Book Log 45/2009 - Georgette Heyer – The Reluctant Widow

[jacey]

Georgette Heyer – The Reluctant Widow

I went off to Ireland on 15th July and got caught by the three-for-the-price-of-two offer at WH Smith in Manchester Airport, so I ended up with three historicals – because of course they didn’t have any decent SF/fantasy. This gave me another push to read more Heyer and also the pleasant surprise that there are lots of Elizabeth Chadwicks to read.

So – first to the Reluctant Widow, first published in 1946.

Rather improbably, Elinor Rochdale is on her way to a new position as a governess (her family having been ruined by her father’s gambling and subsequent suicide) when she steps into the wrong coach – assuming it to have been sent by her new employers. After some discussion at cross purposes she finds herself talked into marrying the reprehensible drunken nephew of Lord Ned Carlyon on his deathbed (from a brawl and a terminal knife wound). It’s all Ned’s idea. He doesn’t want the estate and all that it entails, but all the same he feels responsible for Elinor and her new position.

An even more improbable piece of plottery follows during which they discover that Elinor’s newly deceased husband was involved in a plot to steal Wellington’s war plans and deliver them to Bonaparte.

This is about as action packed as Heyer ever gets. An intruder in the house is treated civilly and later shots are fired and Ned’s little brother is injured, but no major action ensues and in the end the matter is settled quietly with most of the gory action (a murder) happening off the page. Right at the end – despite a high level of exasperation and no notion of warm feelings throughout the book – Ned proposes and Elinor accepts.

Not my favourite Heyer so far.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

It's one of the ones I think of as fun, but not great.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

From the blurb I expected a bit more swash and buckle, even though I know how 'contained' Heyer is, but absolutely no swashes were buckled in the making of this book.

The Elizabeth Chadwick books were much more to my taste.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I think the only Heyers with swash and buckle are two of the early ones -- The Black Moth and The Masqueraders.
I don't know how I'd get on with the Chadwicks -- she's writing about an area and period in which I used to work. I find that even with really good, well-written and researched historicals that overlap with my work, I tend to end up feeling they are also 'work' books, not relaxation. Though I did enjoy some of Sharon Penman's books set in the Welsh march in the 13th c, I hated Barbara Erskine's Lady of Hay.
Penman is good, btw, if you haven't read her. I used to let my students read her.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

I'd be quite interested to know whether Chadwick's research is a meticulous as it seems to be. For a non-specialist like me it works really well. A couple of her books are about the Fitwarins and she quoted her sources. A lot of her characters are hostorically documented.