'Heloise Says No': A Regency Romp
Héloise Says No
Just finished this.
I am a Regency fan, a Georgette Heyer fan, and I look for writers in that vein. I enjoy others who place books IN the Regency period. But most do not write in the Austen/Heyer style.
This book is very good.
The subject matter- the heroine becomes a courtesan- places it outside Heyer and Austen.
Sarah J Waldock, Emily Hendrickson, Joan Smith are the people to read for very good Regencies.
But this author’s books are intelligent, she gives good ton, the characters are 3 dimensional. And she often takes standard Regency plots, and gives them an unexpected twist.
And she’s got the class differences between the gentry and the aristocracy right.
In this book we get 2 generations, the novel goes back to the 1780s/90s when the heroine’s parents had a hair raising escape from revolutionary France, and then settle in Hastings. And forward to the early 1800s, when the heroine is an elegant, charming, calm, very savvy mistress who enters short liaisons with rich men in the ton, that she totally controls, then ends.
The hero - handsome, titled, wealthy- is the one man she turns down, repeatedly. And he is a REAL rake.
The villain…I wont go into details.
The ton know the heroine as a demi monde, a courtesan. She will never have vouchers to Almacks. Is the typical Regency HEA i.e love and marriage, even possible?
Well worth a read.
My rating: 5 out of 5