Regency Buck

Rating: 3.5 / 5

Judith Taverner and her brother Peregrine seem impossibly blessed. They have good looks, an immense fortune and forthright manners to recommend them to Polite Society. Headstrong and heedless, they would have been able to enjoy their London debuts thoroughly if they hadnt been forced by their father's will under the guardianship of the Earl of Worth. Worth, handsome, sardonic, cynical and mysterious has given the duo sufficient reasons to dislike him intensely, but he is a conscientious guardian. Or is he?? As the Season progresses and the hapless Perry falls into one dangerous situation after another, an unwelcome suspicion starts to enter and very soon takes strong possession of Judith's mind. When Perry disappears, Judith friendless, alone and desperate, has to make up her mind whether the Earl is all who he seems to be.

Regency Buck, while not my favorite, is another of Heyer's captivating romances. Heyer who established almost all the historical romance formulas that are hashed and re-hashed these days uses the mysterious guardian ploy, here much in the fashion of the celebrated Gothic romances of the time. While the tone of the novel is definitely not Gothic, a few references indicate that Heyer knows what form she was playing with and has a blast gently mocking these very popular novels.

Coming to the novel itself, it's written with Heyer's characteristic wit, has an interesting storyline, brilliant dialogues and endearing secondary characters to while away the time with. Some contemporary Regency characters and refereneces make their appearance here from Beau Brummell and Lord Byron to Jane Austen, always with Heyer's intention of setting the historical period and context for the reader.

As for the principals, Worth is the original alpha male, dominating, powerful and confident. He would have been extremely unpleasant to read about, but Heyer balances this out with a heroine almost as masterful as Worth is himself. Judith is fearless and frequently shocks Society with her unconventional behaviour. Perry is the quintessential younger brother, charming and endearingly youthful. A scene where he wearies Judith out with nautical descriptions had me laughing out loud, so true did it ring.

Heyer's historicals take a little reading to get accustomed to. She uses a lot of contemporary (for the Regency) slang and references and frequently switches POV's between characters all in the same scene and this might take some getting used to for the reader of modern romances. However, she is the unparalleled Queen of the historical romance. Watch the Regency period come to life under Heyer's vivid pen and watch the two principals match wits with each other. I guarantee you a great read!!

5 comments:

Smita said...

Hmmmm

Where do u get these authors from??? I guess the way I select my Indian authors :D

Frankly never read a historic loev story besides the classics and looks like its high time I do that :)

Lovely review as usual...

S

Mama - Mia said...

i wish i had a decent library around too! though i doubt they would have these kinda books!

when i started reading, i was like Mystery and then it turned to romance too! :)

great write up as always P!

cheers!

abha

couchpapaya said...

S - am an avid fan of heyer, i have almost all the books she's written in my collection, and pull them out to re-read atleast once a year. until abt two years ago she was the only romance writer i ever read even if i was only re-reading. try her out, u might get hooked :D

abha - romance is my fav escapist fiction nowadays. love mystery too but am increasingly finding it difficult to find books to read.

as for the lib, a very good lib is eloor lending lib, on infantry road cross (almost behind safina plaza). this one gets a bit expensive tho, i used to pay 10% of the cost of the book to read it. eloor has almost the entire heyer collection, i should know, i was the one checking them out religiously :D i also remember someone (GirlNextStore?) reviewing an online library in blore a long while ago. dont remember the prices of those.... the best ones are the libraries in the clubs (bowring etc) v. well-stocked and covered in ur membership. books can be a lil old tho. ok i'll stop now lol

/p

WhatsInAName said...

If you guarantee a good read, it must be good :)
S, are you listening? Buy it soon :P

couchpapaya said...

WIAN - i am a little biased wrt heyer! let me know if u or S do get it and if u like it :D

/p

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