
I love the scene in which Bobby Tom realizes that Gracie made an “X” over his heart in Heaven, Texas. Equally, the “you are my Egypt” scene from Connie Brockway’s As You Desire has to rank as one of the greatest declarations of love in all of romance. And I’ve sighed since I was 14 over the scene in Devil’s Cub in which Mary attempts to break up hotheaded Vidal’s sword fight by stepping in the middle of the action. Vidal’s reaction makes Mary realize for the very first time that her spoiled and haughty Devil’s Cub really loves her. I felt it too and I will never forget the first time I read it.
But, for me, three scenes stand out that perfectly exemplify just what I’m talking about.
(more…)
Tags: connie brockway, Georgette Heyer, judith ivory, Lisa Kleypas, loretta chase, susan elizabeth phillips
Posted in Authors, Books, Characters, Heroes, Heroines, Historicals, Reading, Romance, Romance reading, Sandy AAR | 50 Comments »
Tuesday, November 30th, 2010
This subject has been on my mind for a while, but two recent-ish blogs got me writing: Joanna Bourne’s musings on the topic, and Lynn’s request for Italian-set romance novels.
See, I love France. I love the food and the art and the cinema. I love the cobblestone streets strewn with leaves and dog poo alike, and I love the mega-stores and tiny boutiques. I appreciate their massive anal attitude towards their language, and am utterly envious of French women who all seem born with the Instant Style Gene. Whenever I go to France, the minute I step off the plane, I feel like I’ve come home.
In other words, I don’t get the semi-automatic “anti-French, anti-revolution bias” that Jennie at Dear Author says is “common to most everyone but the French”, but that, honestly, I think is really only common to English-speakers. (Stereo)typically-speaking. So I’m happy whenever I read a book that’s mainly set in France. (The temporary excursions just, somehow, don’t count.) Pre-Louis XIV is pretty thin on the grounds, but there’s always Susan Carroll’s witch series, starting with Silver Rose, and the second book of the Renaissance Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett. In the pre-Revolutionary 18th century there are Georgette Heyer’s classic These Old Shades and Anne Stuart’s recent Ruthless. Turn-of-the-century, I’ve read Susan Johnson’s Forbidden and Judy Cuevas’ Beast, and heard amazing things about Bliss and Dance. All are really good books.
(more…)
Tags: Anne Stuart, cheryl sawyer, dorothy dunnett, France, Georgette Heyer, isolde martyn, Joanna Bourne, judith ivory, judy cuevas, susan carroll, susan johnson, susan squires
Posted in Books, Jean AAR, Reading, Romance reading, Settings | 29 Comments »
Monday, February 15th, 2010
I’m in the outer reaches of the DC area, so I’ve spent the better part of the month snowed in. One would think that this would give me ample time to think of some deeply profound solution to some dilemma menacing online romancelandia. However, I haven’t been feeling terribly menaced lately. My reading life is happy. Once we got power back and removed the ginormous tree from the roof of the house, non-reading life starting being none too shabby either. My only major dilemma lately has been trying to convince my cat that the several feet of snow covering HER deck and preventing her from taking her morning walk was not put there by me as part of an evil plot. If looks could kill, a tiny 6 pound calico would have done me in weeks ago.
(more…)
Tags: Betty Neels, Georgette Heyer, random thoughts
Posted in Books, Life, Lynn AAR, Online | 7 Comments »
Monday, December 21st, 2009
I’ve seen various tweets and blog comments about giving books as gifts for Christmas or Hanukkah. On the one hand, it’s a brilliant idea. I keep a downright scary number of books around the house, but I don’t buy enough to support the publishing world or my favorite authors singlehandedly. Still, books are so subject to personal taste that I find it a little agonizing to figure out which ones would be the perfect gift for someone.
(more…)
Tags: Georgette Heyer, gift giving, Mary Stewart, shopping
Posted in Books, Lynn AAR | 14 Comments »
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
Recently, I reread Thornton Wilder’s The Ides of March. It’s a book I’ve read with great pleasure before; this time I was particularly struck by the way the relationship between the poet Catullus and society lady Clodia is portrayed. He loves her with all his heart and writes great poems to her and about her; she sometimes admits him as her lover and spends time with him before jilting him again in favor of a rival. The novel leaves no doubt that Clodia is cruel and capricious; however, at this reading, I suddenly felt that I understood her right to jilt him, and her urge to do so. In spite of the undoubted depth of Catullus’ feelings, it is quite clear that Clodia does not feel as deeply for him. Yes, she might have treated him with far less cruelty, as Caesar points out to her, in ending the affair. But for the first time, my reaction as a reader was sympathy with her desire to regain her autonomy in the face of Catullus’s overwhelming love and of his general wonderfulness.
(more…)
Tags: Books, Carla Kelly, Charlotte Smith, Georgette Heyer, Jane Austen, lovers scorned, Thornton Wilder
Posted in Characters, Reading, Rike AAR, Uncategorized | 30 Comments »
