I’d planned to log something else tonight, but since exhaustion wars with my promise to myself, I will go with a book easily discussed, Georgette Heyer’s Cotillion. This is one of the ones people usually recommend for people new to Heyer, and I can see why, because it’s a lot of fun, the kind of book that “frothy” was invented to describe. But I also think that it might be more appreciated by those with some familiarity with the Regency romance genre, because a good deal of what it’s doing is constructing and examining conventionally unsuitable relationships. Not that unsuitable, I hasten to add—it’s pretty obvious that there is a certain threshold of class and money below which Heyer’s heroines may not sink. (Women always marry up in genre romances, unlike in fairy tales.) But still, unsuitable in some obvious ways, which is pretty cool.
Women always marry up in genre romances, unlike in fairy tales
Thank you for this perception; I shall carry it off and treasure it.
I am quite sure it is not original to me and equally sure that I cannot remember where the discussion was in which it was pointed out to give proper credit.
But I like it too.
I think the first Heyer will always be a bit hard for that reason; the slang and the world building take a bit of assimilation. I can’t even remember the first one I tried; it might have been Charity Girl but I bounced out before I got far.