Frederica by Georgette Heyer

Best Regency romance ever with strong characters and witty and slangy repartee. I liked the romantic leads quite a bit, and I even felt sympathy for the ingenue parts, played by Frederica’s sister Charis and her crush. Oh, I just had a thought: this book would translate into a K-drama quite nicely.

The male lead of the novel, the Marquess of Alverstoke, is thirty-seven years old, rich, cold-hearted, uninterested in marriage, and unwilling to become involved in the lives and fortunes of his various relatives. However, Miss Frederica Merryville, a distant country cousin, breaks through his defenses without even meaning to do so. By the end of the novel, of course, Alverstoke and Frederica are in love and well on their way to becoming a “good match.”

I’ve been reading several of Gerogette Heyer’s Regency and other romance novels, and I find them of uneven quality. They are rather predictable, but the journey to the happy, married ending is rather fun, IF I like the characters from near the beginning. On the other hand, as in The Devil’s Cub, if the characters are unbelievable or unlikeable in the extreme, displaying the worst characteristics of the time period and culture, then it’s hard to develop much sympathy for them or interest in their eventual fate.

So far, here are the best and worst of Ms. Heyer’s oeuvre, in my opinion:

Best: Frederica, The Grand Sophy, Lady of Quality

Worst: The Devil’s Cub and perhaps by extension, These Old Shades, which is about the parents of Vidal from The Devil’s Cub. I didn’t like Vidal nor his parents in the latter book, so I doubt I would develop much affection for the Alistair family by reading These Old Shades.

Still planning to read: Cotillion, Venetia, The Convenient Marriage.

Any others you recommend I seek out?

4 thoughts on “Frederica by Georgette Heyer

  1. Frederica and Venetia are my favorites. The Reluctant Widow and Bath Tangle both stand out for me, too. Now you have me wanting to read one :-). I lucked into a large collection of them at a used bookstore a few years back for $3 apiece, so I have many.

  2. “Sylvester (Or, the Wicked Uncle)” is my absolute favorite. It’s hilarious and, by the end, quite touching.

    A close second, for me, is “The Masqueraders,” which is an adventure that reminds me a bit of Twelfth Night, with a disguised brother and sister switching roles. That one’s Georgian, not Regency, but it’s pretty wonderful.

  3. The only one of hers I’ve read is The Masqueraders. It seemed a bit silly to me at the beginning, but I ended up enjoying it for the most part by the end.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *